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CLASSIC DIVE BOOKS -
Oil tankers.
Please note: The books are listed for interest only,
and not offered for sale.
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BLACK TIDE
RISING
The Wreck of the Amoco Cadiz. David Fairhall and Philip Jordan. Andre Deutsch Limited, London. 1980. ISBN 0 233 97147 5 Hardcover, dustjacket, 248 pages, mono prints, index. From the fly: When the Amoco Cadiz was wrecked on the coast of Brittany in March 1978, deep-laden with 220,000 tons. of crude oil, it was the largest disaster of its kind the world had yet seen. The statistics reveal, all too clearly, that it is not a record that is likely to stand for long. The next victim may well be an even larger ship but the coast which suffers will almost inevitably be one which, like Brittany, borders one of the world's maritime bottlenecks, through which oil must flow to the industrial heartlands of Europe and North America. It is essential that, before the sad record, of the Amoco Cadiz is shattered, we understand not only why the ship was wrecked, but how the consequences can best be dealt with. The Amoco Cadiz was American owned, Liberian-registered and crewed by Italians. Her steering failed in bad weather in the world's most crowded shipping lanes. The disaster may have been unavoidable from the moment that the gear failed, but it was made a certainty by the rigidity with which the tanker's captain and his would-be salvors stuck to the tradition of the sea, which, the authors argue, may be inappropriate to modern ships under modern conditions and in modern dangers. But what happened at sea on 16 March 1978 is only a part of the story. Why was no one in France aware of the crippled super-tanker whIch, for twelve hours, drifted towards a coastline that is one of the nation's great natural resources? Why had no one ever considered a disaster on this scale, let alone planned for it? Why were even the inadequate steps that were taken to protect the richest fishing grounds ineffective? These are questions which, if this book has the effect it is designed to achieve, should not have to be asked again. In detailing not only the drama at sea but also the inertia, confusion and lack of preparation ashore, the authors offer a valuable case study to those whose responsibility it is to plan against disaster. The eventual clean-up was a long and arduous struggle - need it have been so if plans and men had been prepared and forearmed? Last, but not least, when all the evidence is in, how much damage was done and how much of it was avoidable? This is the first book to look at a major oil pollution incident in detail and to set out its findings for the general and concerned reader. It will be of interest to all who use the sea professionally or for pleasure, and for all who are concerned with the facts rather than the rhetoric about the threat that oil poses to our environment. |
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RETURN
OF THE COFFIN SHIPS
Bernard Edwards. IIn September 1980, the British ship Derbyshire sailed into the eye of Typhoon Orchid and into oblivion, with no trace of ship nor those on board. She was a bulk carrier of 169,044 tons, 970 feet long, and one of the most sophisticated tankers in the world at th time. How could she have disappeared so quickly? Since that day, more than 300 other tankers have gone to the bottom, a huge financial loss, more than thirteen hundred lives, and often with disasterous ecological results. A fascinating but ratherterrifying read. Still in print. Available from Oceans Enterprises. |
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SUPERSHIP
Noel Mostert. Initially published ny Macmillan London Ltd, 1974 In 1975, edition published by Book Club Associates. Hardcover, dustjacket, 304 paqges, no prints, no index. From the fly: With careful fidelity to fact, yet with novelistic immediacy, Noel Mostert takes us with him aboard Ardshiel - nearly a quarter of a mile long, wider than a football field, and still by today's standards only a 'medium-sized' supertanker - as it makes its way from Bordeaux around the Cape of Good Hope to Mina aI-Ahmadi on the Persian Gulf and back again with more than 200,000 tons of crude oil, enough to supply the total erergy needs of a city of 40,000 for an entire year. Ardshiel, notable for the high standards of her British owners and her crew, is by no means typical of the world fleet, but the framework of the voyage, and his own wide reading and experience, makes it possible for Noel Mostert to explore the cruel and debasing effect of the giant ships on the very nature of seafaring. He, makes palpable the eerie 'Flying Dutchman' existence of crews with no real ports of call, and the strange psychological pressures such a life places on officers and men. From the supertankers' captains, many of them veterans of the old traditional ways, to the newest landlubber engineer, none is immune, their standardized comfortable quarters on board in piercing contrast to the ever-present danger of death by collision, fire, gas poisoning, the force of the sea. |
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SUPER WRECK
Amoco Cadiz - The Shipwreck That Had to Happen. Rudolph Chelminski. William Morrow & Co.Inc. New York. 1987. Hardcovr, dust jacket, 254 pages, momo prints, index. From the fly: Thursday, March 16, 1978. The supertanker Amoco Cadiz, her belly filled with 220,000 long tons of crude oil, plows through a force eight storm in the Bay of Biscay. Two thirds of the ship's immense bulk is underwater. Upended, she would stand higher than all but the world's five highest skyscrapers and would considerably dwarf the Eiffel Tower. But in the force of the storm, the Amoco Cadiz rolls and pitches heavily as she steams inexorably forward at nine knots. At 0945 hours, the helmsman turns the helm to starboard to prevent the yawing movement created by the huge waves. But this time the ship's bow doesn't come around. The surprised helmsman watches as the arrow on the rudder-angle indicator in front of him swings slowly over to the left until it shows hard aport while he holds the wheel steady at twenty degrees to starboard. After a moment of speechless horror, he turns to the skipper and says: "Captain, we are out of control." Thus begins the shipwreck that had to happen: the disaster that had long been predicted and that would result in the worst pollution of a lovely and productive coastline in maritime history. |
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IN THE WAKE
OF TORREY CANYON.
Richard Petrow. David McKay Company, Inc. New York, 1968. Library of Congress 68-59122. Copyright by author in 1968 under title "The Black Tide". Hardcover, dustjacket, 255 pages, mono prints, index. From the fly: On March 18, 1967, the American- owned, British-chartered oil tanker, Torrey Canyon, went aground off the shores of Cornwall. Within four days, the oil gushing from the stricken ves- sel formed a blanket 30 miles long. Eight days later, the oil was 18 inches thick on many beaches. The penetrat- ing stench could be smelled miles inland. ! The news of this catastrophe was widely reported. But the countless, terrible consequences were then un- foreseen. Now, more than a year after the tragedy, American journalist Richard Petrow carefully probes the how and why of the disaster. He includes a firsthand report of his meeting with Pastrengo Rugiati, the vessel's Italian captain, an evaluation of the testimony taken by the Liberian Inquiry, and a startling account of the incredibly muddled actions of the French and British governments. With sensitivity he chronicles the accident's tragic aftermath. He has seen the dead birds and the pitifully stricken wildlife of Cornwall and Brittany. He has talked and listened to the impoverished people who live along the fouled coast and whose lives and livelihoods were damaged by the sinking. Absorbing and shocking, this study in depth points out our inability to control the far-reaching effects of such a disaster and shows that no ade- quate defenses against another such tragedy have yet been devised. |
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THE WRECK OF THE TORREY CANYON
Crispin Gill, Frank Booker, Toney Soper. David and Charles (Publishers) Pty. Ltd., Devon, England 1967; jointly with Taplinger, New York. Standard Book Number 7153 4144 6.. Lib. Congress 67-26197. From the fly: The wreck of the Torrey Canyon in March 1967 was more than a national disaster; it was a technological breakdown with worldwide implications. In this book three writers closely linked professionally with the aftermath of the disaster set out in proper perspective just what happened, what was done. It is a factual record, supported by many photo- graphs. Over the past decade oil tankers have been built ever larger, but no plans had been made for dealing with the problem of such a ship being wrecked near a coastline and spilling a hundred thousand tons of crude oil into the sea. That the Torrey Canyon struck the Seven Stones reef, just west of Land's End, was a cruel twist: for it laid open all the west and south coasts of England, the west and north coasts of France, to the ugly smothering of the oil, driven at the caprice of the wind over the surface of the sea. Most exposed and worst hit were the beaches of Cornwall, Britain's most popular holiday area. Before the Torrey Canyon, oil pollution meant scattered lumps of a tarry substance on the shore and the death of a number of sea birds; now, beaches were incJtes deep for miles in a thick, black, stiIiking sludge. Hur- riedly devised counter-measures ranged from stirrup pumps to napalm bombs. The damage to marine and bird life- . according to informed estimates, 100,000 sea birds will die-and to the tourist trade, the effects upon international mari- time law, will not be fully known for years; meanwhile, here are the facts. |
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