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The Sella Oscura in 1970
History
Name	'Sello Oscura'
Owner	Mare Shipping inc.
Port of registry	Cantabria, Spain
Route	Riga - Portugal - England
Builder	Barcos Promedio engineering
Completed	1968
Identification	IMO number: 34694890
Motto	The Dark Seal
Fate	Sunk, 14th March 1973
General characteristics
Class and type	Aframax single-hulled oil tanker
Tonnage	32,820 tonnes (32,300 long tons; 36,180 short tons)
Length	203 m (666 ft)
Beam	30.4 m (100 ft)
Draft	12 m (39 ft)
Depth	15.7 m (52 ft)
Speed	14.2 knots (26.3 km/h; 16.3 mph)
Crew	34

The 1973 Sello Oscura oil disaster was an oil spillage which took place in the North Sea, off the coast of South East England (51°57′N 1°46′E). The spanish Petroleum tanker Sello Oscura suffered a fatal accident resulting in sixteen deaths of various crew members and the spillage of over 125 tons of crude oil into the North Sea.

Sello Oscura

The spanish oil tanker was 203 meters in length and had a total cargo capacity of 68,327 deadweight tonnes. Manufactured by Barcos Promedio engineering in 1968, it was owned for five years by Liberian company Mare Shipping inc. until the night of 14th March, 1973 where it met it's end. Officially designed as a multi purpose merchant ship, four oil holding tanks were kept in the single hulled vessel. In addition to this, a small number of cargo crates carrying goods resided on deck. The typical route of the Sello Oscura was to Riga, Latvia, Lagos, Portugal and finally to Shell Haven in England. The unique, ominous dark colour of the ship led it to be called 'The Black Seal' by it's crew. Since the sinking of the Sello Oscura, three seperate attemps to salvage the wreckage were unsuccessful.

Incident

In the early hours of 14th March, 1973 the Sello Oscura was en route to the now decommissioned Shell Haven oil refinery. Roughly 18km from the shore, an unexpected mechanical failure of one of the ships two inert gas pipeline's (used as a safety precaution for unloading the liquid cargo) meant that the ship had to come to a complete standstill while repairs were carried out. However, sometime between the hours of three and four o'clock a fire started near the fourth oil tank, eventually overwhelming nearby valves and coming into contact with the flammable gas excreted from the top of the oil tanks. An explosion occurred at approximately 4:17 am, tearing a hole in the port side of the ship and spilling crude oil into the north sea. The exact cause of the fire is unknown still to this day. Water immediately began to flood the ship, and the spillage of oil created a three hundred square metre slick as the Sello Oscura sank. The rest of the oil was recovered by offshore pumping vessels dispatched after word of the explosion reached the shore. The boat finally sank at 5:58am. The pumping vessels only managed to save 18 members of the crew as they lacked a proper professional rescue team. Shell Oil was heavily criticised for the decision to dispatch pumping vessels a full two hours before dispatching a rescue team, however at the time it was assumed that the pumping vessels would be able to rescue everyone on board.

Aftermath

Shell downplayed the incident to the media for decades, and family members of the deceased crew were reported to have been paid in exchange for not Whistleblowing. The oil slick on the surface eventually reached the shore, damaging marine life and the fishing industry, and also the tourism industry of Clacton-on-Sea. It was only in 2006 that a full list of the names of the sixteen dead crew members was released to the public. In october 1973 the oil was finally cleared completely from the surrounding area.