It was at the conclusion of the small discharge ceremony on Pastrengo Rugiati's last day of service in the Italian Navy when the old captain approached and motioned for him to hold out his hand. Into it he placed the treasured object. It was the Captain's maneuver whistle and chain, worn about his neck for an entire career at sea. The Captain had been hard on him this past year, but Rugiati always sensed the old man's special interest in his progress on board ship. Presenting the memento was clearly important to the Captain, and Rugiati was equally taken by the gesture. For one, it symbolized the passing of the torch. For Rugiati, it was a heartfelt sign of his superior's trust in him, a trust that exists only when a man's life rests in the hands of another, a trust developed during a year at sea. The young officer listened carefully to his Captain's words.
"Here is a memento of your service," the old man said. "I had it with me when my ship went down." Rugiati knew that the captain had lost a ship soon after the end of the great war. "It was on the rocks off the Scilly Isles." Rugiati humbly placed the chain around his neck and bid his friend farewell. He would wear the memento for the remainder of his career at sea. 1
Thirty years later at 6 o'clock on Saturday morning, March 18,1967, Pastrengo Rugiati, Captain of the thirteenth largest merchant ship in the world, awoke to the ring of the telephone at his night stand. He was in his five-room suite directly below the bridge on the massive supertanker and had retired to bed just a little more than three hours before. The old Italian Navy maneuver whistle dangled from a chain around his neck as he reached for the telephone.
His answer was gravelly and half awake. "Yes?"
"It is 6 o'clock, Captain." The call, as expected, was from Silvano Bonfiglio on the bridge. Rugiati had left written instructions the night before that he be contacted when they picked up the Scilly Isles on radar, and he was to be called at 6:00 a.m. with a report if the islands had not been detected by that time.
Bonfiglio paused a moment to let Rugiati find his bearings after his deep sleep. Then he continued: "I have not seen the Scillies on radar."
Bonfiglio had obviously switched on the Raytheon 1400 radar unit. It had a maximum range of 40 miles. Rugiati asked his first officer when, based on their current position, they might detect the islands on the scope. Bonfiglio answered that it would be about 7 o'clock. Rugiati told him to call back when he made contact. He hung up the telephone and began to plan for the busy day ahead.
The supertanker had now passed the coast of France and was headed for the Scilly Isles 21 miles off Land's End, Cornwall, at the southwestern tip of Great Britain. At her current rate of 16 knots, the ship would pass the islands and the nearby rocky shoals in about two and a half hours. From there she was to continue up the west coast of England to the Welsh port of Milford Haven where her full load of 119,193 tons of crude oil would be unloaded. She had carried it all the way from Kuwait. Representative of the new breed of supertankers, she was much too large to pass through the Suez Canal. Her course had taken her down and around the Cape of Good Hope, up the west coast of Africa, and on to Britain. The autopilot had been engaged during most of the long voyage, and it had been set to steer a course of 18 degrees since passing the Canary Islands four days before.3
Rugiati was angered. He had left specific instructions for the first officer to call him when the Scilly Isles came into view on the scope, not for him to change course. Rugiati had plotted his 18 degrees course to take the ship to the left of the Scilly Isles, and he was incensed that Bonfiglio had altered course without his permission. Besides, Bonfiglio had not been especially clear about the reasons for his action.
Rugiati immediately questioned his first officer. "With our original heading of 18 degrees, would we be free of the Scillies?"
Bonfiglio's reply was direct. "Yes."
"Then continue on course 18 degrees," ordered the Captain. "I intend to pass to the starboard of the Scilly Islands." They had obviously drifted somewhat off course due to a current, but, regardless, Rugiati did not like someone else changing the course of the ship. Sticking to the original 18 degrees set and going to the right of the isles was the preferable action.
"Pay attention," barked the Captain prior to hanging up. "In a few minutes I will be on the bridge."
Bonfiglio acknowledged and put the ship back on autopilot control with a heading of 18 degrees.
A few miles to the right of the Scilly Isles lay the infamous Seven Stones, a collection of rocky reefs. The Seven Stones towered tens of feet into the air when the tide was low. Other times, as on this morning, the tide was relatively high, and the sea covered the menacing pinnacles. Appropriately enough, there was a large lightship anchored at the far side of the Seven Stones, and her 600,000 candlepower beam could be seen for 11 miles in every direction.
Dressed for the day, Rugiati walked up the ladder and onto the bridge. It was a little after 7 a.m. The bridge of the supertanker was massive; there were only a dozen ship's bridges this large in the entire world. It ran the width of the vessel, but was relatively narrow front to back. Large windows spanned the sides and front, providing a complete view of the ocean and deck (most of which was well forward of the bridge). Banks of controls and displays lined the forward console below the windows. An open platform (a wing) sat off the left (port) and right (starboard) sides of the room for taking bearings and observing traffic.
Rugiati said good morning to Bonfiglio and went immediately to the radar scope to check the position of the vessel. As he expected, the Scilly Isles lay well ahead off the port bow and the ship was on a course of 18 degrees. The autopilot would take them to the right of the Scilly Isles and her lighthouse, but to the left of the Seven Stones shoals and the lightship anchored nearby. It was a channel about six miles wide, large enough, he reasoned, for his tanker.
Rugiati had sailed around Cornwall in southwest England a number of years before while serving as first officer on the passenger liner Homeric. He had taken the route through the 21- mile wide channel between the Scillies and Land's End during each of the 16 passages through these waters, always staying clear of Seven Stones. He was not the master of his ship in those days, however, and his first-hand experience with the area was limited. But he reasoned that he could take the ship off of autopilot as they neared the channel between the Scillies and Seven Stones, set a course of 325 degrees in order to navigate the channel, and then return to the 18 degrees course.4
The Captain and his first officer spent much of the next hour discussing the problem with the sag in the ship, the cargo redistribution procedures, and the importance of getting to the terminal in Wales early enough to redistribute the cargo and enter the harbor on the tide. They calculated their position at 7:09 a.m. and then again at 7:45. The 7:45 position was based on a single bearing to one of the Scilly's lighthouses and a distance measurement from the radar scope.5
The supertanker plowed ahead, her course held firm by the autopilot. Each passing minute brought her 500 yards closer to the Scillies. Beyond the massive glass windows on the bridge, beyond the expansive bulk of the ship out front, lay the islands and the nearby rocks, slowly coming into view at the distant edge of the morning horizon.
Third officer Alfonso Coccio, 27 years of age, entered the bridge shortly before 8 a.m. He was there to relieve first officer Bonfiglio at the end of his four-hour watch. It was Coccio's first trip aboard the supertanker, and Rugiati was well aware of the young man's interest in his duties. True to form, Coccio had studied their intended course the night before and familiarized himself with the landmarks on which he would take bearings during his watch. Rugiati appreciated the fact that his young officer had prepared for his watch, and he sensed Coccio's disappointment when Bonfiglio briefed him on their position and the new plans, plans which no longer included sailing to the west of the Scillies. Bonfiglio took a fix on their position and plotted it on the map. The position he marked on the chart showed the supertanker to be five miles southeast of the nearest of the Scilly Isles. Bonfiglio then went below, leaving the bridge to Rugiati, Coccio, and the helmsman. The autopilot still pointed the ship on her course of 18 degrees.
Rugiati removed a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and offered one to Coccio. A good smoke was a fitting way to begin a morning watch, and he enjoyed the young officer's company. True, Coccio was a little green, but he would learn the ropes quickly. And he was less likely than Bonfiglio to take issue with the actions of his Captain. Rugiati inhaled long and hard and leaned back on the bulkhead, blowing the smoke out toward the ceiling. The strong cigarette was a pleasant counterpoint to the forlorn hours at sea at the break of day.
There were footsteps coming up the ladder. They belonged to Biagio Scotto di Carlo, the helmsman, arriving for his 8 o'clock watch on the bridge. Scotto, like some of the other crew members, boarded the supertanker just prior to this voyage, but Rugiati had gotten to know him reasonably well during the past month. He seemed to be an experienced and able-bodied helmsman, and Rugiati had not been surprised to learn that Scotto had spent nearly all of his adult life at sea.
Captain Rugiati greeted Scotto when he entered the bridge and then politely instructed him to go back down to the deck below to get two ashtrays, one for him and one for Coccio. He delivered the ashtrays within a minute, and Rugiati sent him downstairs again on another errand. He returned a few minutes later and took his position at the helm, relieving the man on duty. 7
At 8:30 the supertanker was still making her sweeping left t urn to enter the six-mile wide channel between the Scillies on her left and the Seven Stones ahead and to the right. Two lighthouses on the Scilly Isles, as well as the lightship anchored near the Seven Stones, could be seen from the bridge. There was much to which he needed to attend, but Rugiati was concerned primarily about the two fishing boats in his path. He had to maneuver around them, not an easy job considering the limited maneuverability of his ship. 8
Suddenly, he spotted the line of orange fishnet buoys off the port side of the supertanker. There were others on the right side as well. Knowing that there was no alternative at this late point, Rugiati stood on the bridge as the supertanker sliced through the nets, her bow snapping the lines like thread.
Having made yet another modification to the course held by the autopilot, Rugiati stood by the helm as the ship passed through a 10 degrees heading, continuing her sweeping left turn. But suddenly there were more fishing buoys to port. With the ship still on autopilot, he put her back on a 13 degrees heading in order to avoid the nets. This brought her to the right side of the channel.
Third officer Coccio walked past to the port wing, took a fix on one of the Scillies lighthouses, walked back to the radar scope to obtain a distance, and then back to the chart room. 9 Rugiati followed him to the chart table and glanced over his shoulder. Coccio marked an "X" on his calculated position. A rush of anxiety, something he had never felt, hit him before he could verbalize his thoughts. How could it be? Coccio's fix on the chart had to be at least a mile off their actual course. It was physically impossible for them to have covered the marked distance during the last few minutes. He realized immediately that the inexperienced third officer should not have been entrusted with the navigation duties during the morning's passage. There was a good chance that they were nowhere near the position marked on the chart!
"Stop using the Scillies for bearings," he shouted at the junior officer. "Use the lightship." It was imperative that they fix their position based on two actual bearings, one of which had to be the Seven Stones Lightship. Rugiati looked out the wide windows to the lightship up ahead and then back to port toward the Scillies. He was not exactly sure where they were relative to the Seven Stones. All the while the autopilot held the ship to the last programmed course.
Coccio ran across the wide room and out the door to the starboard wing of the bridge. He was taking a bearing to the Seven Stones Lightship. Rugiati moved quickly to the radar scope and read the distance - - it was only 4.8 miles. Together they ran back to the chartroom and marked the bearing and their position. They were only 2.8 miles away from the South Stone, the southern most reef of the Seven Stones! It was now 8:40, and they had gotten themselves into serious trouble.
There was still time to steer the ship out of danger. Rugiati dashed to the helm, moved the rotary lever from "automatic" to "manual," and spun the wheel to the left. The bow of the supertanker turned slowly to due north (000 degrees), and Rugiati reached down to move the mode control back to "automatic."
Coccio ran back inside from the starboard wing. He had taken another fix on the lightship. Rugiati watched as Coccio stopped at the radar set to obtain the distance. But then Coccio turned and ran back out to the wing and began to take another bearing. He had obviously forgotten the bearing in the midst of all the excitement.
Coccio hurried over to the radar scope again, then back to the chart table. Rugiati stood by as Coccio marked their position on the map. Coccio, the pencil still in his hand, looked up at Rugiati. Their eyes met. Nothing needed to be said. They were less than three miles from the lightship. More importantly, a submerged reef lay less than one mile ahead directly off the bow!
Rugiati ran from the chart room around the corner to the bridge. Helmsman Scotto, who had been relegated to an observer since starting his watch, was standing out on the starboard wing. Rugiati screamed as he ran to the helm. "Come to the wheel! Come to the wheel!" The Captain reached down, shoved the steering system control out of the "automatic" mode, and turned the wheel counter clockwise with Scotto's assistance. "Hard to port," he shouted. "Go to 350." He decided that there was no reason to be conservative. "No, take her to 340. Take her to 320..." It would take minutes for the supertanker to complete the turn, but they had caught her just in time. The ship should soon be clear of the shoals.
Scotto had taken the wheel and was carrying out the order, so Rugiati turned and darted back into the chart room. He examined the map and saw that the new course would head them back out to the channel and well away from the Seven Stones. It had been a close call, but the quick course correction would put them back out into deep water. Never in his life, not even during the war, had he been through anything like this. It had been one thing after another for the last 20 minutes. This was one voyage that he would be glad to see come to an end.
Perhaps they should have just steered well to the east of the Scilly Isles, or perhaps to the west as he had originally intended. Regardless, they had made it through, and they would never again come so close to disaster!
Still, Rugiati felt uneasy. The course correction had been made well over a minute before, but things were not complete. Everything was fine, yet something seemed wrong. Yes, something was missing. A full minute after entering the chart :room, more than a minute after issuing the last command to save the ship, he realized what it was. It was too quiet. Where was the clicking from the gyro compass? Each degree of the course ,change should have resulted in a loud click that could be heard ,'on the bridge and in the chart room. But it was all quiet except ,for the normal rumble of the ship making her way over the ocean. And here, just when he thought they were out of danger, just as he finally had the situation under control, disaster might again be dead ahead. He ran once more through the doorway onto the bridge, only to come face to face with helmsman Scotto, who was headed his way.
"She's not turning, Captain," screamed Scotto. The supertanker had not moved from her course during the last minute. She was still headed straight for the rocks off the Scilly Isles. Scotto had been turning the wheel but nothing, absolutely nothing, had happened.10
Rugiati ran straight to the helm and spun the ship's wheel to the left. It was obvious that nothing was happening and that the ship was not responding. They had been maintaining their perfectly straight course all this time!
He had to move fast. It had to be one of the fuses. They might have blown one out when they turned the wheel rapidly : minutes before. Rugiati quickly opened the small door covering the fuse panel. The three fuses were inside. Each had a test light. He bent down, reached inside, and pressed each of the three test buttons in turn. The ship drew 24 feet closer to the Seven Stones with each passing second. He pressed the first little button, then the second, then the third. A small red light came on with each action, signaling that the fuses were fine.11
What could it be? Why wasn't the ship turning? More than a minute and a half had now passed since he had first instructed helmsman Scotto to set the new course away from the Seven Stones, yet the supertanker continued her mindless, lumbering track toward the submerged rocks.
The oil pumps! That was it. It had to be the oil pumps! Rugiati knew that the oil pumps had broken down once before when the ship was new. The hydraulic system that powered the rudder could not work without the power provided by the pumps. The electric signal from the helm controlled the hydraulic system, which in turn powered the rudder. The electrical system at the helm was probably just fine.
Rugiati leaped towards the telephone near the helm, placing the receiver to his ear with one hand and dialing the engine room with the other. He waited for the connection and then for the ring. The view out the big windows toward the bow was unchanged. The supertanker kept rolling toward the submerged rocks somewhere ahead. Would they have enough time to start the auxiliary pump?
Someone answered the phone. It was the steward. What in the world was he doing down in the engine room?
"Ah Captain," said the steward politely. "Are you ready for breakfast?"
He had reached the officers' dining room by mistake! In his panic he must have become confused over the numbers and dialed a 14 instead of a 6. He slammed the receiver down into its cradle and cursed loudly.
It was madness! Of all the times in the world for the steering system to fail! They had to be close to the shoals by now. Yet he stood helpless as the ship and her nearly 120,000 tons of crude oil kept barreling along toward the rocks off the Scilly Isles. 12
Rugiati stood back a few feet from the helm to collect his thoughts and chanced to glance down at the steering control console. Of course! "Porco Dio," he shouted. The steering control lever for the autopilot, the one that had the three positions, was not in the "manual" position. It was set to the "control" position, the mode that they never used, a mode that disconnected the rudder from the wheel at the helm! He must have placed it there by mistake minutes before when he took the ship off autopilot.
He lunged toward the panel and set the steering control to "manual," turning the large helm wheel counterclockwise as quickly as possible with Scotto's help. Slowly, the bow of the Torrey Canyon began to swing to the left. The click from the gyro compass could be heard loud and clear as she passed through the first few degrees of the course change. She had turned left just 10 degrees to a heading of 350 degrees when the first section of her hull struck bottom. The massive, ponderous ship ground over the submerged, razor-sharp ridges of Pollard Rock. The stone pinnacles tore lengthwise through the soft underbelly of the leviathan hulk, inflicting a gaping and lethal wound. She came to a painful and lumbering halt, and a thick river of black Kuwaiti crude began its unhindered flow into the cold, blue sea. In a few days the beaches of England and France would be choked with 31 million gallons of oil. It was a rude introduction to the age of colossal environmental disasters, and this was a disaster the likes of which the world had never seen.
Rugiati placed his left hand across his forehead, then ran his fingers back through his coarse hair. His right hand moved to his chest. Under his palm, beneath the sweater and shirt, lay the old chain and maneuver whistle given to him by his captain 30 years before.
2 The ship, like many supertankers, operated within a strange web of companies and agreements, all designed to minimize taxes, fees, and expenses. She was well run and well maintained, however. She was built by Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia in 1959 and later expanded at the Sasebo shipyard in Japan to twice her original tankering capacity. Her owner was the Barracuda Tanker Corporation of Bermuda, a subsidiary of the Union Oil Company of California. On her bow was the large, orange and blue Union 76 corporate logo, yet she sailed under the Liberian flag. Her all-ltalian crew had been recruited by the Consulich Company, the Italian agents for Union Oil in Genoa. The tanker was under a one-time charter to British Petroleum for the voyage from the Persian Gulf to the tanker terminal in Wales.
3 Bonfiglio had detected the Scilly Isles on radar and observed that they lay ahead and to the left instead of ahead and to the right. He then took a bearing to determine the position of the ship and recognized that the vessel was some miles to the right of its intended course. Accordingly, before telephoning the Captain, he had called the helmsman to the wheel, taken the supertanker off of autopilot by moving the control lever from automatic to "manual," and commanded the helmsman to come to a course of 6 degrees, nearly due north.
His intention was to keep the ship on her planned track around the west of the Scillies. However, his navigation was slightly in error, and the ship was not quite as far west as he believed. The result was that his "correction," instead of steering them to the west of the Scillies, put the islands directly ahead.
4 It is agreed generally that only the ill-informed captain would ever try to navigate a big ship through the channel between the Scillies and Seven Stones. The standard navigation maps for this area off of Land's End all direct ships to steer clear of the Scillies and the Seven Stones and to steer a course well to the west or out into the deep and wide channel between the islands and Land's End. Rugiati had only one map of the area in the chartroom, and it did not provide the level of detail necessary to navigate under close quarters in these waters.
5 This was a short-cut procedure not often used during navigation close to shore.
6Neither Rugiati nor the helmsman briefed Scotto on their current position or the navigation plans.
7Everything, as far as he knew, was going according to plan. But their position was tenuous, at best. The first issue, of course, was the islands, shoals, and the channel ahead. It was not prudent to be taking a supertanker through these waters, but Rugiati had years of experience and no reason to think that he was about to get himself into trouble. Second, he had these fishing boats out in front. He was not interested in running through their nets (although they presented no danger to his massive ship), and he certainly did not want to run over the boats. Third, the eastward drift that had placed the supertanker off course in the first place was still running strong, moving them to the right at a rate of over one mile an hour. Fourth, he had to consider the "head reach" of his ship. A big ship, especially a supertanker full of oil, needs a lot of time and room to turn. Rugiati's ship would travel 1,550 feet forward (the "head reach") before it would complete a 20 degree turn and head off in the new direction. He had to consider this when he made his turns, and it was of obvious importance when maneuvering in close quarters.
8 Actually, these were two French "crabbers" working the shallow waters of the shoals. This alone should have alerted the supertanker crew of the danger ahead.
9 Given the circumstances, it can be argued that the practice of obtaining a fix with a single point and the radar distance was entirely inappropriate.
10 Scotto had shouted to Rugiati and Coccio for them to come and help, but they could not hear him back in the chart room.
11 In fact, the steering system had blown a fuse once before, and Rugiati was somewhat predisposed to this conclusion.
12 Rugiati, under the stress of the moment, never thought of slowing the ship or stopping the engines.
Cahill, R. A. (1990). Disasters at sea. Kings Point, New York: The American Merchant Marine Museum Foundation.
Cahill, R. A. (1985). Strandings and their causes. London: Fairplay Publications Ltd.
Cowan, E. (1968). Oil and water: the Torrey Canyon disaster. New York: J. B. Lippincott Company.
Gill, C., Booker, F., and Soper, T. (1967). The wreck of the Torrey Canyon. Newton Abbot: David & Charles Limited.
Marriott, J. (1987). Disaster at sea. New York: Hippocrene Books Inc.
Petrow, R. (1968). In the wake of the Torrey Canyon. New York: David McKay Company, Inc.
Pheasant, S. (1988). The Zeebrugge-Harrisburg syndrome. New Scientist, January 21, 55-58.