Amoco Cadiz
 The Amoco Cadiz in March 1978 after the stern was broken off
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The Amoco Cadiz was an oil tanker from the US Amoco Oil Corporation . Sailing under the Liberian flag, it collided with a rock on the coast of Brittany (France) on March 16, 1978 and broke into three parts, leading to the sixth largest oil spill in history. 1.6 million barrels (223,000 t) of crude oil and the Bunker C fuel ended up in the sea.
history
The Amoco Cadiz was built at the Spanish shipyard Astilleros Espanoles SA in Cádiz . After being launched in November 1973, it was put into service in June 1975 for the American company Amoco.
Accident off the coast of Brittany
Coordinates: 48 ° 36 ′ 0 ″ N , 4 ° 46 ′ 0 ″ W.
On March 16, 1978, the Amoco Cadiz was sailing from the Persian Gulf to Rotterdam . A minor problem arose on board in the morning. To remedy this, the master changed course and was already closer to the coast than planned. When the tanker was supposed to be put back into service, the crew had to avoid several small ships that were traveling in the opposite direction of travel, so that one course deviation remained. While the ship entered the traffic separation system off Ouessant ("rail d'Ouessant") on the western tip of Brittany at around 09:45 , the steering gear failed. At this time, there was a westerly wind at force 7, which was later to increase to hurricane strength. The captain reacted to the rudder failure by stopping the ship and pulling two black balls as a signal that the ship was unable to maneuver. He also radioed a warning to other ships.
Since rudder failures were not necessarily seen as something special, the crew first tried to repair the damage, even though the Amoco Cadiz was only 24 km from the coast. A tug was only requested at around 11.20 a.m. after it had become apparent that the damage (a broken hydraulic line) had been increased by the repair attempts and that the now complete failure of the controls could not be remedied at sea. An emergency call was not made.
About an hour later, the German deep-sea tug Pacific arrived. However, it was too weak to safely pull the Amoco Cadiz into a port for repairs under these weather conditions. So an attempt was made to turn the damaged vessel with its bow into the wind so that it could drive itself away from the coast or at least keep a distance. Towing began at around 2:05 p.m. There were also disputes between the two captains about the salvage contract and the costs. Due to the precarious emergency, the tanker captain submitted to the demands of his colleague from the Pacific . A stronger tug, the " Simson ", was on the way, but it was not expected to arrive until midnight. At around 4.15 p.m., about 6 nm off the coast, the tow to the Pacific broke . Thereupon the master of the tanker tried to pull the ship backwards away from the coast with his own full power. The ship turned upwind, bow to shore. Another attempt to connect the stern of the tanker to the Pacific between 7 and 8 pm failed. Since this maneuver required the Amoco Cadiz's propeller to come to a standstill, the ship continued to drift towards the coast.
Shortly after 20 h, only 1.3 nm from the coast, the tanker master threw the port anchor, although he assumed that it would tear off because of the rocky subsoil. It was now possible to attach a hawser between the tanker and the tug and start a new towing process. But that didn't stop the ship either. The starboard anchor could no longer be thrown because the control system for the anchor machine failed.
The Amoco Cadiz then rammed a rock off the coast of Portsall, a district of Ploudalmézeau , about 24 km northeast of the island of Ouessant, at around 9:04 p.m. Water penetrated; The risk of explosion made it necessary to shut down the on-board electronics completely and prevented an emergency call from being sent via the on-board radio system. The swell cleared the wrecked ship once more; half an hour later, however, he was finally stuck on the reef. The crew was evacuated by helicopter after their lifeboat was lost when it was launched in the dark. Around midnight the ship broke apart in the rear third, shortly before the superstructure. A week later it also broke between the first and second quarters.
consequences
The leaking crude oil and marine fuel contaminated the waters and more than 350 kilometers of the coasts of north-west France over the next few weeks. Disaster management was overwhelmed with such an amount of oil, as it was prepared for an oil spill with a maximum of about 30,000 t of oil leaked after the " Torrey Canyon " accident . The equipment kept ready for this purpose was also stationed over great distances along the coast and first had to be transported more or less far to the site of the accident. The coordination had many weak points. The area into which the tanker drifted was completely unsuitable for large shipping because of the dense, unclear juxtaposition of shallow and deep areas. Tankers, onto which the cargo of the Amoco Cadiz was to be pumped, could not reach the wreck because of these numerous shallows, which were only imprecisely drawn on the nautical charts.
In order to prevent an uncontrolled, protracted leakage of the oil, when the ship and the cargo could no longer be saved, all tank hatches were opened and the tanker was even shot at with grenades just two weeks after it was stranded. Three days after the rock had been rammed, over 80,000 t, and after about 19 days, almost the entire oil load had reached the sea. 74,000 t of it remained in the sea, 80,000 t contaminated the coast. The remaining 30% evaporated.
The French government and affected communities sued the Amoco company in the United States. After 14 years they received 1.257 billion francs (190 million euros), less than half the amount they asked for.
Todays situation
The wreck of the Amoco Cadiz is now considered an eventful dive site off the coast of Brittany. Only the middle section and the stern are to be dived. The bug disappeared after a storm and has not yet been found.
literature
- Brittany : plague in installments. In: Geo-Magazin. Hamburg 1979.3, pp. 70-92. Informative experiencereport: Jean Noli describes the situation after the Amoco Cadiz accident in Brittany. ISSN 0342-8311
gallery
Wreck of the Amoco Cadiz off the coast of Brittany
Oil spill in March 1978
Amoco Cadiz anchor in Portsall
See also
Web links
- Depiction of the accident (English; with sketches of the accident route of the Amoco Cadiz and the spread of the oil spill)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Auke Visser: Auke Visser's International Super Tankers: Amoco Cadiz. Accessed January 30, 2020 .
- ↑ a b c d https://www.clisec.uni-hamburg.de/pdf/link-diplomarbeit.pdf
- ↑ Spills: Amoco Cadiz
- ↑ L'annuaire des épaves de la Manche et de l'Atlantique (PDF; 385 kB) as well as the reported note by photographer Yves Gladu here