The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-Opened

[Vixen]

Can you state this law for me?

What about ships that capsize and don't float upside down?

Archimedes Principle.

 

[Vixen]

It's an interesting law of physics, but let me see if I understand it.

If a ship has a hole punched through it by torpedo or collision, it may just sink, but if it capsizes, it turns turtle and floats for a long time before it goes down, right?

So, since the Estonia sank quickly, it must be that the four meter hole above the waterline was the cause of the disaster. Had it instead have been the rather larger bow visor falling away, the ship would have turned turtle, but because this much smaller entry was allowing water to enter, it sank quite fast.

Is that the reasoning? Just checking...

Some of the damage is above the waterline, some of it is not. Here is a diagram of the Estonia in its incarnation as Viking Sally. Note the car deck which ipso facto is above the waterline in order for cars to roll-on roll-off. Then there are the cabins in Deck 1 below this - these are the cabins which heard the most alarming bangs and saw water seeping in before anybody else. Below Deck 1 is Deck 0, the hull, where the engine room is...and also the sauna and swimming pool.

If you look at the images taken of the starboard side damage, you'll see this is described as the 'swimming pool area' - so well below the water line! - and you can even see a large white towel in the aperture.


Tell me - are you still claiming the damage 'is above the waterline'?

 

[Vixen]

Don't forget that in addition to the hole the bow visor was blown off by explosive charges.

No matter what caused the damage it seems a strong possibility to me - based on how fast the ship sank , faster than even the Wilhelm Gusthoff which had received a triple whammy of torpedoes to its side, fired off in pitchfork-style and the coincidental lack of signal availability on Channel 16, the traditional international May Day channel, from Swedish midnight onwards until two minutes to two, eight minutes after Estonia disappeared completely from recorded radar - that if it was indeed sbotage, then whoever was responsible was making damn sure that the thing would go no further on its journey.

Therefore, whilst you might scoff that anyone would bother to do this, just remember the Soviet Union space programs and defence secrets being smuggled out by Sweden on order by the USA and Israel and we begin to get a suspicion that there is more to this 'accident' than meets the eye. Not to mention the UK suddenly becoming a Baltic nation.

If there was smuggled military stuff on board then there is a good chance the ship was being escorted by military personnel (a submarine?) because, after all, PM Carl Bildt seemed to know of the incident almost straight away. Also, as it was international waters, who's to know what was slurping about in them.

 

[Vixen]

Jesus Christ. Capsizing is turning upside down by definition. This isn't a law of physics. It's a rule of English.

Why are all of your arguments so consistently wrong on every basic point?

I don't know if you have ever been out rowing, theprestige, but say the boat capsized because it was unbalanced on one side. You'd fall out and the boat doesn't actually sink. It just turns upside down. If it sinks because there is a massive hole in the bottom and you have been bailing out the water for the last half hour, then it might well sink instead of capsizing.

 

[LondonJohn]

It is not comparable to the 9/11 twin towers as all of the theorists as to that accident are not officials, survivors, architects, accident investigators and heads of state who were directly involved in compiling the incident report.

9/11 comprises individuals wondering why the second tower imploded the way it did (I was one such person with a passing interest) and the Saudi link, not to mention speculation as to the one on the way to the Pentagon was shot down.

This news item is very different. It is the equivalent of a head of state quashing a conviction and issuing a pardon or declaring a conviction unsafe. When a convicted criminal is granted a judicial review of his or her case that indicates a reasonable prospect of success, or the review would never had been granted int he first place. For example, suppose Jeremy Bamber succeeds in getting his conviction reviewed. That will only happen if there is a near certain chance the judiciary accept he was wrongfully convicted, for a strong reason, not just on a public petition or a whim.

Likewise few here seem to understand that a review of the Estonia after 26 years of a firm and adamant attitude that the 'case is closed' is a current affairs news item, just as Jeremy Bamber being granted a review would be.

This is both incorrect and incoherent.

And, in passing, an official investigation (and associated report) into a disaster, followed by a further investigation and revised report...... is nothing whatsoever similar to a criminal conviction followed by the convicted party being granted leave to appeal. You've simply made that up (presumably to suit your thesis)

 

[Vixen]

This is both incorrect and incoherent.

And, in passing, an official investigation (and associated report) into a disaster, followed by a further investigation and revised report...... is nothing whatsoever similar to a criminal conviction followed by the convicted party being granted leave to appeal. You've simply made that up (presumably to suit your thesis)

Passing a Treaty is a legal process. It becomes enshrined in law. So yes, it is comparable to Criminal Law. Laws and treaties rarely get amended, and they require an Act of Parliament to do so.

If there were any Estonian crew made to 'disappear', then that breaches the Rome Treaty of 1988, which prohibits states from doing so. If this was done for 'classified' reasons then I am not sure that would be a get out clause.

ETA: See here: the enforced disappearance of people. (Pdf).

 

[erwinl]

Passing a Treaty is a legal process. It becomes enshrined in law. So yes, it is comparable to Criminal Law. Laws and treaties rarely get amended, and they require an Act of Parliament to do so.

If there were any Estonian crew made to 'disappear', then that breaches the Rome Treaty of 1988, which prohibits states from doing so. If this was done for 'classified' reasons then I am not sure that would be a get out clause.

ETA: See here: the enforced disappearance of people. (Pdf).

Nowhere is this remotely an answer to what you've quoted.
Unless we pick the 'incoherent' part. Then it is.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Archimedes Principle.

Is that a 'law of physics'? That says ships that capsize will float upside down for hours?

Do you know what a 'law' is in science?

 

[Andy_Ross]

I don't know if you have ever been out rowing, theprestige, but say the boat capsized because it was unbalanced on one side. You'd fall out and the boat doesn't actually sink. It just turns upside down. If it sinks because there is a massive hole in the bottom and you have been bailing out the water for the last half hour, then it might well sink instead of capsizing.

And yet ships capsize and sink quickly all the time. Sometimes so fast that the crew don't have time to escape.

 

[LondonJohn]

Let's put this in context. London John deigned to give me a lecture on the probability of getting heads or tails from a coin. I simply told him not to bother talking down to me.

Nope. What actually happened was this: LondonJohn provided you with a simple example to illustrate the concept of a null hypothesis - since it was by then very clear that you didn't understand the concept.

(And if you think that what LondonJohn was doing was "giv(ing) (you) a lecture on the probability of getting heads or tails from a coin" - while in fact LondonJohn was simply using the coin toss example to illustrate a null hypothesis - then this in itself is a further demonstration of either misunderstanding or dissembling.

 

[Vixen]

Nope. What actually happened was this: LondonJohn provided you with a simple example to illustrate the concept of a null hypothesis - since it was by then very clear that you didn't understand the concept.

(And if you think that what LondonJohn was doing was "giv(ing) (you) a lecture on the probability of getting heads or tails from a coin" - while in fact LondonJohn was simply using the coin toss example to illustrate a null hypothesis - then this in itself is a further demonstration of either misunderstanding or dissembling.

Look for goodness sake. One starts off with a null hypothesis when attempting to put forward a particular hypothesis. Statistics come into use when you want to demonstrate mathematically that the probability that you received the results that you did was not by mere random chance. For example, say you want to determine whether a newly developed vaccine is effective in preventing the disease you claim it does help prevent. Amongst your sample size, there will be a variation of results and you somehow need to make sense of them so you would put them in order and note the range of results for each outcome. You then work out the mean and then how much each of your results deviate from the mean to get to the all important standard deviation, of which there are a whole bevy of statistical tests you can apply this to. This would only be relevant to a normal distribution. For example, ay you wanted to calculate the average height for a population and compare it with other populations or over a period of time. You can use the standard deviation to calculate the volatility of the stock market from day to day, for example.

That doesn't mean the null hypothesis only applies mathematically. If you were investigating a shipping accident, for example, you would not take it for granted you knew what caused it. You may have a suspicion it was caused by the 'bow visor falling off and a Herald of Free Enterprise scenario'. However, before coming to this conclusion, you obviously need to rule out all other possible causes, and this is where requesting eye witness accounts comes into use. These days police request dashcam recordings of car accidents taken by other, passing, drivers at the scene. Disregarding eye witness accounts because they are inconsistent with your conviction of what caused the accident or damage caused to the ship/s concerned is obviously negligent and it would be no surprise if people accused you of deliberately ignoring or disregarding salient information.

 

[LondonJohn]

I am afraid that it is a law of physics that a ship designed to float will turn upside down if it capsizes. This is what the Herald of Fee Enterprise would have done had the accident happened at open sea. You can stamp your foot as much as you like. The JAIC didn't seem to question this simple fact as to why the Estonia sank so incredibly quickly, rather than float turtle for hours or days, like the MS Jan Heweliusz

Independent

As JayUtah, I and many others have been saying: you clearly don't understand physics properly. In fact, for "properly", read "almost not at all".

It's utter nonsense to state that a ship will turn upside down if it capsizes. No ifs or buts. It's bollocks.

Remind us in passing about the manner of the most famous ship sinking of all time - RMS Titanic.


Or watch this ship sinking:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJfKNDxJrL8


Or watch this ship sinking:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsUXhMznRSI


Or watch these five ships sinking (pay particular note to the final one, which starts at 09:35 in the vid):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE3J9yLYu_Q


And then come to the realisation about how very wrong you are (well, you almost-certainly won't come to that realisation, but hope springs eternal, eh?)

 

[Vixen]

As JayUtah, I and many others have been saying: you clearly don't understand physics properly. In fact, for "properly", read "almost not at all".

It's utter nonsense to state that a ship will turn upside down if it capsizes. No ifs or buts. It's bollocks.

Remind us in passing about the manner of the most famous ship sinking of all time - RMS Titanic.


Or watch this ship sinking:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJfKNDxJrL8


Or watch this ship sinking:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsUXhMznRSI


Or watch these five ships sinking (pay particular note to the final one, which starts at 09:35 in the vid):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE3J9yLYu_Q


And then come to the realisation about how very wrong you are (well, you almost-certainly won't come to that realisation, but hope springs eternal, eh?)

Well, well, well, Jay Utah agrees with you?

Do keep up. The Titanic sank because as a result of the collision with an iceberg, the bolts rivetting the hull came loose, causing them to come apart and ocean water flooded into the hull thus rendering the vessel no longer buoyant, hence it slowly sank over a period extending over two and a half hours (compare and contrast with the super rapid 35 minutes of the Estonia).

You fail to reference any of the ships featured in your video although it is made clear in the first that the first sank as the result of a collision with three other ships, implying a breach of its hull.


Try this. Buy yourself a few children's boat toys or even ducks. Next time you are in the bath or swimming pool, have a go at trying to get them to sink. You will find no matter how much you try they persist in floating. Now take a drill and puncture a proper hole - not just a pinprick - in the hull of one of them. Notice how the boat now immediately sinks!

Clear now?

 

[Andy_Ross]

If a ship floods below the waterline from the lower decks up, why would it capsize completely and turn bottom up?

Most ships that flood do not capsize and turn bottom up.

Estonia flooded on the car deck, 2000 tons of water high in the ship with a free surface effect is what capsized the ship.
Some of this water was making it's way down in to the hull through the stairways, ventilators, air intakes etc.
Even if a ship turns upside down as it sinks it will not float on the surface if it no longer has enough buoyancy.

Ships are not plastic toys in a bath but if they were your own example results in a sinking, not a complete capsize, you didn't think it through.

 

[phiwum]

Some of the damage is above the waterline, some of it is not. Here is a diagram of the Estonia in its incarnation as Viking Sally. Note the car deck which ipso facto is above the waterline in order for cars to roll-on roll-off. Then there are the cabins in Deck 1 below this - these are the cabins which heard the most alarming bangs and saw water seeping in before anybody else. Below Deck 1 is Deck 0, the hull, where the engine room is...and also the sauna and swimming pool.

If you look at the images taken of the starboard side damage, you'll see this is described as the 'swimming pool area' - so well below the water line! - and you can even see a large white towel in the aperture.


Tell me - are you still claiming the damage 'is above the waterline'?

I don't know what I'm looking at in the picture on the right. I see it's the hole, but what evidence are you concerned with? The fact that the crack extends below the paint line? Fine, part of it's below the waterline. So, obviously, that crack could totally cause the ship to sink almost immediately -- is that your conclusion?

How about you tell me this: Isn't the area around the bow ramp rather like a massive hole in the boat when the visor falls away? Probably not below the waterline, but in a storm (and likely in many other conditions) it takes on water rather like your crack. Rather a lot of water, in fact. How is the relatively tiny crack more effective at quickly sinking the ship than the gaping hole at the bow when the visor has fallen away?

 

[phiwum]

Delete.

 

[LondonJohn]

Well, well, well, Jay Utah agrees with you?

What on Earth do you mean by this? I suppose it's something of a (self-)defence mechanism to deal the "they're all ganging up on me!" card from the bottom of the deck. FWIW, JayUtah (no space in the username) and I agree with each other - and we both disagree with you - for the simple reason that we are both science-literate and you are not.

Do keep up. The Titanic sank because as a result of the collision with an iceberg, the bolts rivetting the hull came loose, causing them to come apart and ocean water flooded into the hull thus rendering the vessel no longer buoyant, hence it slowly sank over a period extending over two and a half hours (compare and contrast with the super rapid 35 minutes of the Estonia).

You fail to reference any of the ships featured in your video although it is made clear in the first that the first sank as the result of a collision with three other ships, implying a breach of its hull.

No dice.

Firstly, you made the blanket assertion that "it is a law of physics* that a ship designed to float will turn upside down if it capsizes".

Yet now you're rowing back on this at the first sign of challenge: now you're claiming (apparently) that your ersatz "law of physics" doesn't apply if the ship's hull has been breached at/below the waterline.

However, your (apparent) belief that all ships who capsize without their hull being punctured at/below the waterline will necessarily float upside-down for some time before eventually (hours or even days later, per your thinking) sinking..... is also absurdly wrong.

For example, in the cases of around half of the ships in the YouTube links I showed you, the ship capsized and sank without having had its hull breached at/below the waterline (the names of all but one of the seven ships were given in the descriptions to the videos, had you bothered to look). Again, have a look at the final sinking shown in the 5-sinkings video.

Try this. Buy yourself a few children's boat toys or even ducks. Next time you are in the bath or swimming pool, have a go at trying to get them to sink. You will find no matter how much you try they persist in floating. Now take a drill and puncture a proper hole - not just a pinprick - in the hull of one of them. Notice how the boat now immediately sinks!

Clear now?

Far from it.

Because I entirely reject your proffered comparator. Why? Well, because the children's bathtub toys in question either a) have sealed chambers of air, or b) they're made out of rubber/plastic which is less dense than water. So yes, in order to sink the toys with sealed chambers, you'd have to puncture their sealed chambers; and you'd never be able to sink a toy made out of rubber/plastic that was less dense than water (though I suspect you won't realise why, but perhaps imagine a block of wood floating on water). Amusingly enough though, you'd also never be able to get any of those children's bathtub toys to capsize and "turn turtle" either.....

By contrast, most ships - including the Estonia - do not contain hermetically-sealed chambers of air**, and all ships are predominantly made from materials that are considerably denser than water. As such, they are far more akin to an open metal box floating on water than either a tupperware box or a metal box with a tightly-fitted lid (or a children's bathtub toy with sealed chambers of air).

QED.


* NB, a ship floating (or otherwise) is not "a law of physics". What you ought to have said - though it would still have been factually-incorrect - is something like "it is in accordance with the laws of physics" or "it obeys the laws of physics". And that only serves to strengthen further the conclusion that you simply don't know what you're talking about when it comes to matters scientific.


** Some ships do have the facility to create watertight compartments, but ships of that design - provided these compartments are made watertight in enough time (including, obviously, the condition that the compartments are not compromised via a breach in the hull itself) - will typically not capsize at all, let alone "turn turtle" and/or end up sinking.

 

[Vixen]

If a ship floods below the waterline from the lower decks up, why would it capsize completely and turn bottom up?

Most ships that flood do not capsize and turn bottom up.

Estonia flooded on the car deck, 2000 tons of water high in the ship with a free surface effect is what capsized the ship.
Some of this water was making it's way down in to the hull through the stairways, ventilators, air intakes etc.
Even if a ship turns upside down as it sinks it will not float on the surface if it no longer has enough buoyancy.

Ships are not plastic toys in a bath but if they were your own example results in a sinking, not a complete capsize, you didn't think it through.

Imagine Estonia was just like the Herald of Free Enterprise. The latter was virtually exactly the same type of accident as the MS Jan Heweliusz., except the MS Jan Heweliusz another roro, was in particularly poor maintenance condition. The former capsized on its side onto a bank as it was still in shallow water. Had it been out at sea like the MS Jan Heweliusz, it would have turtled face down, as the MS Jan Heweliusz did. The MS Jan Heweliusz floated face down for about five hours before it finally sank.

It is common sense to understand that ships are designed to withstand waves of seawater lashing at its decks. The height of the Estonia was six or seven decks/stories above the water level, so ships can withstand enormous weights without sinking. The free surface area of the car deck, above water level was just 2,000 tonnes worth of seawater. Once full, it cannot have taken on any more. The car deck was sealed off from other decks with a water barrier of 9 cm (OK, so not very high) there were side vents for excess water to escape, as on other decks. As of the point the ship was listing at 30° it becomes near inevitable that it will capsize completley unless urgent action is taken. At 40° it is gone. However, it wouldn't sink - although of course this is highly dangerous for the incumbents - it would simply turtle, just as the MS Jan Heweliusz did, not immediately sink.

Thus, it becomes obvious that the hole in the starboard is important to investigate, yet it never was even mentioned. The JAIC report says the only damage to the ship was the bow visor and car ramp.

 

[LondonJohn]

Look for goodness sake. One starts off with a null hypothesis when attempting to put forward a particular hypothesis. Statistics come into use when you want to demonstrate mathematically that the probability that you received the results that you did was not by mere random chance. For example, say you want to determine whether a newly developed vaccine is effective in preventing the disease you claim it does help prevent. Amongst your sample size, there will be a variation of results and you somehow need to make sense of them so you would put them in order and note the range of results for each outcome. You then work out the mean and then how much each of your results deviate from the mean to get to the all important standard deviation, of which there are a whole bevy of statistical tests you can apply this to. This would only be relevant to a normal distribution. For example, ay you wanted to calculate the average height for a population and compare it with other populations or over a period of time. You can use the standard deviation to calculate the volatility of the stock market from day to day, for example.

That doesn't mean the null hypothesis only applies mathematically. If you were investigating a shipping accident, for example, you would not take it for granted you knew what caused it. You may have a suspicion it was caused by the 'bow visor falling off and a Herald of Free Enterprise scenario'. However, before coming to this conclusion, you obviously need to rule out all other possible causes, and this is where requesting eye witness accounts comes into use. These days police request dashcam recordings of car accidents taken by other, passing, drivers at the scene. Disregarding eye witness accounts because they are inconsistent with your conviction of what caused the accident or damage caused to the ship/s concerned is obviously negligent and it would be no surprise if people accused you of deliberately ignoring or disregarding salient information.

Why are you doubling down on wrong?

(Hint: having an "initial theory" (or a "working theory") on why an event happened as it did.... has nothing whatsoever to do with the concept of the null hypothesis. The two things are not the same at all. Once again, you might gain some insight into the concept of the null hypothesis if you go back to my post re the testing of a coin for fairness, and re-read it. Slowly. And if by contrast you want a good example of what is not a null hypothesis, well your example re the Estonia is an excellent pointer.)

 

[Vixen]

What on Earth do you mean by this? I suppose it's something of a (self-)defence mechanism to deal the "they're all ganging up on me!" card from the bottom of the deck. FWIW, JayUtah (no space in the username) and I agree with each other - and we both disagree with you - for the simple reason that we are both science-literate and you are not.






No dice.

Firstly, you made the blanket assertion that "it is a law of physics* that a ship designed to float will turn upside down if it capsizes".

Yet now you're rowing back on this at the first sign of challenge: now you're claiming (apparently) that your ersatz "law of physics" doesn't apply if the ship's hull has been breached at/below the waterline.

However, your (apparent) belief that all ships who capsize without their hull being punctured at/below the waterline will necessarily float upside-down for some time before eventually (hours or even days later, per your thinking) sinking..... is also absurdly wrong.

For example, in the cases of around half of the ships in the YouTube links I showed you, the ship capsized and sank without having had its hull breached at/below the waterline (the names of all but one of the seven ships were given in the descriptions to the videos, had you bothered to look). Again, have a look at the final sinking shown in the 5-sinkings video.






Far from it.

Because I entirely reject your proffered comparator. Why? Well, because the children's bathtub toys in question either a) have sealed chambers of air, or b) they're made out of rubber/plastic which is less dense than water. So yes, in order to sink the toys with sealed chambers, you'd have to puncture their sealed chambers; and you'd never be able to sink a toy made out of rubber/plastic that was less dense than water (though I suspect you won't realise why, but perhaps imagine a block of wood floating on water). Amusingly enough though, you'd also never be able to get any of those children's bathtub toys to capsize and "turn turtle" either.....

By contrast, most ships - including the Estonia - do not contain hermetically-sealed chambers of air**, and all ships are predominantly made from materials that are considerably denser than water. As such, they are far more akin to an open metal box floating on water than either a tupperware box or a metal box with a tightly-fitted lid (or a children's bathtub toy with sealed chambers of air).

QED.


* NB, a ship floating (or otherwise) is not "a law of physics". What you ought to have said - though it would still have been factually-incorrect - is something like "it is in accordance with the laws of physics" or "it obeys the laws of physics". And that only serves to strengthen further the conclusion that you simply don't know what you're talking about when it comes to matters scientific.


** Some ships do have the facility to create watertight compartments, but ships of that design - provided these compartments are made watertight in enough time (including, obviously, the condition that the compartments are not compromised via a breach in the hull itself) - will typically not capsize at all, let alone "turn turtle" and/or end up sinking.

I was chuckling at the idea that JayUtah agrees with you that a boat would not turtle if it capsized.

So much for the master expert.