Oil Slick

check this out:
http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe...oil/index.html


this amount of fuel could do 'twice' the damage that the Exxon Valdez did.

I just read on www.shortnews.com that it spit and all of it is leaking out now...sad

At 11,800 feet deep, they're "hoping" the cold water will crystalize this fuel. Parts of Spain and Portugal have a time bomb on their front step.

The one thing that has me confused about these ships that get holes ripped in their sides is this: Everyone has charts with local harbormaster notations regarding additional unusual hazards, and everyone has forward-looking sonar and GPS. Now, if you have a hazard or whatever that is 50-ft below the calm surface, and you have 20-ft waves (crest-to-trough) then you just lost ten ft of water plus whatever additional depth the ship is going to dig into the next trough as the bow dives down into it. How difficult would it be to figure out you might just have a problem if your ship draws 30-ft in calm water????????? We have a certain lake down country that is quite shallow (10-20 ft) although it is twenty miles long and eight miles wide, so the wind has plenty of surface area to make waves with. We always have guys who stay out when the waves kick up, and when their keels hit the mud in a trough the next crest rolls them over filled with water. How difficult can this concept be to figure out, I wonder? :(

I believe that newer ships are constructed with a double hull, which would increase their safety factor. The ship that sank was a single hull. Once it breaks, you're in trouble. As more info is released about this story, it looks like another Exxon Valdez with different players and twice the possible damage.

both spain and portugal forced the ship to move farther out to see so they wouldn't have to deal with it and then the ships captain gets arrested...go figure