January 5, 2024 • 34 mins
Torrey Canyon was one of the biggest and best ships in the world - but its captain and crew still needlessly steered it towards a deadly reef known as the Seven Stones. This course seemed like madness, but the type of thinking that resulted in this risky maneuver is something we're all prone to...
We have a treasure chest of Cautionary Tales to bring you in 2024, but first we need to take a short rest. This week we're taking you all the way back to the start, with a classic episode from our Cautionary Tales vault.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin in twenty nineteen, the year that Cautionary Tales developed
from an unsettling thought to a fully fledged new show.
I was on the lookout for disasters, and there are
a few catastrophes more compelling than the wreck of Torry Kanyon.
(00:36):
It's partly the shattering environmental impact of the error, It's
partly the tragic figure of Captain Pastrengo Rugiati. But above all,
what compels me about this story is all the things
Tory Kanyon represents as it plows towards an obvious disaster,
and yet, for some mystifying reason, doesn't seem to be
(00:59):
able to change course. We've all set a course for
disaster at some stage in our lives, and we've all
struggled to admit it until it's too late. We have
a treasure chest full of cautionary Tales to bring you
in twenty twenty four, but we also need to take
a short rest. So the next two episodes will be
(01:20):
classics from our Cautionary Tales vault. I hope you enjoy them.
Starting with the very first episode of Cautionary Tales that
was ever released, Danger Rocks Ahead.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
We pray thee Lord not that rex should happen, but
that if any rex do happen, thou wilt guide them
to the Silly Isles for the benefit of the poor inhabitants.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
That's an old prayer from the Isles of Silly. The
isles are just off the coast of Cornwall, the southwest
tip of Great Britain, and that prayer has been answered
many times. The rocks around the islands have a fearsome
reputation and it's well earned. One autumn night in seventeen
oh seven, the Royal Navy lost its way in a storm.
(02:21):
The flagship HMS Association struck a rock and went down.
In minutes. Eight hundred men drowned behind it. HMS Saint
George hit the rocks and became stuck. So did HMS Phoenix,
so did HMS Firebrown. HMS Romney lost her entire crew.
HMS Eagle was shattered on the cruel stone. Hundreds more
(02:45):
sailors died. That dreadful night was one of the worst
disasters in the history of the British Navy. Local legend
has it that there was one notable survivor that the
Commander in Chief of the British Fleets, Sir Cloudsley shovel
(03:08):
was washed up on the beach of the Isles of Silly,
but was strangled by a local woman who fancied wearing
his emerald ring herself. If she had been praying the
old prayer God or the devil had been listening, it
is a dark tale that the story I shall tell
(03:29):
you today is a far stranger one. It was sometime
after dawn on Saturday March the eighteenth, nineteen sixty seven.
Martyr Christie was a langustier, a French lobster boat, fishing
for crayfish and crab between the mainland and the Isles
(03:51):
of Silly. Twenty one miles further west on deck was
Captain ghee Folich, another langustier, was nearby, both of them
enjoying rich pickings a few hundred yards north of the
Seven Stones. The Seven Stones make up a vicious reef
about one third of the way between the Isles of
Silly and the mainland. At low tide, the unyielding rocks
(04:15):
are visible, but even at high tide they're marked by
a lighthouse vessel warning ships to stay away. Githolich looked
up from his lobster lions to see an unexpected sight,
a vast black hull coming over the horizon from an
unusual direction. He was surprised. A major vessel in that
(04:36):
position would usually have passed outside of the Isles of Scilly,
rather than squeezing between them and the mainland. True, a
big ship could come between the isles of Silly and
the mainland, passing on either side of the Seven Stones,
but it would be a little on the tight side.
And this ship, a supertanker, was very big. Indeed, in fact,
(05:00):
it was the thirteenth biggest ship in the world. On
the lighthouse vessel, the two seamen on watch saw the
tanker approaching too.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Have you seen this?
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Have you? Eh? You'll got that big basher coming up.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Gee. Folich could see the huge ship coming straight towards
him as he fished, but he wasn't worried. In between
him and the oncoming juggernaut were the Seven Stones.
Speaker 5 (05:30):
He later said, I was sure that before ever hitting us,
he would go on to the rugs. He yelled to
his men, stop work, You're going to see something extraordinary.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
All seven of them lined up on the rail of
Marta Christi to watch the oil tanker bear closer and
closer four miles three miles. Folich was sure it was doomed.
It just wasn't possible to turn a super tanker that quickly,
was it? Actually, Folich wasn't quite right. The tanker, whose
(06:07):
name was Torry, did still have room to turn. This
wasn't a storm tossed fleet of sailing ships fumbling through
the darkness. The weather was good, the visibility was good.
Tory Canyon was a superb ship, in fine working order
and armed with radar. The seven Stones were clearly marked
(06:29):
on every chart, as well as being identified by the
position of the lighthouse vessel. But Tory Canyon still wasn't turning.
Gathered close and listened to my cautionary tale. Nobody knew
(06:56):
it at the time, but the trouble all started with
a radio message from milford Haven, the harbor towards which
Torry Canyon was sailing. Milford Haven is a major UK port,
and the thing you need to know about in the
UK is that the difference between high tide and low
tide can be enormous. What's more, there are high tides
(07:16):
and high tides, some are higher than others. The message
from milford Haven was simple enough. Torry Canyon needed to hurry.
If the ship didn't arrive by eleven pm on Saturday evening,
March the eighteenth, nineteen sixty seven, it would miss the
extra high tide and wouldn't be able to slip into
(07:36):
the harbor and dock. It would then have to wait
another six days before the tide would once more be
high enough. Missing the eleven pm deadline would mean a
very expensive delay. That news put Captain Pastrengo Ruggiati under pressure.
He had no more than one or two hours margin,
(07:58):
not a lot, but Ruggati had coped with worse. He'd
been a navigator on an Italian submarine during the war,
had survived a German prison camp, and had been commanding
oil bill tankers for twenty years. Captain Ruggiati was in
many ways a genial fellow, chatty and hospitable. He liked
to eat good food, but insisted he shouldn't be served
(08:19):
anything that wasn't available to his crew. As a result,
the men on Torry Canyon ate very well. But Ruggiati
was also a details man who kept a close eye
on his officers.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
Ruggiatti was extremely conscientious. He was a man who wanted
to know absolutely everything.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Perhaps because of that, Ruggiati stayed up late on the
Friday night before landfall, preparing the paperwork for when they docked.
It was only at half past three in the morning
that he went to bed, leaving instructions that he was
to be awakened first thing when the Isles of Silly
were sighted. It was half past six in the morning
when the Isles of Silly appeared on the radar, about
(09:00):
thirty five miles away. First Officer Silvano Bonfiglio was on duty,
and the position of the ship relative to the Isles
of Scilly was an un pleasant surprise. Torry canyon plowing
through the night across the ocean had been pushed off
its intended course by the current and the winds. It
was now headed between the islands and the mainland. Bonfilio
(09:24):
immediately changed course, steering away from the channel, figuring that
Captain Ruggati had intended to pass outside of the islands,
but he hedged his bets. Rather than heading out to
sea or closer to the mainland, he was bearing straight
towards the Isles of Scilly. He then woke up Captain Ruggati.
(09:45):
Rugiati was angry Was it because Bonfilio had changed course
without checking? Was it because the new course was neither
one thing nor another? Or was he just sleep deprived?
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Will our original heading of eighteen degrees be free of
the Sillies?
Speaker 4 (10:00):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Then continue on course eighteen degrees. I intend to pass
to the starboard of the Silly Isles.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Bonfilio was so surprised he had to check that it
understood the order, which irritated Rugiati. Still further still, a
maneuver shouldn't be too perilous. It was perfectly possible to
get even a large ship through. The standard manual for
(10:28):
navigating the waters around the coast of the British Isles
is called the Channel Pilot. If Captain Rugiati had consulted
a copy, here's what it would have said.
Speaker 6 (10:37):
The actual width of the channel between the nearest of
the Silly Islands and Land's End is twenty one miles,
but as the route taken by all large vessels should
be eastward of seven stones light vessel, the navigable channel
can only be considered as twelve miles wide. The lights
render the passage perfectly simple at night as well as
by day in ordinarily clear weather, but as there is
(11:00):
no part of the coast of England more subject to
sudden changes of weather, the greatest vigilance is necessary, and
a vessel's position, even in the clearest weather, should be
checked by cross bearings at short intervals.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
But Captain Ruggiati Alas did not have a copy of
the channel pilot on board, and so he missed two
important pieces of wisdom. First, if you want to go
between the Isles of Silly and the mainland, be careful. Second,
pass between the mainland and the seven Stones. There is
(11:34):
an alternative route between the seven Stones and the Isles
of Silly themselves, but the channel pilot doesn't mention it
because it's narrower, six and a half miles wide rather
than twelve. Why take the narrower channel when you could
take the broader one. Of course, you could still fit
an oil tanker through the narrower gap, even an oil
tanker that's nearly as big as the Chrysler building, but
(11:57):
you'd be cutting it close. You'd be better and nothing
went wrong. Inertia is a powerful thing. That's true for
(12:23):
an oil tanker the size of Torry Canyon, which needed
nearly five minutes to make a ninety degree turn, during
which time it would travel a mile and a half
at cruising speed. But inertia is a powerful thing for
humans too. We also sometimes struggle to change course. Psychologists
have identified a strong bias towards the status quo. For example,
(12:47):
whether we sign up for a workplace pension plan or
not seems to depend on whatever the status quo is.
If the default option is to sign up, we sign up.
If the default is to stay out, we stay out.
As I say, inertia is powerful. Psychologists who study accidents
have a name for a particular form of inertia. They
(13:10):
call it plan continuation bias. It's best known in aviation.
Pilots form a plan and then are reluctant to change it,
even if the circumstances suggest they should. The pilots themselves
have another name for it, get their itis. The classic
form of get their itis is an approach to an
(13:32):
airfield with a storm coming in. If you land well
before the storm arrives, no problem. If the storm arrives
before you land, that's not a crisis either. It's a hassle.
You have to divert to another airfield, with all the delay,
expense and annoyance that implies, but you do it because
you don't want to fly into a dangerous storm. The
(13:56):
risk comes when the storm is closing in, but there's
still a window of opportunity to land. The landing strip
is so close, just minutes away. Tunnel vision sets in,
people start to hurry, Margins for error are stripped away.
Usually there's no harm done. The pilot lands just as
the storm rips across and congratulates himself or herself for
(14:20):
keeping cool and sharing skill under pressure. But sometimes the
consequences are more serious. One study of get their Itis
looked at twenty occasions when thunderstorms had closed in at
Hartsfield Jackson, at Lanta's major international airport, Again and again,
pilots decided to chance a risky landing, risky in the
(14:43):
sense that the Federal Aviation Administration's official guidelines would have
advised against it. One plane after another would land under
ever more perilous conditions, until eventually one flight crew would
resist the inertia and decide to divert elsewhere. At that point,
every subsequent plane would also decide to divert. The madness
(15:07):
only ended when some one set an example and change
the plan I'm no airline pilots, but I sometimes suffer
from get their itis in my own life. Perhaps you
do too. For me, it tends to emerge when dealing
with family logistics. I've got three children at two different schools,
(15:30):
and they all have their hobbies and sports and all
the usual things. I'm sure many parents will be familiar
with the plate spinning that this sometimes involves. But then
something goes wrong. The cars in the shop to be repaired,
No problem, we can bike instead. Then someone needs to
be at home to meet the plumber. We make contingency
plans and they seem like they'll be fine, but then
(15:50):
a fresh airrand appeers, or a babysitter calls to cancel.
As complications mount, the plan starts to resemble an increasingly
precarious assembly of stages and steps, lift swaps and rendezvous.
It's a Rube Goldberg fever dream of an itinerary. And then,
if I'm lucky that I or my wife will find
(16:11):
enough headspace to say this is crazy. Someone's going to
have to skip dance class tonight. We'll call a plumber
to see if tomorrow's okay. Instead, we'll replace the entire
time and motion nightmare with something radically simpler. But that's
hard to do because of the inertia, because of the
(16:34):
plan continuation bias, and the more the pressure mounts, the
harder it is to see clearly just how precarious everything
has become. I become so fixated on executing the plan
that I don't have a moment to realize that it's
now a stupid plan. Captain Rouggiati was under pressure to
(16:58):
reach the harbor at Milford Haven in time, and had
been woken with the unwelcome news that the ship was
off course too far towards the mainland. If he'd stopped
to think or to talk to his officers, he would
have realized that he still had time to turn and
go the long way round outside the Aisles of Silly.
(17:19):
He only had an hour or two to spare, but
a brief calculation would have revealed that the detour would
have cost just twenty nine minutes. Yet he didn't pause
to reflect. He snapped at Bonfilio and ordered him to
stick to the course that would now cut inside the
aisles of Silly. Nor did he reflect that since his
(17:39):
ship had already been deflected by the current and the wind,
those forces might well continue to work upon the ship,
moving it out of its intended position. Under time pressure,
he began to suffer get their itis. His plan was risky,
and his plan was not about to change. At eight
(18:01):
eighteen a m, a junior officer calculated their position, this
being the days before GPS. He did it with the
ships charts, a compass bearing, and a radar reading old school,
but the inexperienced officer was anxious. He wasn't convinced he'd
got the ship's position exactly right, but he didn't speak up.
(18:22):
After all, there'd be another chance to take a fix
in ten minutes or so. Captain Ruggiarti wasn't speaking up either,
As the ship steamed north at sixteen knots nearly twenty
miles an hour. He'd already decided which course he would take,
but he hadn't told his crew, which meant that they
hadn't had a chance to comment, and they didn't feel
(18:44):
entitled to ask. Captain Ruggati had actually decided to pass
through the narrow channel, which involved bending the ship's course
in a long, slow curve to the left. Why perhaps
because it was the most direct route, but mostly because well,
why not to me.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
It was this same.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
But should he not.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Have taken just a few more minutes to avoid the
narrow route?
Speaker 3 (19:11):
That was never in my mind.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Never, that's a revealing turn of phrase. Never in my mind.
Pastrengo Rugiati didn't even consider the possibility of going through
the wider channel. And while that might seem strange to
you or me, it's a natural feature of plan continuation
by us. As the tunnel vision develops. We don't even
(19:33):
think about alternatives to our initial plan. We don't have
the bandwidth. We continue to plow on. In two thousand
(19:56):
and five, a young boy was rushed into a hospital
emergency room. He suffered from asthma and he was in distress.
He was finding it harder to breathe and harder and harder,
and then his breathing stopped. The medical team quickly strapped
an oxygen mask on to the boy. That should have helped,
but instead his heart stopped beating two. There were eight
(20:21):
trained medical professionals in the room, taking it in turns
to perform CPR on the boy. Still no pulse, still
no breathing. The minutes ticked by a doctor slierded a
breathing tube down the boy's throat.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Nothing's happening as the tube in position.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
The tube's fine. I checked, is.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
There any pulse?
Speaker 4 (20:41):
Still nothing.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Let's take the breathing tube out and try the airbag again.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
It's not helping. No, it wasn't helping. And the reason
it wasn't helping was because the breathing apparatus was broken.
It would have taken a few seconds to check if
any of the five nurses or three doctors had thought
to check. But they didn't think, not until the boy
(21:05):
had been deprived of oxygen for ten minutes. Thankfully, this
wasn't a tragedy. It was a training exercise. Instead of
a real boy, it was a medical dummy that was
lying on the bed failing to produce a simulated pulse
orce simulated respiration because the medical team didn't step back
(21:26):
and think. This training scenario was conducted nineteen times and
videos of the exercise were studied by Marlis Christiansen, a
professor of organizational behavior and previously a doctor.
Speaker 5 (21:44):
Professor.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Christiansen found that some medical teams took just seconds to
identify the problem with the breathing equipment.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
This isn't working, it's broken.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
That's impressive. But perhaps more impressive were the teams who
started with the wrong theory about the problem, but didn't
get stuck on that idea. They didn't fixate on one
possibility or keep repeating the same approach over and over again.
Talk through what they were thinking and challenge themselves and
each other. They could change course, but not every team
(22:17):
did that. Many teams would hammer away at the same plan,
regardless of the signs that it wasn't going to work.
They didn't step back and think, They didn't talk things through,
They just kept going. Could Captain Rugiati avoid the same fate.
(22:41):
Captain Rujati is now trying to curve his ship through
the narrower channel. He doesn't even have the full six
and a half miles to aim at because he's approaching
at an angle. He's left himself precious little margin for error.
As it is, Torry Kanyon is heading straight for the
submerged rocks at half past eight. As the slow, slow
(23:05):
turn begins, two fishing boats appear on the radar, the
two French Langustiers that are watching the oncoming super tanker
with astonishment. Rugiati had planned to keep turning, but now
he has to ensure he doesn't hit the boats. Suddenly
floats come into view. They are a sign of fishing
nets beneath the surface. Tory Canyon can't possibly avoid them
(23:29):
all and slices through one set of nets. Captain Ruggati
pauses his turn in order not to shred the rest.
He's now heading very close to where he thinks the
stones are, but he still hopes to be able to
resume his turn after passing the nets. But meanwhile, all
the while, the current has been gently, insistently pushing Torry
(23:53):
Canyon closer and closer to the seven Stones. At this point,
Ruggiati seems to have woken up to the danger. He
has precious little room for maneuver. Rather than curving out
of danger, he's heading directly towards the seven Stone. He
was later asked whether he would have been heading that
way if not for the fishing boats and their nets.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
No, only a madman would have followed in northern course.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Ruggiati now knows his heading is dangerous. His plan to
go through the narrow channel is being frustrated, but as
the pressure rises, he can't step back and form a
better plan. Why doesn't he slow down? Why doesn't. He
abandon his plan to turn left into the channel and
instead turned sharply right into deep water.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
That was never in my mind.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Never When get their itis takes hold, there are a
lot of things that should be in our minds but aren't.
At eight thirty eight a m Captain Ruggiati takes a
look at the chance his junior officer has just taken
another bearing. Ruggiati is an old hand. He can see
(25:03):
at once that it can't be right. The cross is
marking the ship's position should be at regular intervals, but
they're not. One of the bearings is wrong. He doesn't
know which. Maybe they're both wrong. Captain Ruzzati doesn't know
where he is. The junior officer takes another bearing with
the captain's help. The new fix shows that the ship
(25:25):
is closer to the seven Stones than they'd realized, less
than three miles. Remember, Torry Canyon takes a mile and
a half to make a ninety degree turn on his trawler.
Watching with horror, Gee Folich has already concluded that it's
all over. Torry Canyon can't possibly avoid the rocks, but
(25:49):
he's wrong. There is still time. There's still time to
turn into deep water. There's even still time to turn
into the channel, which is what pastranger Ruggati has been
trying to do for the last four miles, and so,
even though it doesn't really make sense anymore, that's what
he continues to try to do.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
Hensman can't do the wheel, Yes, Captain hard to part
go to three fifty, Yes, Captain no, take her to
three forty, take her to three twenty.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Rugiati is ordering an ever tighter turn into the channel.
Speaker 4 (26:22):
Captain. Captain, the ship's not turning.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Even now, there's still time. If she's not turning, Captain
Ruggiati needs to think, why isn't the ship turning? Perhaps
the fuel pumps controlling the rudder have broken. Ruggiati has
seen that happen before. He tries to dial the engine room,
but instead he makes the kind of mistake you make
(26:47):
when you've had three hours sleep and you only have
seconds to solve a problem. He calls the officer's dining room.
Speaker 6 (26:54):
Ah, captain, are you ready for breakfast?
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Not good deal?
Speaker 1 (26:59):
God is a pig. That's some serious blasphemy from a
good Italian Catholic. It's the blasphemy of a man who
knows whose time has just run out. There's a photograph
(27:37):
of Pastrengo Rugiati that I can't get out of my head.
He's scrunched up in a confined space, his knees tucked
into his chest as if to protect himself. His eyes
rolled sharply to one side, his face ghoulishly lit from below.
He's wearing a hospital gown and he's hiding under a
(27:58):
hospital bed. That's where he was when the paparazzi found him.
He looks terrified. He's broken. His ship was gone, impaling
itself onto the seven Stones at full speed with a noise.
One crewman said.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
Like a slab of lead being ripped by spikes.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Watching from his trawler, Gi Folich turned to his men.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
That's the end of her. She'll never get off. He
was right.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
The crew escaped safely, but during an attempt to refloat
the ship, there was a huge explosion. One of the
salvage team was killed. By then torry Kanyon's back was
already broken and her underbelly sliced open by the teeth
of the reef. She was bleeding one hundred and nineteen
thousand tons of crude oil into coastal waters. It was
(28:56):
an environmental catastrophe. The oil spill was unprecedented. Even today,
there are places where you can still see the dark
stain on the coast. Torry Canyon was at the time
the largest shipwreck in history and the largest maritime insurance claim.
Ruggiatti took responsibility. He was the captain, and he was,
(29:20):
he said, in charge of.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
The best ship in the world for a ship's captain.
His ship is all and I have lost mine. I
am terrified by the dimensions which the accident has assumed.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
The inquiry was conducted in private. Journalists weren't allowed in,
but the manager of the hotel where the proceedings were
being held told one of them that he had seen
Captain Ruggiati.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
I had a glimpse of this man. I had the
impression of a man finished.
Speaker 6 (29:53):
He very seldom have so strong an impression from so
short of seeing a man.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
I must answer for everything for everyone. I must carry
the cross alone. I wish I could tell the people
of Cornwall how so I am.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
And he really was sorry.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
It was very bad.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
The disaster broke Ruggiati. He spent months in hospital recovering
from the strain and the anxiety and the heartbreak, which
is where the eager photographers found him. A transcript of
the inquiry was leaked to the journalist Richard Petro. The
tanker owners were keen to downplay any fault on their part,
(30:41):
including the fact that the steering had broken in the past,
confusing Captain Ruggati when the ship had failed to turn.
But why had the ship failed to turn in those
last moments? It was a small thing. After Ruggiati had
accidentally called the officer's dining room and slammed down the receiver,
(31:01):
he looked across the bridge. From his position by the telephone,
he could see that someone had inadvertently knocked the steering
control lever. The ship's steering had simply been disconnected. All
Ruggiati needed to do was switch the lever back and
drag Torry Canyon over to port, but he'd lost time.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
With thirty seconds more to maneuver, I could have avoided
the rocks.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Ruggiati had made a plan, and as one small problem
after another made the plan riskier and riskier, he hadn't
been able to adjust.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Many little things added up to one big disaster.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
That's true, the deadline, the currents, the fishing boats, the
error from his junior officer, the steering control. It's bad luck.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
Thirty seconds before the sheep she was saved.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
But the missing thirty seconds aren't what interests me. What
interests me are the two hours that Rouggiati had to
save his Torry Canyon, the best ship in the world.
He had two hours to reroute outside the Isles of Scilly,
two hours to slow the ship down, two hours to
(32:21):
ask for advice or to turn towards the wider channel,
but he didn't do any of those things. After the
exploitative photograph was released, there was a surge of sympathy
for Ruggiati from around the world. People wrote letters of consolation.
One that caught my eye was from a thirteen year
(32:42):
old boy from County Cork in Ireland. I see beautiful tankers,
but I'm sure I've never seen one as beautiful as yours.
I thought and prayed for you. I am sure you
will sail the seas again. Pastrengo Rugiati never did. His
mistake was just too grave, but at the same time
(33:03):
it was also all too human. After all, it's our
nature to be slow to change course you've been listening
to Cautionary Tales. If you'd like to find out more
(33:24):
about the ideas in this episode, including links to our sources,
the show notes are on my website, Timharford dot com.
Cautionary Tales is written and presented by me, Tim Harford.
Our producers are Ryan Dilly and Marilyn Rust. The sound
designer and mixer was Pascal Wise, who also composed the
(33:44):
amazing music. This season stars Alan Cumming, Archie Panchabi, Toby
Stephens and Russell Tovey, with Ensochilente, Ed Gochen, Melanie Gutteridge,
Mercier Munroe, Rufus Wright and introducing Malcolm Gladwell. Thanks to
the team at Pushkin Industries, Julia Barton, Heather Fame, Mia LaBelle,
(34:08):
Carli Milor, Jacob Weisberg, and of course the mighty Malcolm Gladwell.
And thanks to my colleagues at The Financial Times,
Pushkin in twenty nineteen, the year that Cautionary Tales developed
from an unsettling thought to a fully fledged new show.
I was on the lookout for disasters, and there are
a few catastrophes more compelling than the wreck of Torry Kanyon.
(00:36):
It's partly the shattering environmental impact of the error, It's
partly the tragic figure of Captain Pastrengo Rugiati. But above all,
what compels me about this story is all the things
Tory Kanyon represents as it plows towards an obvious disaster,
and yet, for some mystifying reason, doesn't seem to be
(00:59):
able to change course. We've all set a course for
disaster at some stage in our lives, and we've all
struggled to admit it until it's too late. We have
a treasure chest full of cautionary Tales to bring you
in twenty twenty four, but we also need to take
a short rest. So the next two episodes will be
(01:20):
classics from our Cautionary Tales vault. I hope you enjoy them.
Starting with the very first episode of Cautionary Tales that
was ever released, Danger Rocks Ahead.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
We pray thee Lord not that rex should happen, but
that if any rex do happen, thou wilt guide them
to the Silly Isles for the benefit of the poor inhabitants.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
That's an old prayer from the Isles of Silly. The
isles are just off the coast of Cornwall, the southwest
tip of Great Britain, and that prayer has been answered
many times. The rocks around the islands have a fearsome
reputation and it's well earned. One autumn night in seventeen
oh seven, the Royal Navy lost its way in a storm.
(02:21):
The flagship HMS Association struck a rock and went down.
In minutes. Eight hundred men drowned behind it. HMS Saint
George hit the rocks and became stuck. So did HMS Phoenix,
so did HMS Firebrown. HMS Romney lost her entire crew.
HMS Eagle was shattered on the cruel stone. Hundreds more
(02:45):
sailors died. That dreadful night was one of the worst
disasters in the history of the British Navy. Local legend
has it that there was one notable survivor that the
Commander in Chief of the British Fleets, Sir Cloudsley shovel
(03:08):
was washed up on the beach of the Isles of Silly,
but was strangled by a local woman who fancied wearing
his emerald ring herself. If she had been praying the
old prayer God or the devil had been listening, it
is a dark tale that the story I shall tell
(03:29):
you today is a far stranger one. It was sometime
after dawn on Saturday March the eighteenth, nineteen sixty seven.
Martyr Christie was a langustier, a French lobster boat, fishing
for crayfish and crab between the mainland and the Isles
(03:51):
of Silly. Twenty one miles further west on deck was
Captain ghee Folich, another langustier, was nearby, both of them
enjoying rich pickings a few hundred yards north of the
Seven Stones. The Seven Stones make up a vicious reef
about one third of the way between the Isles of
Silly and the mainland. At low tide, the unyielding rocks
(04:15):
are visible, but even at high tide they're marked by
a lighthouse vessel warning ships to stay away. Githolich looked
up from his lobster lions to see an unexpected sight,
a vast black hull coming over the horizon from an
unusual direction. He was surprised. A major vessel in that
(04:36):
position would usually have passed outside of the Isles of Scilly,
rather than squeezing between them and the mainland. True, a
big ship could come between the isles of Silly and
the mainland, passing on either side of the Seven Stones,
but it would be a little on the tight side.
And this ship, a supertanker, was very big. Indeed, in fact,
(05:00):
it was the thirteenth biggest ship in the world. On
the lighthouse vessel, the two seamen on watch saw the
tanker approaching too.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Have you seen this?
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Have you? Eh? You'll got that big basher coming up.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Gee. Folich could see the huge ship coming straight towards
him as he fished, but he wasn't worried. In between
him and the oncoming juggernaut were the Seven Stones.
Speaker 5 (05:30):
He later said, I was sure that before ever hitting us,
he would go on to the rugs. He yelled to
his men, stop work, You're going to see something extraordinary.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
All seven of them lined up on the rail of
Marta Christi to watch the oil tanker bear closer and
closer four miles three miles. Folich was sure it was doomed.
It just wasn't possible to turn a super tanker that quickly,
was it? Actually, Folich wasn't quite right. The tanker, whose
(06:07):
name was Torry, did still have room to turn. This
wasn't a storm tossed fleet of sailing ships fumbling through
the darkness. The weather was good, the visibility was good.
Tory Canyon was a superb ship, in fine working order
and armed with radar. The seven Stones were clearly marked
(06:29):
on every chart, as well as being identified by the
position of the lighthouse vessel. But Tory Canyon still wasn't turning.
Gathered close and listened to my cautionary tale. Nobody knew
(06:56):
it at the time, but the trouble all started with
a radio message from milford Haven, the harbor towards which
Torry Canyon was sailing. Milford Haven is a major UK port,
and the thing you need to know about in the
UK is that the difference between high tide and low
tide can be enormous. What's more, there are high tides
(07:16):
and high tides, some are higher than others. The message
from milford Haven was simple enough. Torry Canyon needed to hurry.
If the ship didn't arrive by eleven pm on Saturday evening,
March the eighteenth, nineteen sixty seven, it would miss the
extra high tide and wouldn't be able to slip into
(07:36):
the harbor and dock. It would then have to wait
another six days before the tide would once more be
high enough. Missing the eleven pm deadline would mean a
very expensive delay. That news put Captain Pastrengo Ruggiati under pressure.
He had no more than one or two hours margin,
(07:58):
not a lot, but Ruggati had coped with worse. He'd
been a navigator on an Italian submarine during the war,
had survived a German prison camp, and had been commanding
oil bill tankers for twenty years. Captain Ruggiati was in
many ways a genial fellow, chatty and hospitable. He liked
to eat good food, but insisted he shouldn't be served
(08:19):
anything that wasn't available to his crew. As a result,
the men on Torry Canyon ate very well. But Ruggiati
was also a details man who kept a close eye
on his officers.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
Ruggiatti was extremely conscientious. He was a man who wanted
to know absolutely everything.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Perhaps because of that, Ruggiati stayed up late on the
Friday night before landfall, preparing the paperwork for when they docked.
It was only at half past three in the morning
that he went to bed, leaving instructions that he was
to be awakened first thing when the Isles of Silly
were sighted. It was half past six in the morning
when the Isles of Silly appeared on the radar, about
(09:00):
thirty five miles away. First Officer Silvano Bonfiglio was on duty,
and the position of the ship relative to the Isles
of Scilly was an un pleasant surprise. Torry canyon plowing
through the night across the ocean had been pushed off
its intended course by the current and the winds. It
was now headed between the islands and the mainland. Bonfilio
(09:24):
immediately changed course, steering away from the channel, figuring that
Captain Ruggati had intended to pass outside of the islands,
but he hedged his bets. Rather than heading out to
sea or closer to the mainland, he was bearing straight
towards the Isles of Scilly. He then woke up Captain Ruggati.
(09:45):
Rugiati was angry Was it because Bonfilio had changed course
without checking? Was it because the new course was neither
one thing nor another? Or was he just sleep deprived?
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Will our original heading of eighteen degrees be free of
the Sillies?
Speaker 4 (10:00):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Then continue on course eighteen degrees. I intend to pass
to the starboard of the Silly Isles.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Bonfilio was so surprised he had to check that it
understood the order, which irritated Rugiati. Still further still, a
maneuver shouldn't be too perilous. It was perfectly possible to
get even a large ship through. The standard manual for
(10:28):
navigating the waters around the coast of the British Isles
is called the Channel Pilot. If Captain Rugiati had consulted
a copy, here's what it would have said.
Speaker 6 (10:37):
The actual width of the channel between the nearest of
the Silly Islands and Land's End is twenty one miles,
but as the route taken by all large vessels should
be eastward of seven stones light vessel, the navigable channel
can only be considered as twelve miles wide. The lights
render the passage perfectly simple at night as well as
by day in ordinarily clear weather, but as there is
(11:00):
no part of the coast of England more subject to
sudden changes of weather, the greatest vigilance is necessary, and
a vessel's position, even in the clearest weather, should be
checked by cross bearings at short intervals.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
But Captain Ruggiati Alas did not have a copy of
the channel pilot on board, and so he missed two
important pieces of wisdom. First, if you want to go
between the Isles of Silly and the mainland, be careful. Second,
pass between the mainland and the seven Stones. There is
(11:34):
an alternative route between the seven Stones and the Isles
of Silly themselves, but the channel pilot doesn't mention it
because it's narrower, six and a half miles wide rather
than twelve. Why take the narrower channel when you could
take the broader one. Of course, you could still fit
an oil tanker through the narrower gap, even an oil
tanker that's nearly as big as the Chrysler building, but
(11:57):
you'd be cutting it close. You'd be better and nothing
went wrong. Inertia is a powerful thing. That's true for
(12:23):
an oil tanker the size of Torry Canyon, which needed
nearly five minutes to make a ninety degree turn, during
which time it would travel a mile and a half
at cruising speed. But inertia is a powerful thing for
humans too. We also sometimes struggle to change course. Psychologists
have identified a strong bias towards the status quo. For example,
(12:47):
whether we sign up for a workplace pension plan or
not seems to depend on whatever the status quo is.
If the default option is to sign up, we sign up.
If the default is to stay out, we stay out.
As I say, inertia is powerful. Psychologists who study accidents
have a name for a particular form of inertia. They
(13:10):
call it plan continuation bias. It's best known in aviation.
Pilots form a plan and then are reluctant to change it,
even if the circumstances suggest they should. The pilots themselves
have another name for it, get their itis. The classic
form of get their itis is an approach to an
(13:32):
airfield with a storm coming in. If you land well
before the storm arrives, no problem. If the storm arrives
before you land, that's not a crisis either. It's a hassle.
You have to divert to another airfield, with all the delay,
expense and annoyance that implies, but you do it because
you don't want to fly into a dangerous storm. The
(13:56):
risk comes when the storm is closing in, but there's
still a window of opportunity to land. The landing strip
is so close, just minutes away. Tunnel vision sets in,
people start to hurry, Margins for error are stripped away.
Usually there's no harm done. The pilot lands just as
the storm rips across and congratulates himself or herself for
(14:20):
keeping cool and sharing skill under pressure. But sometimes the
consequences are more serious. One study of get their Itis
looked at twenty occasions when thunderstorms had closed in at
Hartsfield Jackson, at Lanta's major international airport, Again and again,
pilots decided to chance a risky landing, risky in the
(14:43):
sense that the Federal Aviation Administration's official guidelines would have
advised against it. One plane after another would land under
ever more perilous conditions, until eventually one flight crew would
resist the inertia and decide to divert elsewhere. At that point,
every subsequent plane would also decide to divert. The madness
(15:07):
only ended when some one set an example and change
the plan I'm no airline pilots, but I sometimes suffer
from get their itis in my own life. Perhaps you
do too. For me, it tends to emerge when dealing
with family logistics. I've got three children at two different schools,
(15:30):
and they all have their hobbies and sports and all
the usual things. I'm sure many parents will be familiar
with the plate spinning that this sometimes involves. But then
something goes wrong. The cars in the shop to be repaired,
No problem, we can bike instead. Then someone needs to
be at home to meet the plumber. We make contingency
plans and they seem like they'll be fine, but then
(15:50):
a fresh airrand appeers, or a babysitter calls to cancel.
As complications mount, the plan starts to resemble an increasingly
precarious assembly of stages and steps, lift swaps and rendezvous.
It's a Rube Goldberg fever dream of an itinerary. And then,
if I'm lucky that I or my wife will find
(16:11):
enough headspace to say this is crazy. Someone's going to
have to skip dance class tonight. We'll call a plumber
to see if tomorrow's okay. Instead, we'll replace the entire
time and motion nightmare with something radically simpler. But that's
hard to do because of the inertia, because of the
(16:34):
plan continuation bias, and the more the pressure mounts, the
harder it is to see clearly just how precarious everything
has become. I become so fixated on executing the plan
that I don't have a moment to realize that it's
now a stupid plan. Captain Rouggiati was under pressure to
(16:58):
reach the harbor at Milford Haven in time, and had
been woken with the unwelcome news that the ship was
off course too far towards the mainland. If he'd stopped
to think or to talk to his officers, he would
have realized that he still had time to turn and
go the long way round outside the Aisles of Silly.
(17:19):
He only had an hour or two to spare, but
a brief calculation would have revealed that the detour would
have cost just twenty nine minutes. Yet he didn't pause
to reflect. He snapped at Bonfilio and ordered him to
stick to the course that would now cut inside the
aisles of Silly. Nor did he reflect that since his
(17:39):
ship had already been deflected by the current and the wind,
those forces might well continue to work upon the ship,
moving it out of its intended position. Under time pressure,
he began to suffer get their itis. His plan was risky,
and his plan was not about to change. At eight
(18:01):
eighteen a m, a junior officer calculated their position, this
being the days before GPS. He did it with the
ships charts, a compass bearing, and a radar reading old school,
but the inexperienced officer was anxious. He wasn't convinced he'd
got the ship's position exactly right, but he didn't speak up.
(18:22):
After all, there'd be another chance to take a fix
in ten minutes or so. Captain Ruggiarti wasn't speaking up either,
As the ship steamed north at sixteen knots nearly twenty
miles an hour. He'd already decided which course he would take,
but he hadn't told his crew, which meant that they
hadn't had a chance to comment, and they didn't feel
(18:44):
entitled to ask. Captain Ruggati had actually decided to pass
through the narrow channel, which involved bending the ship's course
in a long, slow curve to the left. Why perhaps
because it was the most direct route, but mostly because well,
why not to me.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
It was this same.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
But should he not.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Have taken just a few more minutes to avoid the
narrow route?
Speaker 3 (19:11):
That was never in my mind.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Never, that's a revealing turn of phrase. Never in my mind.
Pastrengo Rugiati didn't even consider the possibility of going through
the wider channel. And while that might seem strange to
you or me, it's a natural feature of plan continuation
by us. As the tunnel vision develops. We don't even
(19:33):
think about alternatives to our initial plan. We don't have
the bandwidth. We continue to plow on. In two thousand
(19:56):
and five, a young boy was rushed into a hospital
emergency room. He suffered from asthma and he was in distress.
He was finding it harder to breathe and harder and harder,
and then his breathing stopped. The medical team quickly strapped
an oxygen mask on to the boy. That should have helped,
but instead his heart stopped beating two. There were eight
(20:21):
trained medical professionals in the room, taking it in turns
to perform CPR on the boy. Still no pulse, still
no breathing. The minutes ticked by a doctor slierded a
breathing tube down the boy's throat.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Nothing's happening as the tube in position.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
The tube's fine. I checked, is.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
There any pulse?
Speaker 4 (20:41):
Still nothing.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Let's take the breathing tube out and try the airbag again.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
It's not helping. No, it wasn't helping. And the reason
it wasn't helping was because the breathing apparatus was broken.
It would have taken a few seconds to check if
any of the five nurses or three doctors had thought
to check. But they didn't think, not until the boy
(21:05):
had been deprived of oxygen for ten minutes. Thankfully, this
wasn't a tragedy. It was a training exercise. Instead of
a real boy, it was a medical dummy that was
lying on the bed failing to produce a simulated pulse
orce simulated respiration because the medical team didn't step back
(21:26):
and think. This training scenario was conducted nineteen times and
videos of the exercise were studied by Marlis Christiansen, a
professor of organizational behavior and previously a doctor.
Speaker 5 (21:44):
Professor.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Christiansen found that some medical teams took just seconds to
identify the problem with the breathing equipment.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
This isn't working, it's broken.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
That's impressive. But perhaps more impressive were the teams who
started with the wrong theory about the problem, but didn't
get stuck on that idea. They didn't fixate on one
possibility or keep repeating the same approach over and over again.
Talk through what they were thinking and challenge themselves and
each other. They could change course, but not every team
(22:17):
did that. Many teams would hammer away at the same plan,
regardless of the signs that it wasn't going to work.
They didn't step back and think, They didn't talk things through,
They just kept going. Could Captain Rugiati avoid the same fate.
(22:41):
Captain Rujati is now trying to curve his ship through
the narrower channel. He doesn't even have the full six
and a half miles to aim at because he's approaching
at an angle. He's left himself precious little margin for error.
As it is, Torry Kanyon is heading straight for the
submerged rocks at half past eight. As the slow, slow
(23:05):
turn begins, two fishing boats appear on the radar, the
two French Langustiers that are watching the oncoming super tanker
with astonishment. Rugiati had planned to keep turning, but now
he has to ensure he doesn't hit the boats. Suddenly
floats come into view. They are a sign of fishing
nets beneath the surface. Tory Canyon can't possibly avoid them
(23:29):
all and slices through one set of nets. Captain Ruggati
pauses his turn in order not to shred the rest.
He's now heading very close to where he thinks the
stones are, but he still hopes to be able to
resume his turn after passing the nets. But meanwhile, all
the while, the current has been gently, insistently pushing Torry
(23:53):
Canyon closer and closer to the seven Stones. At this point,
Ruggiati seems to have woken up to the danger. He
has precious little room for maneuver. Rather than curving out
of danger, he's heading directly towards the seven Stone. He
was later asked whether he would have been heading that
way if not for the fishing boats and their nets.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
No, only a madman would have followed in northern course.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Ruggiati now knows his heading is dangerous. His plan to
go through the narrow channel is being frustrated, but as
the pressure rises, he can't step back and form a
better plan. Why doesn't he slow down? Why doesn't. He
abandon his plan to turn left into the channel and
instead turned sharply right into deep water.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
That was never in my mind.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Never When get their itis takes hold, there are a
lot of things that should be in our minds but aren't.
At eight thirty eight a m Captain Ruggiati takes a
look at the chance his junior officer has just taken
another bearing. Ruggiati is an old hand. He can see
(25:03):
at once that it can't be right. The cross is
marking the ship's position should be at regular intervals, but
they're not. One of the bearings is wrong. He doesn't
know which. Maybe they're both wrong. Captain Ruzzati doesn't know
where he is. The junior officer takes another bearing with
the captain's help. The new fix shows that the ship
(25:25):
is closer to the seven Stones than they'd realized, less
than three miles. Remember, Torry Canyon takes a mile and
a half to make a ninety degree turn on his trawler.
Watching with horror, Gee Folich has already concluded that it's
all over. Torry Canyon can't possibly avoid the rocks, but
(25:49):
he's wrong. There is still time. There's still time to
turn into deep water. There's even still time to turn
into the channel, which is what pastranger Ruggati has been
trying to do for the last four miles, and so,
even though it doesn't really make sense anymore, that's what
he continues to try to do.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
Hensman can't do the wheel, Yes, Captain hard to part
go to three fifty, Yes, Captain no, take her to
three forty, take her to three twenty.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Rugiati is ordering an ever tighter turn into the channel.
Speaker 4 (26:22):
Captain. Captain, the ship's not turning.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Even now, there's still time. If she's not turning, Captain
Ruggiati needs to think, why isn't the ship turning? Perhaps
the fuel pumps controlling the rudder have broken. Ruggiati has
seen that happen before. He tries to dial the engine room,
but instead he makes the kind of mistake you make
(26:47):
when you've had three hours sleep and you only have
seconds to solve a problem. He calls the officer's dining room.
Speaker 6 (26:54):
Ah, captain, are you ready for breakfast?
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Not good deal?
Speaker 1 (26:59):
God is a pig. That's some serious blasphemy from a
good Italian Catholic. It's the blasphemy of a man who
knows whose time has just run out. There's a photograph
(27:37):
of Pastrengo Rugiati that I can't get out of my head.
He's scrunched up in a confined space, his knees tucked
into his chest as if to protect himself. His eyes
rolled sharply to one side, his face ghoulishly lit from below.
He's wearing a hospital gown and he's hiding under a
(27:58):
hospital bed. That's where he was when the paparazzi found him.
He looks terrified. He's broken. His ship was gone, impaling
itself onto the seven Stones at full speed with a noise.
One crewman said.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
Like a slab of lead being ripped by spikes.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Watching from his trawler, Gi Folich turned to his men.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
That's the end of her. She'll never get off. He
was right.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
The crew escaped safely, but during an attempt to refloat
the ship, there was a huge explosion. One of the
salvage team was killed. By then torry Kanyon's back was
already broken and her underbelly sliced open by the teeth
of the reef. She was bleeding one hundred and nineteen
thousand tons of crude oil into coastal waters. It was
(28:56):
an environmental catastrophe. The oil spill was unprecedented. Even today,
there are places where you can still see the dark
stain on the coast. Torry Canyon was at the time
the largest shipwreck in history and the largest maritime insurance claim.
Ruggiatti took responsibility. He was the captain, and he was,
(29:20):
he said, in charge of.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
The best ship in the world for a ship's captain.
His ship is all and I have lost mine. I
am terrified by the dimensions which the accident has assumed.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
The inquiry was conducted in private. Journalists weren't allowed in,
but the manager of the hotel where the proceedings were
being held told one of them that he had seen
Captain Ruggiati.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
I had a glimpse of this man. I had the
impression of a man finished.
Speaker 6 (29:53):
He very seldom have so strong an impression from so
short of seeing a man.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
I must answer for everything for everyone. I must carry
the cross alone. I wish I could tell the people
of Cornwall how so I am.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
And he really was sorry.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
It was very bad.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
The disaster broke Ruggiati. He spent months in hospital recovering
from the strain and the anxiety and the heartbreak, which
is where the eager photographers found him. A transcript of
the inquiry was leaked to the journalist Richard Petro. The
tanker owners were keen to downplay any fault on their part,
(30:41):
including the fact that the steering had broken in the past,
confusing Captain Ruggati when the ship had failed to turn.
But why had the ship failed to turn in those
last moments? It was a small thing. After Ruggiati had
accidentally called the officer's dining room and slammed down the receiver,
(31:01):
he looked across the bridge. From his position by the telephone,
he could see that someone had inadvertently knocked the steering
control lever. The ship's steering had simply been disconnected. All
Ruggiati needed to do was switch the lever back and
drag Torry Canyon over to port, but he'd lost time.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
With thirty seconds more to maneuver, I could have avoided
the rocks.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Ruggiati had made a plan, and as one small problem
after another made the plan riskier and riskier, he hadn't
been able to adjust.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Many little things added up to one big disaster.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
That's true, the deadline, the currents, the fishing boats, the
error from his junior officer, the steering control. It's bad luck.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
Thirty seconds before the sheep she was saved.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
But the missing thirty seconds aren't what interests me. What
interests me are the two hours that Rouggiati had to
save his Torry Canyon, the best ship in the world.
He had two hours to reroute outside the Isles of Scilly,
two hours to slow the ship down, two hours to
(32:21):
ask for advice or to turn towards the wider channel,
but he didn't do any of those things. After the
exploitative photograph was released, there was a surge of sympathy
for Ruggiati from around the world. People wrote letters of consolation.
One that caught my eye was from a thirteen year
(32:42):
old boy from County Cork in Ireland. I see beautiful tankers,
but I'm sure I've never seen one as beautiful as yours.
I thought and prayed for you. I am sure you
will sail the seas again. Pastrengo Rugiati never did. His
mistake was just too grave, but at the same time
(33:03):
it was also all too human. After all, it's our
nature to be slow to change course you've been listening
to Cautionary Tales. If you'd like to find out more
(33:24):
about the ideas in this episode, including links to our sources,
the show notes are on my website, Timharford dot com.
Cautionary Tales is written and presented by me, Tim Harford.
Our producers are Ryan Dilly and Marilyn Rust. The sound
designer and mixer was Pascal Wise, who also composed the
(33:44):
amazing music. This season stars Alan Cumming, Archie Panchabi, Toby
Stephens and Russell Tovey, with Ensochilente, Ed Gochen, Melanie Gutteridge,
Mercier Munroe, Rufus Wright and introducing Malcolm Gladwell. Thanks to
the team at Pushkin Industries, Julia Barton, Heather Fame, Mia LaBelle,
(34:08):
Carli Milor, Jacob Weisberg, and of course the mighty Malcolm Gladwell.
And thanks to my colleagues at The Financial Times,
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