Fewer ships in trouble these days, but salvage firms are still indispensable

FIFTY years ago, the supertanker Torrey Canyon went aground off Land's End in south-west England and spilt some 117,000 tonnes of crude oil, which caused immense damage along the parts of the British and French coasts. In places, the environmental damage is still evident.

That March 1967 disaster changed forever how we view marine pollution. There were, of course, several really bad spills from tankers in subsequent years - the Exxon Valdez, the Amoco Cadiz and the Prestige immediately come to mind - but the Torrey Canyon spill was the one that taught us how not to have oil spills from tankers.

In many ways, the response was also a textbook example of how not to go about it. The massive use of detergents was not only ineffective, but caused more environmental damage than the oil itself; bombing and napalming the ship and its cargo did not help either.