Word: tankers
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...example, one American oilman, when asked if the war would hinder development of Vietnam's offshore oil, said, "Why should it? The supply can be done from Singapore if necessary." Once in production, offshore wells can feed tanker ships directly. The oil can be carried off without ever touching base with the mainland...
...barrels of oil reserves are buried under the stark landscape of Alaska's North Slope. The problem is how to get this treasure to market. The best way, oilmen argue, is to pipe the crude across the breadth of Alaska to the southern port of Valdez, then tanker it to Seattle and Los Angeles. To date, oil companies have spent $300 million on engineering surveys, tanker contracts and special steel pipes. Yet the Federal Government has steadfastly refused to issue a permit to build the 789-mile-long pipeline across public land...
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...
...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...
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...