Odyssey, which previously went by the name Oriental Phoenix, was an oil tanker in operation from 1971 to November 10, 1988, when an explosion caused it to sink in the North Atlantic off the coast of Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. The resulting spill remains one of the largest oil spills in world history. The tanker was 700 nautical miles (1,296.4 km) off the coast of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...

 when it sank and released 132,157 tons (43 million gallons) of oil into the ocean. To this day, the spill remains the sixth-largest of all time. By way of comparison, 4.3 times as much oil was spilled by the Odyssey as from the much more famous Exxon Valdez

Exxon Valdez

Oriental Nicety, formerly Exxon Valdez, Exxon Mediterranean, SeaRiver Mediterranean, S/R Mediterranean, Mediterranean, and Dong Fang Ocean is an oil tanker that gained notoriety after running aground in Prince William Sound spilling hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil in Alaska...

.

Sinking

Odyssey, built in 1971, was a 65,000-ton tanker operated by Polembros Shipping Ltd. of London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, and registered in Liberia

Liberia

Liberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...

. On November 5, 1988, the tanker departed Sullom Voe Terminal

Sullom Voe Terminal

The Sullom Voe Terminal is an oil and liquefied gas terminal at Sullom Voe in the Shetland Islands of Scotland. It handles production from oilfields in the North Sea and East Shetland Basin...

 in the Shetland Islands

Shetland Islands

Shetland is a subarctic archipelago of Scotland that lies north and east of mainland Great Britain. The islands lie some to the northeast of Orkney and southeast of the Faroe Islands and form part of the division between the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the North Sea to the east. The total...

 off Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, fully loaded with North Sea

North Sea

In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...

 Brent Crude oil

Brent Crude

Brent Crude is the biggest of the many major classifications of crude oil consisting of Brent Crude, Brent Sweet Light Crude, Oseberg, Ekofisk, and Forties . Brent Crude is sourced from the North Sea. The Brent Crude oil marker is also known as Brent Blend, London Brent and Brent petroleum...

 which was being transported to the Come By Chance Refinery at Come-by-Chance

Come By Chance, Newfoundland and Labrador

Come By Chance is a town on the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. It is in Division No. 1 on Placentia Bay.Located in this town is Newfoundland's only oil refinery, the Come By Chance Refinery operated by North Atlantic Refining Company, which has a capacity of .According to...

, Newfoundland and Labrador

Newfoundland and Labrador

Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada. Situated in the country's Atlantic region, it incorporates the island of Newfoundland and mainland Labrador with a combined area of . As of April 2011, the province's estimated population is 508,400...

. When the ship was about 1000 nautical miles off the coast of Newfoundland, a major North Atlantic storm arose, buffetting the ship with 25 feet (7.6 m) waves and 44-mile -per-hour winds. In response, the ship sent out a distress signal and kept heading for shore. However, when the ship was 700 nautical miles (1,296.4 km) off the coast of Nova Scotia, an explosion occurred on board, causing the ship to break into two and begin sinking. As the ship sank, a fire broke out on its stern section, causing the oil on board to catch fire. All 27 crew members, 15 Greeks and 12 Hondurans, are presumed to have died during the incident. Because of hazardous weather conditions, the Canadian Coast Guard

Canadian Coast Guard

The Canadian Coast Guard is the coast guard of Canada. It is a federal agency responsible for providing maritime search and rescue , aids to navigation, marine pollution response, marine radio, and icebreaking...

 could not immediately reach the spill and much of the oil burned up before the coast guard reached the ship.

Environmental effects

In the immediate aftermath of the ship's sinking, the oil spill covered an area of 3 miles (4.8 km) x 10 miles (16.1 km). However, no oil reached shore - in part because of the oil's rapid combustion from the initial explosion and in part because currents carried the spill across the Atlantic, in the direction of England, giving the oil a significant amount of time to dissipate. Because of this, no clean-up operation was mounted.

The Advisory Committee on Marine Pollution of the Sea of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea

International Council for the Exploration of the Sea

The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea is the world’s oldest intergovernmental science organization. ICES is headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, where its multinational Secretariat staff of 51 provide scientific, administrative and secretarial support to the ICES community...

 published an analysis of the spill in their 1990 Marine Pollution Yearbook which noted that the spill likely had a significant effect on krill

Krill

Krill is the common name given to the order Euphausiacea of shrimp-like marine crustaceans. Also known as euphausiids, these small invertebrates are found in all oceans of the world...

 in the area, and through them, may have affected animals further up the food chain

Food chain

A food web depicts feeding connections in an ecological community. Ecologists can broadly lump all life forms into one of two categories called trophic levels: 1) the autotrophs, and 2) the heterotrophs...

.

See also

• Largest oil spills
• Ocean Odyssey Drilling Rig Blowout, an unrelated September 1988 explosion in the North Sea