MV Argo Merchant

MV Argo Merchant was a Liberian-flagged oil tanker built by Howaldtswerke in Hamburg, Germany in 1953, most noted for running aground and subsequently sinking southeast of Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, causing one of the largest marine oil spills in history. Throughout the vessel's troubled past, she was involved in more than a dozen major shipping incidents including two other groundings; once in Indonesia while named Permina Samudra III, and again in Sicily while named Vari; as well as a collision in Japan. Because of her checkered career and sinking, Argo Merchant was featured in the "worst ship" category in the 1979 publication, The Book of Heroic Failures.