THE SEA EMPRESS & OTHER TANKER DISASTERS
Most of the people running this world, including Britain, are too innumerate to understand what is going on, and therefore too ignorant to put it right. And what is worse they don’t care. Yes I know that sounds improbable but I discovered it to be all too true when I got involved in the Sea Empress disaster back in 1996.
She had run into the rocks at the entrance to Milford Haven on the West coast of Pembrokeshire. Even 7 tugs combined couldn’t pull her off. Her bottom was partially ripped out and much of the 140,000 tons of crude oil inside her spilled out into one of our most beautiful national parks putting at risk the lives of innumerable birds, fish , crustaceans and sea-mammals, not to mention the livelihoods of all those employed in the tourist industry of West Wales. She wasn’t insured because, like all big oil tankers, she was far too dangerous to insure. Nor was she regulated because she was registered in a banana republic in Africa .Nor was her construction regulated because she had been built as cheaply as possible in South Korea in order to save oil companies about a penny a litre on a gallon of petrol. The naval architects, if you can call them that, had allowed them to grow in size from 16,500 tons to 600,000 without understanding the dire consequences – or perhaps they didn’t care. The largest weighed 5 times as much as the Empire State skyscraper. Yet they had no effective brakes or anchors, took 10 minutes to turn and 20 kilometres to stop. No wonder no sane insurance company would take such ships, or their poisonous cargos onto their books.
I only looked into all this because my little sailing boat happened to be moored close to the Sea Empress disaster. Using skills acquired as a Space Scientist I was able to analyse oil-tanker safety in a matter of days. I found , to my horror, that none of the “experts”, including marine architects, port authorities or legislators had any idea of the risks involved.. And what was far worse they couldn’t be persuaded to learn. Yes Official Government Inquiries were set up following major specific disasters but they were (deliberate?) white washes either because of their restricted Terms of Reference (US), or composed of the wrong people (UK). It is tragic. Just wait for the next crash. For instance it could end Pembrokeshire or Cornwall as a holiday destination for decades, and perhaps forever. And as for sea life……….
It must be obvious that for any dynamic system to be controllable by humans the reaction-time T(react) must be significantly less than the dynamic time T(dynamic) in which the dynamic system could go seriously wrong. If T(react) is say 2 times shorter than T(dynamic) then the human controller can make 2 attempts to put things right; if 3 times shorter then 3 attempts, and so on. As the consequences of loss of control become more serious one clearly needs a larger margin for error. Drunken driving is so dangerous because alcohol increases T(react) until it exceeds T(dynamic).
As ships grow in size and weight so their reaction times to the pilot’s decisions grows ever longer until they cannot be turned or stopped in time to avert disasters, sometimes with catastrophic consequences for man and/or Nature : example the Amoco Cadiz (1978) piling into Brittany with the release off 270.000 tons of crude oil, or the Sea Empress (1996) with 146,000 tons in Pembrokeshire. A Very Large Crude Carrier or VLCC (above 300,000 tons) takes at least 20 minutes to stop and 15 minutes to turn through 90 degrees, during which time winds, tides and the ship’s own momentum could take it miles. It is madness to allow such massive oil-cans anywhere close to our shores . And little can be done about it (double-bottoms are a sick joke) short of radical down-sizing.. If you want to know how dangerous a large tanker is, drink half a bottle of neat whisky, get into your car and drive it at 80 miles an hour in a built-up area.
We managed eventually to persuade the government to hold a full public Inquiry into the Sea Empress disaster with a High Court judge in charge. What transpired was a sick joke. The ‘Expert’ from the official Marine Investigation Board proclaimed that “The vessel was in in no way to blame because its seaworthiness certificate was up to date at the time of the accident.” Can you imagine such inanity? “It’s safe because someone has issued a paper in advance saying it’s safe.” And yet the High Court Judge accepted it. The wreck was patched up, renamed in case anyone recognised how dangerous it was, and sent back to sea threatening another ghastly tragedy. But what are wild creatures and human lives when there are profits, even very small profits, to be made ?
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