The Tale of Dirty, Old, Leaky Zalinski

Brigadier General M. G. Zalinski sank off the coast of British Columbia in 1946. Full of munitions and fuel, it began leaking oil nearly six decades later.
"An officer aboard the United States Army transport ship Brigadier General M. G. Zalinski described an autumn rainstorm on British Columbia’s north coast as a fluid wall 'so heavy that one could not distinguish rain drops falling.' Even the steel bow of the 76.5-meter ship disappeared from his view. The ship was on a routine mission in 1946 to deliver military and general cargo from Seattle, Washington, to Whittier, Alaska, a 2,500-kilometer voyage north. The crew navigated without radar, an important, but nascent, technology in the Second World War. Instead, they used echoes from the ship’s whistle to indicate proximity to shore in tight passages. The ship found safe anchorage in British Columbia’s Inside Passage—but not for long. ..."
Hakai Magazine (Audio)

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