“Horrendous conditions” were the two words used by Captain George Sutherland to describe the weather on the day the Braer oil tanker hit the Shetland coast.
After 25 years the former director of marine operations for Shetland Islands Council still remembers the incident clearly.
Mr Sutherland said the chief executive of the Shetland council called him the morning of the incident asking him why a ship was drifting inshore.
Mr Sutherland said: “When I arrived in the control room it was very clear that it would become a messy disaster unless some miracle happened.”
Throughout that day, Mr Sutherland’s team became more involved in the efforts to save the tanker and its crew.
Conditions became too dangerous and the crew were completely evacuated from the ship as she lay on the rocks of the coast line.
Mr Sutherland said that they were “lucky to be alive” considering the treacherous conditions.
The weather turned out to be a huge help in the oil clean up as big storm waves broke up and dispersed the oil, though many birds did perish.
Mr Sutherland added: “I said at the time with tongue in cheek that we know how to deal with a spill, we just hit it with a hurricane for a few weeks and it will go away.
“I feel immensely lucky that it worked out like that, because if the weather had been less severe it could’ve been a really serious problem.”