The Tankerman's Eerie World

Since the Torrey Canyon disaster in 1967, the world's ever bigger oil tankers have drawn worse and worse publicity. Viewers with alarm see them as oil-leaking time bombs that defile the seas with toxic black goo. Tankermen have a different perspective. Sailing calmly through gales of criticism, they supply the key fuel that powers modern nations and without which great cities would be ghost towns. To examine that perspective, TIME's Paris Bureau Chief William Rademaekers signed aboard the brand-new Esso of The Netherlands tanker Europoort for a five-day cruise from the Canary Islands to Milford Haven, Wales. His report:

"At 1,141 ft., 15/16ths of an inch," my press kit told me, "the Europoort is the world's longest ship--85 ft. longer than the Eiffel Tower." When I first saw her, she looked like a horizontal Empire State Building, filled with enough Arabian crude oil (243,000 tons) to power all of France for one day. I called her a supertanker, but a bearded Dutch officer objected. "Those are small ships, in the 100,000-ton class," he declared. "This one is 253,000 tons, so it's a VLCC, a very large cargo carrier. All clear?"

By any name, the Europoort is a luxury liner. Her Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese crewmen each have private cabins with private portholes. Officers have double beds, most of them equipped with wives. Since tankers are not allowed to carry passengers, the wives sign on as "stewardesses." Esso draws the line for bachelor officers: they occupy their double beds alone. But in every other respect, the company pampers its men. The ship boasts two comfortable recreation rooms, twice-a-week movies, a well-equipped photographic darkroom, a galley for late snacks, ample Dutch gin-and 12,000 bottles of Heineken's beer for each two-month round trip between apathy (the Persian Gulf) and tedium (Milford Haven). For overfed crewmen, Esso also provides a small swimming pool, a gymnasium and a nonskid jogging track around the ship's four-acre deck.

Because automation has cut the crew requirements on new VLCCs to as few as 30 men (future ships may have only nine), modern tanker life produces a weird sense of isolation. The Europoort seemed to glide through the Atlantic like the Mary Deare, a ghost ship in search of a port. That's why I looked forward to meals so much. It was reassuring to see the officers there--all there. But that in turn led to the sinking question of who was driving. The answer was the automatic pilot, automatic radar, automatic steering adjuster. "We stay in our staterooms," said one officer. "This ship runs itself, and when something goes wrong, it's too damned complicated to fix anyway. Have a beer?"

When ships are run by computers that can plot the course, set the speed according to sea conditions, load and unload tanks, and even diagnose a sick sailor's ailment, the inevitable result is boredom. The scraping and painting that busied generations of seamen are no longer necessary. The Europoort, for example, is coated with 600 tons of nearly impervious paint that requires a cosmetic fix only once every two years. Seasickness, which used to keep novice seamen running for the rail, is only a memory. The huge beam of the VLCCs--close to 200 ft.--makes them extremely stable, even in rough storms. Faced with up to four months at sea, Europoort's crewmen complain that the money ($300 a month) does not compensate for the monotony. More and more, oil companies are finding it difficult to hire qualified men.

Along with ennui, tankermen are prey to fleeting fears. In the past two months, mysterious explosions have sunk three tankers off the coast of Africa. Last week four crewmen were killed when a Swedish tanker blew up in a Hamburg drydock. Loaded, the Europoort carries enough oil to pollute beaches from Holland to Spain, though Esso strictly bans any ocean discharges except in dire emergencies. Empty, the ship is as potentially explosive as nitroglycerin, with a rich mixture of oxygen and oil fumes in its massive tanks. To prevent inadvertent explosions, a Japanese company has designed an automatic system that forces inert, nonflammable gas into emptying tanks, thus displacing oil fumes. But such devices are not yet in general use.

Parachute Brake. Empty or full, VLCCs are so underpowered (to save building costs) that Europoort, for one, needs two hours to hit top speed of 16.5 knots. As a further result, the behemoths are plagued with the problem of stopping, which can take up to ten miles. By "slaloming," or steering hard port and then hard starboard, with engines full astern in open water, VLCCs can stop within two miles. Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is now testing a special parachute that it hopes can cut a tanker's stopping distance by onefourth. But with bigger and bigger tankers (perhaps up to 1,000,000 tons) on the drawing boards, such safeguards may be canceled out.

Fortunately, VLCC skippers are among the world's best-trained ship captains. Despite his seven years' previous experience as a tanker master, Europoort's Huib Jansen was not allowed to take command until he attended a "captain's school" in Grenoble, France, site of the 1968 Winter Olympics. There, in a 40-ft. boat, he was pushed around a man-made lake by a minuscule half-horsepower engine, maneuvering his craft with his eyes at the same level he now gets from the bridge of the Europoort. "It looks rather foolish with all of us out there in these boats during the daytime," he says. "But at night, when all practicing captains are using only their running lights and we're trying to move those models with that tiny engine, it is very much the real thing." After Grenoble, he served aboard a smaller VLCC before assuming command of the Europoort.

Dangerous Squeeze. On this particular voyage, Captain Jansen soon proved the value of his training. Having stopped and anchored Europoort three miles from the tricky entrance to Milford Haven, Jansen waited for the local pilot to help guide the ship over a rock shelf into the harbor. The pilot was due at 11 p.m.--moments before the needed tide would reach its highest. At 10:45, a basketball-size steam valve in the engine room blew apart, knocking out the power required to lift the tanker's 27-ton anchor.

"What about moving tomorrow?" asked Jansen. "Won't do, captain," said the pilot. "Can't get a lunker like this over the shelf with that tide." Unless the ship moved immediately, he added, the 17-ft. tide would dwindle--marooning Europoort for four days. That was bad news for Jansen: delays cut profits in the tanker business (and speed sometimes causes accidents). "Can you give us five minutes?" asked Jansen. "It's your responsibility," said the pilot. "Do you have any tea?"

After 25 tense minutes, the valve was patched and the anchor raised. "It's too late, captain," the pilot murmured. "We're going in," Jansen persisted. "Pray for 17," whispered the pilot. It was 16.8 and going down. "I couldn't change your mind?" asked the pilot softly. "No," said Jansen. "If you knew Susie like I know Susie," hummed the pilot. "What's your reading keel to bottom?"

Six fathoms . . . five . . . four . . . one and a half. Finally, the reading was less than 6 ft., with a 16.3-ft. tide. But then a slight wind sustained the tide so the Europoort could just squeeze over the rocks at three knots. Three hours later she was safely docked. "How did you know it would work?" I asked Jansen. "That's my job," he replied coolly. "Besides, I couldn't sit out there for four days."

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