More than ever, oil-tanker safety hinges on the high-tech equipment that guides, steers and stops what have been called the most reliable ships on earth.

Operated by fallible humans.

Take, for example, the Polar Resolution, one of four new ships that are the pride of ConocoPhillips' fleet.

In February 2003, the Polar Resolution was offloading oil in Martinez, Calif., when a tiny fuel leak in a high-pressure line caused hot bunker oil to collect on the deck plating around the pipe. That's not good, because misty, hot fuel is explosive.

The ship sailed out of the Golden Gate even as engineers worked all day and all night, tearing out and rewelding huge sections of pipe.

At least one engineer worked 22 hours straight -- a violation of federal work limits instituted after the Exxon Valdez, though there are exceptions in an emergency.

One seaman reported that when he was called to help around 5:30 a.m., the other engineers were "red-eyed, goofy and incoherent."

Then the ship was rocked by an explosion.

The blast, unrelated to the leak, destroyed a 6,600-volt electrical breaker. The tanker scurried back to anchor in San Francisco Bay.

The Coast Guard knew nothing of the episode when the Seattle Post-Intelligencer repeatedly inquired about it. Apparently neither the tanker's officers nor its owner reported it.

The P-I found out when it contacted a crewman who suffered smoke inhalation in the aftermath of the explosion. In what could be construed as an attempt to evade reporting requirements, a medical report signed by the captain classifies the smoke inhalation not as an accident-caused injury, but as an illness. The captain, Dan Ellison of Fountain Valley, Calif., did not return phone calls.

Failure to report such a damaging explosion and an injury -- an apparent law violation -- reflects a breakdown in post-Exxon Valdez reforms.

A litany of incidents

The P-I found more examples to temper ConocoPhillips' confidence in double hulls, twin independent engine rooms and redundant steering systems.

The first of the new super-redundant ships, the Polar Endeavour, has experienced at least four human error and machine failures in critical situations. It lost both engines momentarily in a wildlife area near Anacortes in April 2002. Last November, its steering system suddenly veered 15 degrees in Prince William Sound.

During just one voyage last year, two incidents rocked the Endeavor: A spill in March caused by an overfilled bunker fuel tank, and an April collision in the South China Sea.

The 854-foot ship struck a Chinese bulk carrier in deep fog not unlike the soup the Endeavour encounters regularly in the narrow passageways of the San Juan Islands and in San Francisco Bay.

Bridge officers failed to slow down in "severely restricted visibility" and they didn't make adequate course adjustments, said an internal company report obtained by the P-I.

After the collision, a Coast Guard report shows, the ship's high-tech variable speed propeller was stuck in the "100 percent ahead" position, forcing the crew to shut down the starboard engine. Using its port engine, the ship limped into the Singapore shipyard, where it had been headed at the time for routine work.

The collision caused no injuries and only minor damage -- a scraped hull -- but such collisions can be far more violent, and a hard, direct hit could penetrate a double hull. ConocoPhillips fleet general manager Antonio Valdes told his ship captains in a June 17, 2004, letter that "due to the serious nature of the incident, which could have had much more serious consequences," he wanted them to better follow company rules.

The year had started poorly for Polar Tankers. There was an unreported spill on the Polar Discovery in January, alcohol-use accusations on the Polar California in May, and in June a Polar Alaska engineer's report that a colleague had bypassed pollution-control equipment. It would get worse: In December, the Coast Guard announced it had linked the Polar Texas to an October mystery spill in Puget Sound's Dalco Passage.

Company defends record

ConocoPhillips spokesman Rich Johnson said in an e-mail that his company had voluntarily reported incidents to authorities. It did report some, but the Polar Resolution electrical explosion apparently wasn't reported, the Polar Endeavour spill was discovered by escort vessels and a whistle-blower, not the company, reported the Polar Discovery spill. The company has denied responsibility for the Dalco Passage spill.

Johnson said the e-mail wasn't referring to all cases detailed in communications from the P-I, for example not the Polar Resolution incident, which it hasn't acknowledged.

"Because some of the incidents remain under investigation, it would be inappropriate to discuss details or speculate on outcome," he wrote. "We have taken appropriate actions to prevent recurrences.

"The company has been cooperative and will continue to cooperate fully with the appropriate authorities," Johnson wrote.

Valdes, the fleet general manager, was infuriated by the 2004 incidents. He fired Polar Discovery Capt. Jack Carroll after a whistle-blower reported the January spill that had gone unreported by the company. Then, at a July 15 meeting at ConocoPhillips marine headquarters with Polar Tankers sailors' union Chairman John Pitts, officers' union President Mike McDonnell and Polar Tankers President Robert Lindsay, he vented some of his frustrations.

At the meeting, Valdes countered repeated defensive statements from McDonnell that "a few incidents and the resultant investigations shouldn't be used as a measure of how the entire fleet is operating."

McDonnell told his membership that according to Valdes, "... the investigations were fair and unbiased and he's not convinced the results aren't an indication of how the entire fleet is operating."

McDonnell and Pitts aired a long list of their members' grievances, including criticism of nitpicky oversight, whistle-blower reports that fuel paranoia, the firing of Carroll, long ship assignments caused by the company's failure to fill 65 unfilled job openings, an increase in injuries, crew members doing jobs they aren't fully trained for, a failure by Valdes to meet with his captains and a feeling that top managers had a "do not disturb sign" on their door. Pitts told him the crisis had been brewing for years.

"We were collectively driven to save, but sometimes at the expense of the basic tenets: safety; regard for the rules ... and in some cases being good shipmates to each other," Pitts wrote to his membership.

ConocoPhillips had profits of $8.11 billion in 2004 -- up 77 percent, mostly because of high energy prices.

Valdes promised them that job slots would be filled by 2005 and that when the Polar Texas was retired at the end of the year, the company would "staff up" to a seven-ship fleet, anticipating another Endeavour-class tanker now under construction in the Avondale Shipyard in Louisiana. Polar Tankers now has six ships: the super-modern Polar Endeavour, Polar Resolution, Polar Discovery and Polar Adventure; and the older Polar Alaska and Polar California.

Valdes also vowed to meet with captains and told them he'd always hold safety over practical matters such as refinery deadlines.

Union leaders left the meeting reassured, though McDonnell wrote that with the recent incidents, "I still have definite reservations."

Push to end tug escorts

In July, even as Valdes was raging about the company's mishaps, Washington state -- prompted by industry -- started a study to consider scrapping tug escorts for the new Polar Tankers ships because of their reliability.

The study ended with a recommendation in favor of a ConocoPhillips proposal to cut the escorts in favor of a tug stationed nearby.

In San Francisco Bay -- where the Resolution was having maintenance problems -- escorts have already been lifted from such ships.

Some ship captains are skeptical about dropping escorts, including Joe Hazelwood -- the former captain of the Exxon Valdez -- who disagrees with what industry is proposing.

"As a mariner, I'd rather have them," said the 22-year tanker veteran regarding the tug escorts that might have saved his career had they accompanied the Exxon Valdez that fateful night of March 24, 1989.

He lost his job when he left a junior officer in charge. The ship missed a turn and hit Bligh Reef so hard even a double hull wouldn't have prevented a major spill.

"To me it would be kind of like eliminating the fire department," said Hazelwood, 58, of the recommendation to reduce escorts. "Nothing catches fire. People start wondering, what do we need these guys for?"

Hazelwood, who can't get a captain's job since the 11 million-gallon spill though he is licensed, explained how 140,000 tons of slow-moving momentum can slip out of control.

"The fastest thing in the world is a ship approaching a dock going full astern, and it is almost stopped," said Hazelwood, 58, now a Long Island maritime consultant and investigator for the law firm that defended him. "You are still gobbling up that distance. You are chewing on your tongue. The tugs are going full astern, the dock is getting closer and closer, and you are still not stopped."

Another fired captain, Jack Carroll, agrees with Hazelwood. He thinks the Polar Endeavour is a great ship; he was honored to bring it out of the shipyard for its first voyage in 2001. Great, but not flawless, he said.

"One mistake on one of those ships costs so much money compared to what an escort costs," said Carroll, a respected veteran who was canned last year for the spill aboard the Polar Discovery. "When I had an escort behind me, it was, 'Hey, not out of my pocket.' I liked it back there."

A small expense -- until spill

Tanker fleets tend to be minor expenses for oil companies aside from the multibillion-dollar risk of an oil spill. Polar Tankers merited only a paragraph in the 112-page ConocoPhillips annual report last year. Try to find the part of your gasoline bill attributable to tanker expenses and you'll be shaving pennies.

Most notable for ConocoPhillips was the $200 million price of the Endeavour-class tankers, high by world standards. But it was easily covered by the Houston company's record profits last year.

After the Exxon Valdez spill, industry reformers created the International Safety Management system.

Made mandatory by international treaty after 1998, ISM requires each company to designate someone with direct access to top management to receive trouble reports from below, and pass them up the chain. Reports are audited and necessary changes made.

More serious incident reports must, by law, go to the Coast Guard, which inspects and follows up on some repairs, said Coast Guard Capt. Mike Karr, chief safety, security and environmental protection compliance officer.

The system has improved maintenance standards, and produced an irritating deluge of minor reports.

Puzzling contrast

ConocoPhillips shoreside Alaska representative Kristina O'Connor exemplified the latter when, at a meeting earlier this month of the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens Advisory Council, she proudly reported how her company carried out its "open communication policy" in February. She said the company reported to the Coast Guard a spill of a cup of oil on the deck of the Polar Resolution out in the ocean. It was raining, she said, so some might have gone in the water.

By contrast, in March last year, the Polar Endeavour was on its way to Valdez with bunker fuel tanks overfilled by the chief engineer. Double-hulled ships tend to roll more than others, and it did in heavy weather, splashing oil all over the deck and on the side of the ship, some say into the water. The captain called Polar Tankers headquarters in Long Beach, Calif., but officers say the report wasn't forwarded to the Coast Guard. Escort vesselcrews spotted the big stains on the side of the blue-hulled ship and reported them.

That kind of stuff is why tanker captains aren't fond of home offices. "There's so much scrutiny now that the job almost defies description. It's got so little to do with operating a ship anymore," said Hazelwood. "More of a paper exercise to cover your butt and your lawyer's butt."

Reporting system works

Actually, the point of the International Safety Management system isn't butt-covering, but fixing major problems. And, used properly, it works: After the Endeavour burped oil, baffles were installed on the fuel tank vents to stop the stuff from splashing out.

ISM reporting also led to problem-solving when the Polar Endeavour lost power to both engines in sensitive Washington waters near Padilla Bay, by Saddlebag Island. According to a state study, the crew was testing a 300-horsepower electrical pump. That blew the electrical power, shutting down the lube-oil pumps and both engines. Fixes were made.

When the Polar Endeavour suddenly veered 15 degrees due to an autopilot steering system malfunction in Prince William Sound, the reporting led to the installation of new solid-state controls.

The system also worked as designed when first engineer Peter Feeney reported fellow first engineer Dennis Madden for supposedly bypassing pollution equipment on the Polar Alaska. Details obtained by the P-I indicate a lower-ranked engine worker told Feeney that Madden was bypassing the system when Feeney relieved Madden on the ship.

"We all like to think we did the right thing," said Feeney. That was all he would say about his report.

Engine rooms have oily-water separators that take oil from wastewater before it is pumped overboard. It is a crime to bypass the system.

No report on explosion

No investigation has apparently been done of the case where the Polar Resolution returned to San Francisco with a smoke-filled engine control room. The Coast Guard searched and could find no evidence of a report, said spokeswoman Jolie Shifflet in Washington, D.C.

By law, any incident causing injury to a crew member that requires treatment in a clinic or hospital must be reported, as well as machinery casualties that require more than $25,000 to repair.

Knowledgeable ship officers said the Resolution damage could have easily qualified.

Failure to report might indicate what union leaders called paranoia brought on by mistrust of management. Valdes addressed it in July.

"He doesn't feel Polar has a culture of forwarding near misses and would like to see that process improved," McDonnell wrote.

"He doesn't want anyone hiding things to protect the company reputation."