Qualla: SS Torrey Canyon https://qualla.com/ss-torrey-canyon en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:10 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: SS Torrey Canyon https://qualla.com/ss-torrey-canyon SS Torrey Canyon: Introduction https://qualla.com/ss-torrey-canyon/ The ship was 974 feet long, the length of three football pitches end to end, and on her last voyage she was carrying 119,000 tons of Kuwaiti crude oil. Her name was the Torrey Canyon - borrowed from a location in California, where her owners' parent company was based - and she became, by accident, one of the most famous ships of the twentieth century. On 18 March 1967, at full economical speed, she hit a granite peak called Pollard's Rock on the Seven Stones reef between Land's End and the Isles of Scilly. Then the Royal Air Force tried to set her on fire from the air.

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/s/ss-torrey-canyon-wp/gbgs-ss-torrey-canyon-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full SS Torrey Canyon: A Supertanker Stretched https://qualla.com/ss-torrey-canyon/ She was built in 1959 at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia, originally rated for 65,920 long tons of cargo - already a large ship by the standards of her era. In the early 1960s Sasebo Heavy Industries in Japan sliced her in half and inserted an extra section, almost doubling...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/s/ss-torrey-canyon-wp/gbgs-ss-torrey-canyon-a-supertanker-stretched.mp3 0:06 2 full SS Torrey Canyon: Pollard's Rock https://qualla.com/ss-torrey-canyon/ On 19 February 1967 the Torrey Canyon left the Kuwait National Petroleum Company refinery at Mina al-Ahmadi with a full cargo of crude. Three weeks later she rounded the Canary Islands and pointed at Milford Haven in Wales. Her master, Captain Pastrengo Rugiati, had a deadline: c...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/s/ss-torrey-canyon-wp/gbgs-ss-torrey-canyon-pollards-rock.mp3 0:06 3 full SS Torrey Canyon: Bombing the Sea on Fire https://qualla.com/ss-torrey-canyon/ The salvage attempts failed. The ship began to break up. The British government, with no playbook for an oil spill of this size, decided to try to burn the remaining cargo where it sat. On 28 March 1967, Fleet Air Arm Blackburn Buccaneers from RNAS Lossiemouth dropped 1,000-pound...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/s/ss-torrey-canyon-wp/gbgs-ss-torrey-canyon-bombing-the-sea-on-fire.mp3 0:06 4 full SS Torrey Canyon: The Long Aftermath https://qualla.com/ss-torrey-canyon/ Roughly 95,000 to 119,000 tons of crude reached the sea - one of the largest spills the world had ever seen at that time. Black tide hit beaches in Cornwall, Brittany and the Channel Islands. The cleanup, using foam-filled booms that the Atlantic swell tore apart, and detergents ...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/s/ss-torrey-canyon-wp/gbgs-ss-torrey-canyon-the-long-aftermath.mp3 0:06 5 full