Annual Ocean Ranger remembrance service held at Gonzaga High
As the 33rd anniversary of the sinking of the Ocean Ranger approaches, Gonzaga High School in St. John's held its annual remembrance ceremony to honour the victims.
The sinking of the Ocean Ranger in 1982 killed all 84 men aboard — 56 of them from Newfoundland and Labrador.
It's Canada's greatest loss at sea since the Second World War.
Students and family members of the victims lit candles and read out the name of each victim during the ceremony.
Nancy Power lost her father in the disaster when she was eight.
Power said she didn't know how to deal with the tragic loss at such a young age.
"If we didn't talk about it people seem to be happier, but once we all talked about it people would be sad and there would be tears on their faces, so I thought the best thing to do is not to talk about it, to press it down and forget about it," she said during Friday's ceremony.
"And of course, you and I all know that is probably the worst thing that a child at that age could have done."
During the ceremony, the room was told the circumstances that led to the deaths of all 84 men working on the oil rig.
"At approximately 8 p.m., a monster wave, 20 metres high, rose from the angry green-black Atlantic," said Stephen Gosse, with Gonzaga.
"There were no survival suits on board the Ranger, and there was no instruction as to how to release the four life boats."
The Ocean Ranger oil rig sank in the Atlantic off the coast of Newfoundland.