The Torrey Canyon oil spill was one of the world's most serious oil spills. The supertanker ran aground on rocks off the south-west coast of the United Kingdom in 1967, spilling an estimated 25–36 million gallons (94–164 million litres) of crude oil. Attempts to mitigate the damage included the bombing of the wreck by aircraft from the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force. Hundreds of miles of coastline in Britain, France, Guernsey, and Spain were affected by the oil and other substances used in an effort to mitigate damage. At the time, that was world's worst oil spill; it remains the worst spill in UK history. It led to significant changes in maritime law and oil spill responses. Background When laid down in the United States in 1959, Torrey Canyon had a capacity of 60,000 tons; the ship was later enlarged to 120,000 tons in Japan. She was named for a geographical feature in California. At the time of the accident, Torrey Canyon was registered in Liberia and owned by Barracuda Tanker Corporation, a subsidiary of Union Oil Company of California but chartered to British Petroleum. She was long, beam and draught. Accident On her final voyage, Torrey Canyon left the Kuwait National Petroleum Company refinery at Mina Al-Ahmadi, Kuwait (later Al-Ahmadi), with a full cargo of crude oil, on 19 February 1967. The ship had an intended destination of Milford Haven in Wales. On 14 March, she reached the Canary Islands. Following a navigational error, Torrey Canyon struck Pollard's Rock on the extreme Western end of the Seven Stones between the Cornish mainland and the Isles of Scilly on 18 March 1967. The tanker did not have a scheduled route and so lacked a complement of full l-scale charts of the Scilly Islands. When a collision with a fishing fleet became imminent, there was some confusion between the Master and the officer of the watch as to their exact position. Significant further delay arose due to uncertainty as to whether the vessel was in manual or automatic steering mode, with the Master mistakenly believing he had switched the steering to manual for the helmsman. By the time the problem was corrected, a grounding was unavoidable. In the hours and days to follow, extensive attempts to float the vessel off the reef proved unsuccessful and even resulted in the death of a member of the Dutch salvage team, Captain Hans