Everyone has that moment where they’re scrambling to finish something that’s of incredible importance before the deadline. Most often these people have been working for weeks, if not months or years, to get everything absolutely perfect. If (or when) those who are desperate enough fail to submit anything, a common refrain is “I could have made it if I had a little more time.”

While unfinished deadlines are rarely deadly, that is not the case for an incident in 1967 with the supertanker SS Torrey Canyon. The tanker had to arrive at the dock by a certain time, or else be delayed by two very costly weeks as the tide would need to be deep enough for the Torrey Canyon to actually dock.

Faced with this pressure, the shipmaster Pastrengo Rugiati put the ship on a very risky course between the notorious shipwreck site the Isles of Scilly and the mainland. Going out to open ocean instead would have still allowed Rugiati to make the deadline, but he didn’t have any of his navigators even start the calculations. He kept on his risky course and only realized how bad it was when he was minutes away from crashing.

Rugiati blamed the lack of last-minute steering for the crash, which had been disconnected from the steering wheel by accident. The resulting oil spill was the worst that the world had seen by that point, and some parts still have not recovered.

In short, Pastrengo Rugiati had succumbed to the pressure of delivering his cargo by a certain deadline and had thus become so tunnel-visioned on his idea of a perfect route that he couldn’t see any other way out before it was too late.

When an approach will not work, it is essential to get an outside perspective to point out the dangers and help find a new way. We can help you realize when an approach will not work, avoiding Rugiati’s pitfalls and making the most of the time you still have.