Patent ID: 8529154

Claim:
An oil recovery system, comprising: at least one buoyant reservoir; means for releasably securing said at least one buoyant reservoir to a hull of an oil tanker; at least one conduit in fluid communication between at least one oil tank housed within the oil tanker and said at least one buoyant reservoir; said at least one conduit including a longitudinal conduit in fluid communication with each one of said at least one oil tank; wherein a lateral conduit in communication with the longitudinal conduit; at least one side hull conduit in communication with the lateral conduit and at least one hull outlet in communication with the at least one side hull conduit for feeding the oil from the plurality of oil tanks to said at least one buoyant reservoir; and means for selectively filling said at least one buoyant reservoir upon detection of an oil spill from the oil tanker, whereby when the oil spill is detected, said at least one buoyant reservoir is released from the hull of the oil tanker into the water and oil from the at least one oil tank is routed to the at least one buoyant reservoir to minimize the size of the oil spill; wherein the at least one oil tank includes a plurality of oil tanks, and said at least one conduit in fluid communication between the at least one oil tank and the at least one buoyant reservoir comprises said longitudinal conduit in fluid communication with each of the plurality of oil tanks, the longitudinal conduit extending along a longitudinal axis defined by the plurality of oil tanks.