MT Vector

Also known as: Vector (post-1980 renaming, before December 1987) · Oil Nic-II (name at completion, 1980)

Definition

The MT Vector was a small Philippine-registered motor tanker — 629 gross register tons, 51.7 meters long, built at Manila by Navotas Industrial Corp in 1980 as the Oil Nic-II and renamed Vector before December 1987 — whose collision with the passenger ferry MV Doña Paz in the Tablas Strait on the night of December 20, 1987 produced the deadliest peacetime maritime disaster in history, the catastrophe this wiki’s entry on the MV Doña Paz records. (Wikipedia — MT Vector, Wikipedia — MV Doña Paz) Owned by Vector Shipping Corporation with Francisco Soriano as her registered operator, the tanker had left Limay, Bataan, at about eight in the evening of December 19, 1987 carrying 8,800 barrels of gasoline, kerosene, diesel, and crude oil owned by Caltex (Philippines), Inc. under a voyage charter, bound for Masbate with a crew of thirteen; at about 10:30 p.m. on December 20 she collided with the ferry near Dumali Point, between Marinduque and Oriental Mindoro, her cargo ignited, and both ships burned and sank — the Doña Paz within two hours, the Vector within four, in roughly 545 meters of water. (LawPhil — Caltex v. Sulpicio Lines, Wikipedia — MT Vector)

The tanker’s condition became the disaster’s legal centerpiece. The Board of Marine Inquiry (Case No. 659-87, March 22, 1988) found the MT Vector, her registered operator, and her owner at fault for the collision, and the record before the courts showed her unlicensed and unseaworthy: the officer of the watch held only a Minor Patron’s license valid for bays and rivers, the chief engineer was unlicensed, there was no lookout, the Certificate of Inspection had expired on December 7, 1987 — thirteen days before the collision — and the ignition system was defective. (LawPhil — Caltex v. Sulpicio Lines, LawPhil — Vector Shipping v. Macasa) Only two of her thirteen crew survived the fire. (Wikipedia — MT Vector, Wikipedia — MV Doña Paz)

Identities

Authority	Value
Wikipedia	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MT_Vector
Wikidata	N/A
DBpedia	https://dbpedia.org/page/MT_Vector
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	N/A
Library of Congress Subject Headings	N/A
MeSH	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A
AGROVOC	N/A
Google Scholar	MT Vector oil tanker Vector Shipping Corporation 1987 Doña Paz Tablas Strait collision unseaworthy Caltex charter Board of Marine Inquiry indemnity
ConceptNet	N/A
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

Vector (post-1980 renaming, before December 1987)
Oil Nic-II (name at completion, 1980)

Examples and Analogies

A floating gas cylinder without a watchkeeper: an 8,800-barrel gasoline cargo, an expired inspection certificate, an unlicensed engine officer, and no lookout — the configuration a court would later describe as negligence itself, afloat in the busiest strait of the archipelago’s Christmas trade. (LawPhil — Caltex v. Sulpicio Lines, LawPhil — Vector Shipping v. Macasa)
The charterer who did not have to check: Caltex hired the vessel for a single voyage and, the Supreme Court held, had no legal duty to verify her compliance with manning and inspection laws — the allocation of seaworthiness responsibility that cleared the oil company and fixed the loss on her owners. (LawPhil — Caltex v. Sulpicio Lines)
Verified record:
Built: Manila, by Navotas Industrial Corp; completed April 19, 1980, as Oil Nic-II; IMO 8427632; port of registry Manila
Size: 629 GRT; length 51.7 m; beam 11.6 m; 250 bhp, triple screw
Ownership: Vector Shipping Corporation; registered operator Francisco Soriano
Final voyage: departed Limay, Bataan, about 8:00 p.m., December 19, 1987, for Masbate; 13 crew; 8,800 barrels of Caltex petroleum products under voyage charter
Collision: about 10:30 p.m., December 20, 1987, near Dumali Point, Tablas Strait; cargo ignited; Doña Paz sank within two hours, Vector within four, in roughly 545 m of water
Survivors: 2 of 13 crew — a second mate and a quartermaster
Inquiry: Board of Marine Inquiry Case No. 659-87, March 22, 1988 — tanker, her owner, and operator at fault
Adjudication: Caltex v. Sulpicio Lines, G.R. No. 131166, September 30, 1999; Vector Shipping Corp. v. Macasa, G.R. No. 160219, July 21, 2008

Usage Scenarios

1. Studying Carrier Liability and Seaworthiness

Law students read the two decisions as a set: in Caltex (Philippines), Inc. v. Sulpicio Lines, Inc. (G.R. No. 131166, September 30, 1999) the Supreme Court held the MT Vector a common carrier bound by the implied warranty of seaworthiness, exonerated Caltex as voyage charterer, and ordered Vector Shipping Corporation and Soriano to reimburse Sulpicio Lines for the indemnities the ferry line paid the victims. (LawPhil — Caltex v. Sulpicio Lines)

2. Tracing the Victims’ Litigation

Researchers of the disaster’s civil record follow Vector Shipping Corporation and Francisco Soriano v. Macasa (G.R. No. 160219, July 21, 2008), where the Court affirmed the award to a family that lost three members — civil indemnity of ₱150,000 for each death, moral and exemplary damages, and attorney’s fees — holding the Vector “unseaworthy… carrying expired coastwise license and permits and… not properly manned,” and her owners jointly and severally liable to reimburse Sulpicio Lines. (LawPhil — Vector Shipping v. Macasa)

3. Researching the Ship Herself

Maritime historians reconstruct the tanker from the standard reference: a 1980 Navotas-built coastwise tramp of 629 GRT, renamed from Oil Nic-II, whose wreck was located by the research vessel RV Petrel — reported in December 2019, lying upright at about 500 meters, some 2,200 meters from the Doña Paz. (Wikipedia — MT Vector)

Strategies

Use the adjudication as the tanker’s biography: because the ship herself is gone, the fullest documented record of her condition is the Supreme Court’s — the manning, licensing, and machinery findings that both decisions recite. (LawPhil — Caltex v. Sulpicio Lines, LawPhil — Vector Shipping v. Macasa)
Keep the charterer question precise: the exoneration of Caltex is the holding on voyage-charter liability — no duty to inspect the chartered vessel’s compliance — not a finding that the cargo was harmless. (LawPhil — Caltex v. Sulpicio Lines)
Attribute the casualty figures to their sources: the death toll belongs to the Doña Paz record and varies with the counting method, while the Vector’s own human ledger is fixed: eleven of thirteen crew dead. (Wikipedia — MV Doña Paz, Wikipedia — MT Vector)
For researchers: the wreck positions come from the 2019 RV Petrel survey as reported in the standard reference; cite the survey rather than secondary restatements. (Wikipedia — MT Vector)

Security and Safety Measures

Licensing and manning as the core regime: the Vector record is the textbook case of the coastwise licensing system — inspection certificates, officer licenses matched to waters and tonnage, lookouts — whose collapse on one small tanker cost more than four thousand lives. (LawPhil — Caltex v. Sulpicio Lines, LawPhil — Vector Shipping v. Macasa)
The implied warranty of seaworthiness: the Court’s allocation of responsibility to the owner and registered operator, whatever the charterer’s commercial role, keeps the duty to furnish a fit vessel with those who operate it. (LawPhil — Caltex v. Sulpicio Lines)
Indemnity follow-through: the reimbursement structure of both decisions ensures the victims’ recoveries are backstopped by the party at fault. (LawPhil — Vector Shipping v. Macasa)

Historical Context

The Vector was seven years old when she burned: built at Manila in 1980 as the Oil Nic-II for the coastwise petroleum trade, renamed Vector, and put under Vector Shipping Corporation with Francisco Soriano as registered operator. (Wikipedia — MT Vector) On December 19, 1987 she loaded Caltex petroleum products at Limay for Masbate; on the second night out, in the Tablas Strait crowded with Christmas shipping, she met the overloaded ferry — the collision, fire, and sinkings killing an estimated 4,385 people in all, the toll this wiki’s MV Doña Paz entry documents with its counts. (LawPhil — Caltex v. Sulpicio Lines, Wikipedia — MV Doña Paz)

The aftermath ran through the Board of Marine Inquiry’s finding of March 22, 1988 and into two decades of litigation settled in Supreme Court decisions of 1999 and 2008, which fixed the disaster’s civil responsibility on the tanker’s owners and operator while exonerating the charterer; the hull itself was found only in 2019, when the RV Petrel reported both wrecks upright and about 2,200 meters apart on the strait’s floor. (LawPhil — Caltex v. Sulpicio Lines, LawPhil — Vector Shipping v. Macasa, Wikipedia — MT Vector)

Challenges and Controversies

Was the Tanker Alone at Fault?

The Board of Marine Inquiry and both Supreme Court decisions laid the collision on the unseaworthy, improperly manned Vector — a record that functioned as Sulpicio Lines’ legal answer to the disaster. Critics then and since have asked whether an overloaded ferry with a manifest far below her true passenger count should bear none of the legal fault — a question the liability decisions did not reach. (LawPhil — Caltex v. Sulpicio Lines, Wikipedia — MV Doña Paz)

The Charterer’s Escape

The exoneration of Caltex — which had chosen the vessel, loaded her with gasoline, and sent her across the strait — rests on the voyage-charter rule that freed it “from liability to third persons in respect of the ship”; the families’ advocates have long contested a regime in which the commercial beneficiary of the voyage answers for nothing about the fitness of the ship it hired. (LawPhil — Caltex v. Sulpicio Lines)

A Fleet of One Document

The Vector’s own particulars — build, dimensions, machinery — survive only in the standard reference and the litigation record, with no independent survey of her condition before the disaster; what is documented about her seaworthiness was established after she sank. (Wikipedia — MT Vector, LawPhil — Vector Shipping v. Macasa)