I think it was about midday on Saturday March 18th 1965 when the news that the vessel had gone aground on the Seven Stones Reef was first broadcast on the television - and it wasn't long before the implications were realised as a large oil slick began to spread across the sea. A week later the slick 250 square miles in area and was sweeping in towards the Cornish coast.
When I visited Penzance harbour, the dockside was piled high with drums of detergent waiting to be loaded on to local fishing boats adapted to disperse the oil. It must have been only a day or so after this that I witnessed the most memorable event of the whole affair - I remember walking to the bottom of St Dominic Street where there is a view of part of Mount's Bay.
There, stretched across the bay, was a line of fishing boats desperately trying to hold back an advancing front of oil closing in on the shore.
On the afternoon of Tuesday the 28th we heard a number of jet aircraft passing overhead and we knew that they must be on their way to bomb the crippled ship and to reduce the risk of further oil spillage. It wasn't long before there was a pall of dark smoke stretching from the wreck to Penzance and beyond in the westerly winds.
Attached photograph of fishing boats being loaded with detergent to disperse the oil from the Torrey Canyon
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