The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-Opened

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Vixen said:
A hole in the hull is quite literal I would have thought.
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That's not evidence of a submarine though, is it?

It's like asking someone for evidence that god created the universe and they reply with "Well the universe is here isn't it?".
 
Vixen said:
Arguing from anecdote?
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Applying relevant professional experience -- something I have that you do not. Yet for some reason you seem to think you do, and you seem to think that others must respect you for what you "know." All of a sudden you're an expert in the kinds of damage ships routinely incur, and which wrecks on the seabed might incur, but there is no basis for your denials. By your own admission you are not an expert. But again, your argument boils down to "Because I say so."

And we all know I've addressed your claims to a far greater extent than merely citing personal anecdotes. I've provided alternate failure modes, with examples from the field. I've provided quantitative analyses using the known properties of vessels and even accepting the basic findings of the expert you proffered. You let all that pass in silence because it's true you're not an expert. You're not even an objective questioner. You're pushing a particular conspiracy theory that just happens to be ludicrously farfetched, and "Because I say so" is a poor way to convince people who know these things better than you because of their training, knowledge, and life experience.
 
Vixen said:
The Andrea Doria had another vessel collide with it. In addition, it took 11 hours to sink. In other words despite being a collision of a passenger ship, it doesn't make the top ten of ship sinkings, as the Estonia does. Without collision or torpedo or even a hurricane, it sank in a record time of 35" for a passenger ship without its hull breached.

wiki
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I see you've chosen to ignore the fact that the AD sunk on her side, something you claimed doesn't happen. Also, the AD taking so long to sink from a collision is counter evidence to your claim that the Estonia sank due to a collision.
 
Vixen said:
A hole in the hull is quite literal I would have thought.
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A hole above the waterline in a shape that cannot have been made by a submarine. You know what "submarine" literally means, right? In any case, the actual submarine types suggested are too small and too slow. And the hole displays absolutely no coating transfer -- the hallmark of practically any collision. And a hole that the aggrieved party agrees is too small to have cause the ship to sink so fast.

You have no evidence of a collision with a submarine. Simply showing us the damage you attribute to such an imaginary collision is consummately bad reasoning.
 
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Vixen said:
Fact is, the Eastland didn't actually sink, so how long it would take to sink is academic. Fact is, the owners were found to have overloaded it with too many passenger and installed life boats and concrete flooring which made it most certainly unseaworthy,which it was, and hence used as a riverboat instead.
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And all that has nothing to do with your claims.

You claimed the ship would have sunk faster because it was heavier due to modifications involving (gasp!) concrete. You didn't care at the time that the ship didn't fully submerge. That's what you're harping on now to draw attention away from your embarrassing lack of expertise. The ship wasn't unseaworthy because it was too heavy; it was unseaworthy because it was top-heavy. That has nothing to do with reserve buoyancy, flood rates, or anything that involves how fast a ship will founder.

But by all means keep proving my point. You're trying to wiggle around what you originally said in order to find some way in which you can convince someone it still might be true. You're still trying to save face instead of admitting even the simplest, most irrelevant error.

You're not trying to find the truth. You're trying to show how smart you are for having discovered what "really" sank MV Estonia. That's why you can't let anyone think you made even a small mistake. It destroys the illusion of being right when everyone else is supposedly wrong.
 
Vixen said:
Citation, please.
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"We dedicate this report to all those who lost their lives at sea as a result of a ships lack of seaworthiness.

If MV Estonia had been seaworthy many of the more than 850 persons who lost their lives would have had a chance to survive."

http://privat.bahnhof.se/wb576311/factgroup/est/visor.html

Indicates to me that they believe the ferry sank because of its poor condition not because it was rammed by a sub.
 
JayUtah said:
And all that has nothing to do with your claims.

You claimed the ship would have sunk faster because it was heavier due to modifications involving (gasp!) concrete. You didn't care at the time that the ship didn't fully submerge. That's what you're harping on now to draw attention away from your embarrassing lack of expertise. The ship wasn't unseaworthy because it was too heavy; it was unseaworthy because it was top-heavy. That has nothing to do with reserve buoyancy, flood rates, or anything that involves how fast a ship will founder.

But by all means keep proving my point. You're trying to wiggle around what you originally said in order to find some way in which you can convince someone it still might be true. You're still trying to save face instead of admitting even the simplest, most irrelevant error.

You're not trying to find the truth. You're trying to show how smart you are for having discovered what "really" sank MV Estonia. That's why you can't let anyone think you made even a small mistake. It destroys the illusion of being right when everyone else is supposedly wrong.
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It is conceivable that or resident CTist may have made some relevant points worthy of discussion in these pages and pages of irrelevant posts. But they are buried so far under the mountain of misdirections and distractions that they will likely never again see the light of day.
 
RolandRat said:
"We dedicate this report to all those who lost their lives at sea as a result of a ships lack of seaworthiness.

If MV Estonia had been seaworthy many of the more than 850 persons who lost their lives would have had a chance to survive."

http://privat.bahnhof.se/wb576311/factgroup/est/visor.html

Indicates to me that they believe the ferry sank because of its poor condition not because it was rammed by a sub.
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Or, once it was rammed by a sub it became instantly unseaworthy.

Didn't think of that, didya, huh?
 
Captain_Swoop said:
All the evidence shows the bow visor was the cause.

Did it fall off by coincidence just as the submarine rammed it or the russian spies blew a hole in the hull?
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It should be very obvious that Carl Bildt having said it was the bow visor, of course it had to be found without it.

Kari Lehtola, in charge of the Finnish side sent out an early memo that a dark object as picked up by sonar imaging lay just below the bulbous nose of the wreck and fit the exact dimensions and description of the bow visor, as advised by the technical/scientific bods. This was 2 Oct 1994.


Then Lehtola sent a memo date 5.10 1994 indicating that the visor was 'still being searched for' even though it had already been found next to the vessel, asking the Swedish Navy to help look for it.

On the 10 Oct 1994 memos show Lehtola claiming that the object located next to the vessel was 'just a large piece of steel plating' (and has never been mentioned again by the JAIC or by anybody else)

On the 12 October 1994 he writes:


"To everybody: Dr. Jouko Nuorteva informed in the evening that while photographing from "Tursas" a new, very promising object has been found which could theoretically be the visor of "Estonia".
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Yet it had already been found and as drawn in detail from sonar imaging on the 9th October as of the spot of the wreck.

On the 14th October, the JAIC employed the services of Swedish mine sweeping experts - indicating there were Swedish mines planted in the area, which had to be cleared first.

18 Oct 1994, the visor bow was 'finally found' 0.85 nautical miles to the west of the wreckage. But it had already been found 2 Oct 1994.

The only explanation for this is that the powers influencing the JIAC found it inconvenient for the bow visor to be with the ship, even still hanging off it, that it quickly retracted what it had already got draughtsmen to draw up from sonar images, the bow visor with the wreck, claiming what had been drawn and identified was 'just a piece of sundry metal' instead (coincidentally, to the exact same specifications as the bow visor) even though nobody ever retrieved it of filmed it. Thus, between the definite identification 2 October, it being drawn up by the engineers from sonar, 9 October, and Lehtola claiming they were' still searching' 10 October, for it to be now found 0.85 miles west of the wreck 18 October, means someone must have transferred it from the spot of the wreckage to its newly fund location.

Lehtola even gave the Estonians the wrong coordinates so they were directed to a spot where nothing was found, whilst the Swedes and Finns had the correct location of the wreck. So, whilst the Swedes were doing their thing with the wreck, the Estonians were sent on a wild goose chase elsewhere.

In summary it has to be assumed that the Swedes and Finns had found the visor next to the bow of the wreck, possibly the bulbous bow even resting on the visor, already on the 01. or 02.10.94, but decided to keep this secret as well as the actual position of the wreck and to continue the search for the visor. The Estonians were sent to search to the East (where the visor definitely never was) while the Finns with the help of Swedish mine hunting experts and vessels clarified something around the wreck which apparently had to do with Swedish mines. On 18.10.94 the visor was "officially" located and sometime later the "mines" operation was completed, whereafter the recovery of the visor at a position about 2100 m SSW off the alleged wreck position was carried out from 12th to 19th November 1994. The visor was picked-up and lifted to the surface by the Finnish multi-purpose ice breaker NORDICA assisted by the Swedish mine hunter FURUSUND. According to the entries into the logbook of the NORDICA - See Enclosure 24.408.1 - the visor was picked-up in position 59°23' N; 21°39,4' E. This was ca. 1400 m West of the wreck position.
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Estonia Ferry Disaster net.

So, there was a campaign of disinformation and misinformation from the beginning. Cui bene? That question can help identify the culprit.
 
Steve said:
It is conceivable that or resident CTist may have made some relevant points worthy of discussion in these pages and pages of irrelevant posts. But they are buried so far under the mountain of misdirections and distractions that they will likely never again see the light of day.
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Quite true. I have no problem with wanting to open a new investigation in the loss of MV Estonia. It's absolutely true that we have better forensic techniques now than we did in the 1990s. And with so much loss of life and other emotional impact, it's not as if we can stop people from wanting to know more and doing whatever they can to learn it. The official investigations into RMS Titanic were concluded long ago, but that sinking has been under more or less constant investigation for more than a hundred years -- because we simply want to answer the question "How?"

But the admixture of pointless and unevidentiary conspiracy rhetoric helps no one. It doesn't determine cause. It doesn't credibly assign responsibility. It doesn't soothe loss. All it does is advance the careers and interests of people trying to prey on tragedy.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
It wasn't damaged when it sailed.

It didn't encounter 'sudden hurricane-like conditions'
It had been weather routed to avoid the worst and had been hove-to for many hours to ride out the storm, it was what it was designed for.

WHat is your evidence for a 'perilous whirl pool'?


Is there any point in you asking for examples of ships sinking more quickly or in similar circumstances when you find a way to dismiss every example given?
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The very term, 'typhoon' means a whirlwind!

The French typhon is attested with the meaning of whirlwind or storm since 1504.[6] The Oxford English Dictionary[
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wiki

This situation might explain why there was no time for a May Day.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
What's the point? you would just dismiss them as being different.
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The criteria are very simple: passenger ships that sank faster than the Estonia for which we have information on how long it took for them to sink.

There are only seven (up to 1996, contemporaneous with Estonia) and in the entire top twelve all of them, except for the Estonia were collisions, torpedoes or explosions.
 
Vixen said:
That only holds water (pun intended) if indeed the sole cause of the accident was the bow visor pulling off the car ramp. Even then, the behaviour of the vessel (Archimedes Priniciple) is that it should first capsize and then turn belly up, without sinking.
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Why?
 
JayUtah said:
A hole above the waterline in a shape that cannot have been made by a submarine. You know what "submarine" literally means, right? In any case, the actual submarine types suggested are too small and too slow. And the hole displays absolutely no coating transfer -- the hallmark of practically any collision. And a hole that the aggrieved party agrees is too small to have cause the ship to sink so fast.

You have no evidence of a collision with a submarine. Simply showing us the damage you attribute to such an imaginary collision is consummately bad reasoning.
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The paintwork would have transferred onto the colliding object.
 
RolandRat said:
Indicates to me that they believe the ferry sank because of its poor condition not because it was rammed by a sub.
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A point that comes up repeatedly is that when Estonia was laid down there were no design standards for retention systems in articulated bow structures. Even though the ro-ro design pattern was reasonably common, and engineering standards were in place for other aspects of it, the crucial elements that the report blames for the failure of the visor were not governed by an accepted body of standards specifying required loads and behaviors. It was up to each shipyard to develop suitable standards according to its own methods. Consequently it's possible to conclude both that the ship was unseaworthy and that the builders were not at fault. Design standards are an agreement between builders and operators that if the ship is operated within certain limits, the relevant engineering is expected to perform safely. As far as ro-ro ferry bow visors were concerned, the only agreement in place was that each party would do its part responsibly.
 
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