The Black Tide — Hammond Innes

The Petros Jupiter lies on the rocks, her tanks ripped open and the seas all around her heavy and dark with the pollution leaking out of her. Living in their tiny cottage on the cliffs by Land's End, Trevor Rodin and his wife Karen have seen it all before - the oil slicks and the seabirds dying. But for them this is the last straw. When Karen takes matters into her own hands, in a desperate bid to rouse the apathetic authorities, there begins an obsessive worldwide search for the one man who knows the truth about the wreck.