BY BOB REISS 7/6/15
It was just after Christmas 2012, and the Kulluk, a 250-foot-high, floating oil-drill rig, swung like a metronome in gale-force winds blowing through the Gulf of Alaska. The tug that had been towing the rig bobbed helplessly in 50-foot waves, her four diesel engines flooded with seawater as the rig’s skeleton crew of 18 drifted toward a barrier island. If the Kulluk hit, it might split open, spilling 143,000 gallons of diesel fuel and 12,000 gallons of hazardous fluids into the waters.