he Torrey Canyon oil spill on the southwest coast of the UK in the spring of 1967 is one of the world's most serious oil spills and left an international legal and environmental legacy that lasted decades. At the time the world's most serious oil spill, as of 2015 it remains the UK's worst, with an estimated 32 million gallons of crude oil spilled.[1] The wreck of the supertanker SS Torrey Canyon affected hundreds of miles of coastline in the UK, France, Guernsey, and Spain and mitigation efforts involved bombing raids by aircraft from the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy.[2]
Torrey Canyon left Mina al-Ahmadi with a full cargo of crude oil in February 1967, reached the Canary Islands in March, with an intended destination of Milford Haven in West Wales. On 18 March 1967, she struck Pollard's Rock on Seven Stones reef between the Cornish mainland and the Isles of Scilly.