Word: vessel
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...captain with too much alcohol in his blood turns over command of his tanker to an unqualified third mate. The mate shouts contradictory orders to the helmsman and eventually impales the vessel on a reef, causing millions of gallons of oil to gush from the mangled hull. Companies that boasted they had the equipment and manpower in place for a quick cleanup turn out to have hardly anything available and lose irreplaceable days getting into action. Then, almost predictably, the calm weather gives way to high winds that render their efforts ineffective...
...local pilot steered the tanker out of the port of Valdez. Once he had departed from the ship, Hazelwood left the bridge and went to his cabin while the vessel was still moving along the jagged shores of Prince William Sound. That was in violation of Exxon policy, which calls for the captain to keep command until the ship is on the open ocean. Hazelwood turned over the steering of the ship to Third Mate Gregory Cousins, who is not licensed by the Coast Guard to pilot a vessel through Alaskan coastal waters...
...that matter, the accident might have been avoided had the Coast Guard's radar been electronically linked to the harbor's vessel-traffic system so that an alarm would sound automatically if a tanker wandered out of its correct path. Such a state-of-the-art system is in operation in at least one foreign port. Says Curtis of the Oceanic Society: "This is not just a case of someone getting drunk. Because the industry did not take responsibility for state-of- the-art technology, the problem lies at its doorstep...
According to William Woody, an investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, the accident was preceded by a series of commands that put the vessel a mile out of the shipping lanes and into harm's way. Cousins and finally Hazelwood, who had returned to the bridge, issued contradictory orders. Shortly after midnight, the tanker impaled itself on Bligh Reef, its hull torn by gashes, some thought to be 15 ft. wide. At least 240,000 bbl. of oil, equal to 10.1 million gal., poured out of the wounds...
Complicating matters further, Fay decided to race the U.S. in a 132-ft. monohull, instead of a 12-meter (65-ft.) boat like those used since 1958. With time running out, Conner and his team knew they could not design a sufficiently speedy monohull vessel of their own. So Conner opted for a smaller, swifter, multihulled catamaran. Justice Ciparick decided to wait to see the outcome of the race before ruling on the legitimacy of the U.S. entry...