51 years ago two Shell ships exploded within 15 days of each other
Extracted from page 06/412 and 06/413 of “A History of Royal Dutch Shell, volume 2” – Powering the Hydrocarbon Revolution, 1939-1973.
(From page 06/412)
(From page 06/413)
Text from the same page.
On 14 December 1969, Marpessa, from Shell’s Antilles fleet, exploded during her maiden round voyage. Two Chinese Petty Officers were killed and the 207,000 dwt vessel, over 1,000 feet (328 metres) long, became the largest ship, civil or military, ever to sink. Fifteen days later her sister ship Mactra also blew up and killed two crew-members, but did not sink, and the following day a third VLCC – not a Shell ship, but of very similar design – exploded. All had been undertaking tank-cleaning operations at the time, and the ensuing two-year enquiry established the most probable cause as sparks accidentally generated in the tank’s gaseous atmosphere. The solution was to fill the tank with inner gas during cleaning.
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During tank cleaning/line washing on a VLCC in inerted condition, I experienced massive explosive sounds (like sheet metal being shaken) that went from tank to tank for a period of about 25 minutes. No damage or change in oxygen/inert gas levels. I normally wash the lines ,stop the pumps and gravitate clean sea water into clean tanks BUT this time I left the pumps running around the lines,sea to sea for over 2 hours then opened the tank valves to start ballasting….immediately the “explosions” started and seemed to jump from the fixed tank cleaning machines. I was not allowed to report this as the ship was in process of being sold. Ship scrapped many years ago in 1985.