The West of England Club escaped major casualties such as the Costa Concordia, Rena or Prestige during chief executive Peter Spendlove’s watch, but there have been a few moments when it looked as if a disaster was about to strike.
Spendlove recalls being woken one night in 1996 to hear that a panamax bulker had ploughed into a hotel and shopping complex on the banks of the Mississippi near New Orleans and there were many bodies floating in the river.
It
