The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-Opened

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Vixen said:
Even if it was as you call it a sad, freak accident, and even if a strong wave did knock off a bow visor bolted with three different locks, such an occurrence by the laws of physics would not cause a ship of that size to sink in 35 minutes.
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Your understanding of the "laws of physics" is considerably deficient. You're not the teacher here.
 
Vixen said:
IOW the waves that night were not anything out of the ordinary that the shipping lines cannot cope with.
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And when the De Havilland Comets disintegrated in midair in the 1950s, killing everyone on board, they were flying under ordinary flight conditions. Have you figured out what else besides explosives causes twinning in metals?
 
Vixen said:
The rivets in the hull being far too weak. Some experts claim there was a fire in one of the stoking rooms that had been smouldering from the moment it left port.
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Why were the rivets too weak?

It was a smouldering fire in a bunker. They were not uncommon on coal fired ships
W
How did it contribute to the sinking?
 
I am trying understand Vixen's "argument" that the 35-minute sinking time implies that the bow visor coming off couldn't have sunk the MS Estonia.

This is the bow visor:

Apparently, it is important that some ships have been torpedoed multiple times and didn't sink so fast.

We also have the claim that if enough water came in fast enough to sink the ship in 35 minutes, people would have heard rushing water, but they didn't. And anyway, water coming in wouldn't sink it so fast because the ship would have turtled and floated on the surface for hours. So the fact that the MS Estonia sank so fast can't be explained by the bow visor or water coming in.

Instead, the reason the ship sank so fast is because of this hole:

This hole at or above the water line is due to either an explosion or an impact from a submarine. This explains why the ship sank so fast.

Here is where I get confused. This hole is certainly less damage than multiple torpedo strikes, so the comparison to torpedo sinking times should rule this out, as well. Further, even if it was an impact or explosion, it had to be water coming in that made the ship sink. If the lack of witnesses describing the rush of water rules out the bow visor, wouldn't that rule out the ship sinking from this hole in the side? Would you not hear "2,000 tons" of water coming through that hole? And if taking on water will lead to the ship floating upside down for hours, this should still be true if it took on water after an impact/explosion. Unless the claim is that this hole at or above the water line prevented it from floating upside down, but losing the bow visor would not. But why would that be true?

I don't get it. It would make more sense to me if we didn't have images of the ship on the bottom of the sea. Then we could speculate about giant holes in the bottom of the hull or something. But we know there aren't any. I don't see how the time it took to sink is evidence for impact/explosion, unless we adopt some weird pseudo-Aristotelian theory according to which the natural disposition of an impacted ship is to sink quickly, whether or not it takes on water.

I can understand being incredulous about how fast it sank, but that should apply equally to both the bow visor and to impact/explosion, in which case (if we stubbornly hold onto our incredulity at all costs) the conspiracy theory should be that it took much longer to sink than "they" are willing to admit, for some reason. At least that theory wouldn't be obviously internally inconsistent.
 
Stamuel said:
Here is where I get confused. This hole is certainly less damage than multiple torpedo strikes, so the comparison to torpedo sinking times should rule this out, as well.
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Estonian experts have ruled it out on exactly that basis. The hole recently discovered does not allow a flood rate sufficient to sink the ship in half an hour.
 
Vixen said:
And you are still not comprehending the elementary laws of physics that surround such a supposed flooding.

Consider the case of the Polish ferry, M/S Jan Heweliusz, which sank in Jan 1994. Its car deck was flooded, it capsized and it floated upside down for several days before finally sinking.

You can see a speeded up video here:

https://www.gettyimages.fi/detail/v...sea-airv-jan-heweliusz-news-footage/804903826


The Estonia sank straight to the bottom stern first in a record 35 minutes.

See screenshot of MS_Jan_Heweliusz floating 'turtle'.
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Almost as if it was a different ship in different circumstances.

When I showed details and video of a ferry sinking just as quickly and another being driver aground to stop it sinking as quickly I was told they were different.

Where did the bow fall off this ship?
What was the stability of this ship with the 60 tons of concrete that had been used in a previous repair?
What was the size of this ship compared to the weight of concrete used in the repair?
What was it's reserve buoyancy?
 
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Captain_Swoop said:
Almost as if it was a different ship in different circumstances.

When I showed details and video of a ferry sinking just as quickly and another being driver aground to stop it sinking as quickly I was told they were different.

Where did the bow fall off this ship?
What was the stability of this ship with the 60 tons of concrete that had been used in a previous repair?
What was the size of this ship compared to the weight of concrete used in the repair?
What was it's reserve buoyancy?
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In fact, this other "comparator" (not) ship (the Jan Heweliusz), while it was also a vehicle ferry, was not a RO-RO vessel: vehicles could only be loaded/unloaded via the stern. Oh and it most definitely was not a seaworthy vessel by the time it sank. Oh and it had well-documented buoyancy problems (probably at least partly related to the injudicious use of concrete in a prior repair). Oh and it took on water and sank in hurricane-force winds and swells of up to 8m.

But other than that........ yeah it was *just* like the Estonia..... :rolleyes:


Open your eyes, sheeple! Can't you see that the shadowy forces of The Establishment are pulling the wool over your naive eyes?!! And please, ceteris paribus, just think about the laws of physics!!!
 
LondonJohn said:
In fact, this other "comparator" (not) ship (the Jan Heweliusz), while it was also a vehicle ferry, was not a RO-RO vessel: vehicles could only be loaded/unloaded via the stern. Oh and it most definitely was not a seaworthy vessel by the time it sank. Oh and it had well-documented buoyancy problems (probably at least partly related to the injudicious use of concrete in a prior repair). Oh and it took on water and sank in hurricane-force winds and swells of up to 8m.

But other than that........ yeah it was *just* like the Estonia..... :rolleyes:


Open your eyes, sheeple! Can't you see that the shadowy forces of The Establishment are pulling the wool over your naive eyes?!! And please, ceteris paribus, just think about the laws of physics!!!
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Y4et somehow, Herald of Free Enterprise or the other example I gave of a rapidly sinking ferry witha flooded car deck don't count.

On average two ships sink every week. Each one is different in detail.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
And yet the Atlantic has the highest recorded waves, they are between Iceland and Scotland averaging up to 19 meters significant wave height with individual waves being much higher. The Pacific coast of the USA and Mexico also regularly see 20 meter waves just like the Atlantic coast of Spain and Portugal.

Highest recorded waves in the Baltic are During the storm Rafael in 2004, the significant wave height reached 8.2 metres and the highest individual wave height was 14 metres. During the storm Toini in 2017 a similar significant wave height was recorded.
I think it is you that aren't understanding 'bathymetry'. When did you become an expert in the subject?
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KQ
malbui said:
I've never heard an actual physicist say, in a professional setting, "by the laws of physics". "According to this model", yes. "Assuming a perfect sphere", yes. "Ceteris paribus", all the time. But "by the laws of physics?" Nope.
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Sent from my SM-G981V using Tapatalk
 
LondonJohn said:
Jeez. It's already been pointed out to you that the Pacific is in fact anything but peaceful. Yet you still persist with this ignorant fallacy.

(If you were actually interested in the topic and bothered to do even the slightest research, you'd easily discover that the name was bestowed on this body of water by Magellan during his search for new westward routes to/from the Spice Islands in the 16th Century. The only reason why he gave it that moniker was because for the first week or so after he rounded the tip of South America, the ocean just happened to be relatively calm and he had a favourable North-Easterly wind. That's all.)
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Do read the article supplied by Axxman300 about the bathymetry of the Baltic Sea. In particular, please pay special attention to the behaviour of waves in shallow seas as compared to deep oceans.

This is not a competition as to 'Who has the biggest waves?' It is about the type of conditions that cause waves and sea breaks. Ponder on that and then things will become clear.
 
Stamuel said:
I am trying understand Vixen's "argument" that the 35-minute sinking time implies that the bow visor coming off couldn't have sunk the MS Estonia.

This is the bow visor:
[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_57382611921e4aa070.jpg[/qimg]
Apparently, it is important that some ships have been torpedoed multiple times and didn't sink so fast.

We also have the claim that if enough water came in fast enough to sink the ship in 35 minutes, people would have heard rushing water, but they didn't. And anyway, water coming in wouldn't sink it so fast because the ship would have turtled and floated on the surface for hours. So the fact that the MS Estonia sank so fast can't be explained by the bow visor or water coming in.

Instead, the reason the ship sank so fast is because of this hole:
[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/57382611922aee7969.jpg[/qimg]
This hole at or above the water line is due to either an explosion or an impact from a submarine. This explains why the ship sank so fast.

Here is where I get confused. This hole is certainly less damage than multiple torpedo strikes, so the comparison to torpedo sinking times should rule this out, as well. Further, even if it was an impact or explosion, it had to be water coming in that made the ship sink. If the lack of witnesses describing the rush of water rules out the bow visor, wouldn't that rule out the ship sinking from this hole in the side? Would you not hear "2,000 tons" of water coming through that hole? And if taking on water will lead to the ship floating upside down for hours, this should still be true if it took on water after an impact/explosion. Unless the claim is that this hole at or above the water line prevented it from floating upside down, but losing the bow visor would not. But why would that be true?

I don't get it. It would make more sense to me if we didn't have images of the ship on the bottom of the sea. Then we could speculate about giant holes in the bottom of the hull or something. But we know there aren't any. I don't see how the time it took to sink is evidence for impact/explosion, unless we adopt some weird pseudo-Aristotelian theory according to which the natural disposition of an impacted ship is to sink quickly, whether or not it takes on water.

I can understand being incredulous about how fast it sank, but that should apply equally to both the bow visor and to impact/explosion, in which case (if we stubbornly hold onto our incredulity at all costs) the conspiracy theory should be that it took much longer to sink than "they" are willing to admit, for some reason. At least that theory wouldn't be obviously internally inconsistent.
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Several experts in Evertsson's documentary describe the hole as breaching passenger cabins and also breaching the hull, due to the vertical tear, caused by the impact. With a surge of water penetrating the hull, the ship is no longer buoyant, which explains why it sank as fast as torpedoed and collided ships.
 
JayUtah said:
Estonian experts have ruled it out on exactly that basis. The hole recently discovered does not allow a flood rate sufficient to sink the ship in half an hour.
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Citation please. I know you said you don't like people depending on experts, but I prefer to know who make a claim, together with the quote.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Almost as if it was a different ship in different circumstances.

When I showed details and video of a ferry sinking just as quickly and another being driver aground to stop it sinking as quickly I was told they were different.

Where did the bow fall off this ship?
What was the stability of this ship with the 60 tons of concrete that had been used in a previous repair?
What was the size of this ship compared to the weight of concrete used in the repair?
What was it's reserve buoyancy?
Click to expand...

The point is that as its hull was not breached, it still had enough buoyancy to continue floating for a few days, after capsizing.
 
Vixen said:
Do read the article supplied by Axxman300 about the bathymetry of the Baltic Sea. In particular, please pay special attention to the behaviour of waves in shallow seas as compared to deep oceans.

This is not a competition as to 'Who has the biggest waves?' It is about the type of conditions that cause waves and sea breaks. Ponder on that and then things will become clear.
Click to expand...

But the Baltic doesn't have the biggest waves. We know how big the waves were when the ship sank.
 
Vixen said:
Nope. It is a physical property of shallower sea waters that waves break more and higher than an ocean ceteris paribus ,so which of us shows 'staggering ignorance'?
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So why do the oceans have bigger waves?
 
LondonJohn said:
In fact, this other "comparator" (not) ship (the Jan Heweliusz), while it was also a vehicle ferry, was not a RO-RO vessel: vehicles could only be loaded/unloaded via the stern. Oh and it most definitely was not a seaworthy vessel by the time it sank. Oh and it had well-documented buoyancy problems (probably at least partly related to the injudicious use of concrete in a prior repair). Oh and it took on water and sank in hurricane-force winds and swells of up to 8m.

But other than that........ yeah it was *just* like the Estonia..... :rolleyes:


Open your eyes, sheeple! Can't you see that the shadowy forces of The Establishment are pulling the wool over your naive eyes?!! And please, ceteris paribus, just think about the laws of physics!!!
Click to expand...

It did indeed follow the laws of physics, specifically, Archimedes Principle, as it capsized and floated upside down on its still buoyant hull, before sinking days later.

Q.E.D.

::
 
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