The first attempt to rescue the crew of the Fedra was halted after the helicopter could not cope with the sheer force of the storm. Then a cradle was dropped from the nearby cliff using a crane positioned on the rocks above the bow, but even that attempt was interrupted in the middle of the night leaving 11 men still stranded in the dark.

'We thought we were going to lose them', admitted one exhausted rescuer. In the end the lift team had only a small break in the weather to get the remaining crew to safety and in a dramatic last minute bid to save them, winched all 11 up the cliff. The mainly Filipino crew were all were released from hospital after checks.

Light at the time, Fedra was carrying some 300 tons of fuel, half of which has created a slick in the Alboran Sea. It appears that this has been controlled and treated without causing pollution on any seashore. The next step will be to remove the remaining fuel from the ship.

Not far away in Algeciras, the bulk carrierTawe had already found itself in difficulties. The vessel suffered engine failure and was driven to shore by the storm, leaking fuel into the Bay of Algeciras.

Tawe was carrying 1,000 metric tons of fuel for its own use at the time of the accident, although the regional government of Andalucia said it had put in place an emergency plan to prevent fuel from reaching the coast, adding that much of it would 'evaporate' at sea without reaching beaches, as diesel is much lighter than crude oil.

Spanish authorities requested the assistance of the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA), which contracted the Algeciras Bay based oil recovery vessel Bahia Tres. On board oil slick detection equipment enabled it to recover a small tonnage of oil.

However, the representative of the central government in Cadiz said on Saturday that the leak from the Tawe had soiled between 300 and 400m of beach in the bay. The crew remained on board the Tawe as the situation remained relatively stable.

It is thought that the grounding will spark calls for tighter controls in the area since it happened just yards away from where the New Flame foundered just a year ago. It is also notable that the Tawe was last detained in August by Chinese inspectors who found 18 deficiencies, including three pertaining to its propulsion systems.