Amoco Cadiz oil spill Amoco Cadiz oil spill The oil tanker "Amoco Cadiz" ran aground on Portsall Rocks, from the coast of Brittany, France, on 16 March 1978, and ultimately split in three and sank, all together resulting in the largest oil spill of its kind in history to that date. NOAA estimates that the total oil spill amounted to 220,880 metric tonnes of oil. En route from the Persian Gulf to Rotterdam, Netherlands, via a scheduled stop at Lyme Bay, Great Britain, the ship encountered stormy weather with gale conditions and high seas while in the English Channel. At around 09:45, a heavy
Japanese cruiser Sakawa down and "Nagato" attempted to tow the cruiser, but had a boiler failure and then ran out of fuel. An oil tanker, , was diverted to refuel the ships, but ran aground on a reef in bad weather and was lost. The two ex-Japanese ships were finally taken in tow on 30 March, with "Sakawa" reaching Eniwetok two days later. While at Eniwetok, five of the ship's American sailors were angry over the dismal working conditions aboard, "Sakawa" and sabotaged her in an unsuccessful attempt to get off the ship. They damaged the fuel system, poured sand into the oil