COMMANDANT OUDET'S paper ‘The Black Flood’ is a masterly analysis of the circumstances surrounding the loss of the Torrey Canyon. We have come to expect contributions of this standard from Commandant Oudet, so much so that one wonders whether the sort of international tribunal which he advocates would be more effective in pointing to the lessons to be learned from casualties than Commandant Oudet's own work has been for many years past. In his discussion of the Torrey Canyon loss, Commandant Oudet raises the question of whether the size of tankers should be limited. This question has been voiced elsewhere with the implication that, economics apart, the trend towards larger and larger tankers is a bad thing. It deserves a more detailed study.

To simplify this study a hypothetical case is considered in which a company has to transport oil at a rate of 200,000 tons per week between two ports where the round voyage takes two weeks. In theory this could be done using one 400,000-ton tanker, two 2000,000-ton tankers, …sixteen 25,000-ton tankers, …forty 10,000-ton tankers…. Economic considerations favour the use of large tankers provided there is sufficient water at the two terminals and enroute, but is this morally justified in view of the possibility of repetitions of the Torrey Canyon incident?