Tomorrow's Disaster: 'Gigantic'

As long as the Empire State Building is tall, the ships in the new generation of supertankers are nothing if not impressive. But are they safe? Not according to Noeel Mostert, a South African-born journalist. In his 1974 best-seller Supership, Mostert warned that these brobdingnagian tankers were accidents looking for places where they could happen. Nothing since then has altered his gloomy prediction. At his new home in Tangier, Mostert told TIME last week:

"The sort of accidents that have been happening to small ships will in the future be happening to the very biggest ships, the so-called VLCCs (very large crude carriers). We may confidently expect a rising rate of major big-ship disasters in the decade ahead.

"VLCCs were initially built without any experience or any attempt to really understand what was involved in such sizes. There have been improvements, but the fundamental structural problem of the ships is unchanged. For example, a VLCC must be able to steam through a monsoon one week, subantarctic storms off the Cape of Good Hope the next, pass through the tropics, then the Biscay or North Atlantic coast gales. These subject its great length to severe hogging and sagging, with its broad decks constantly subjected to the weight of tremendous quantities of sea water because of the low freeboard of the loaded ship.

"Among other stresses and strains are those that occur when a vessel that was empty a few hours before has up to 200,000 tons of oil suddenly poured aboard under rapid loading conditions. At some discharge ports, very big ships can dock only at high tide. Delays can mean the ship sits on her bottom plates in shallow water before the draft can be lightened sufficiently. Such structural strains are repeated and severe, and, coupled with the tremendous rate of corrosion, they shorten the life of the vessels and constantly weaken them.

"One of the principal factors in the loss at sea of loaded older tankers has been their sudden breakup because of their worn structures. In the recent past these accidents have happened principally to smaller ships. But now the first generation of VLCCs is nearly ten years old: the world is being serviced increasingly by gigantic ships that have entered the critical and dangerous period of tanker life.

"Moreover, the psychological burden on crews, which was always severe, is now worse because the ships are steaming more slowly and the men thus spend even longer periods on board. As their own efficiency deteriorates, the efficient management of the ships must too.

"It is my view that some strong form of control is desperately needed for the tanker industry. Since any international application of maritime rules is almost impossible, the controls should be unilaterally imposed."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.