Chris Knowles

The Falklands Gambit Chris Knowles

7 August, 2017 It was at the height of a mid-Winter storm in the South Atlantic. Under a full moon, in the middle of the night, the offshore patrol vessel HMS Clyde had maneuvered itself as close to the deep-sea drill rig 10 miles to the Northeast of East Falkland as it dare lest it be tossed against the rig's four forged tubular steel tension legs. Owned by Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales, or YPF, the Argentinian state-owned rig had been pumping oil from the Atlantic seabed within British territorial waters for fifteen months under the terms of an agreement between Great Britain and Argentina's newly-elected president. The Clyde had lowered a 22-foot Pacific rigid inflatable boat into the roiling waters and, with its full complement of Royal Marines on board, it was making full speed toward the structure. The mission of the Special Boat Service, or SBS, team of the United Kingdom Special Forces group was to affix explosive charges to each of the rig's four tension legs, return to the Clyde, and remotely detonate the charges, sending the rig to the ocean floor.