The ship as seen in the Ellipse-Nelvana adaptation of Land of Black Gold.
The Speedol Star is an oil tanker owned by the Speedol petrol company that appears in Land of Black Gold.
Role in Book[]
Tintin and the Thompsons use this ship to travel from Europe to the port of Khemikhal, Khemed so they can investigate the source of the ill-injected petrol crisis of the story. Tintin served as a radio-telegraphist onboard the vessel while the Thompsons served as deckhands. It was also the ship that Jock McPhee, an associate of the antagonist side of the adventure, was present aboard and was also where he made his multiple attempts to disadvantage and dispatch Tintin and Snowy, only to wind up in complete failure and loss in sanity.
Trivia[]
- The Speedol Star's design is based on the T2-SE-A1 Class Oil Tanker, a type of oil tanker used in the US Merchant Navy during World War II. However, this class of oil tanker had a major design flaw where the metal on the hull would become brittle in cold temperatures and would be prone to metal fatigue and fracture, which played a major part in the sinking of the tankers SS Pendleton and SS Fort Mercer during the Nor'easter Storm of 1952 off the south coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts on the night of the 18th February 1952.
- The sinking of the Pendleton and the rescue of Pendleton's 32 of the 41 crew was regarded as one of the most successful rescues in the history of the US Coast Guard and became the subject of 2009 book, The Finest Hours: The True Story of a Heroic Sea Rescue by Michael J. Tougias and Casey Sherman which was later adapted in the 2016 American action thriller film, The Finest Hours, starring Chris Pine and Casey Affleck.