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The SS ''Wafra'' oil spill occurred on 27 February 1971, when SS ''Wafra'', an oil tanker, ran around while under tow near Cape Agulhas, South Africa. Approximately 200,000 barrels of crude oil were leaked into the ocean.〔("Wafra" ). Incident News. Retrieved 23 December 2011.〕〔("Cape Agulhas, South Africa: Incident Summary" ). Incident News. 27 February 1971. Retrieved 23 December 2011.〕 The larger part of the ship was refloated, towed out to sea, and then sunk by the South African Air Force to prevent further oil contamination of the coastline. ==Grounding and sinking== The ''Wafra'' left Ras Tanura in Saudi Arabia on 12 February 1971 bound for Cape Town, South Africa, with a cargo of 472,513 barrels (63,174 tonnes) of Arabian crude oil on board. Half the cargo was owned by Chevron Oil Sales Co., and the other half by Texaco Export, Inc. The ship was rounding the southern tip of Africa at 6:30 am on 27 February 1971 when the piping that brought seawater on board to cool her steam turbine failed. The engine room flooded, incapacitating the ship. She was taken under tow the following day by the Russian steam tanker ''Gdynia'', which – finding the task too difficult – handed the tow over to the ''Pongola'' off Cape Agulhas, later the same day.〔 The tow cable subsequently broke, and the ''Wafra'' grounded on a reef near Cape Agulhas at 5:30 pm on 28 February. All six of the port cargo tanks, as well as two of the six center tanks, were ruptured, resulting in approximately 26,000 tons of oil leaking at the grounding site, of which 6,000 tonnes washed up at Cape Agulhas. A by oil spill resulted,〔〔 which affected a colony of 1200 African penguins on Dyer Island near Gansbaai. The ship was refloated and pulled off the reef on 8 March by the German tug ''Oceanic'', but started to break apart. To prevent further oil contamination of the coastline, the larger section was towed out to sea to the edge of the continental shelf (), leaving a oil slick in her wake. On 10 March 1971, Buccaneer aircraft of the South African Air Force attempted to sink her with AS-30 missiles, but succeeded only in starting a fire. The ship burned for two days before a Shackleton aircraft was eventually able to sink it with depth charges in of water. If the ''Wafra'' had been a twin screw, two engine room ship, loss of an engine would most likely not have caused the loss of the whole ship.〔 At the time, the oil spill was in the top twenty most disastrous tanker spills on record. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「SS Wafra oil spill」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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