Superwreck

Rudolph Chelminski

This volume recounts the 1978 shipwreck of the supertanker Amoco Cadiz, which polluted the Brittany coast (France) and its most productive fishing grounds. The author holds American obsession with cost effectiveness largely responsible for the disaster. He maintained the Cadiz captain, against his better judgment and fearing Standard Oil's disapproval, may have postponed emergency measures, including an SOS call, fatally delaying the salvage tug's rescue operation. In a re-creation, the author traces the disaster from the initial failure of the steering gear to the grounding of the ship and a helicopter rescue of the crew. Investigations and a trial revealed what the author considers "arrogance, expedience, presumption and complacency" on the part of the several international parties involved, all contributing an incalculable ecological toll as a result of the massive oil spill.

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