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The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-Opened

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Vixen said:
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.
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Why did the MS Jan Heweliusz sink then?
It apparently took 5 hours in that case, but it did sink.

Since the hull was intact at that moment, it couldn't have sunk, could it?
 
Vixen said:
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.
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Still with the good old "it should have turned turtle" nonsense, eh?

I mean, ATM I'm weary of identifying the overall paucity of scientific credibility in your arguments (I'll perhaps leave that to others in this instance), but I just thought I'd highlight this as yet another example of your improper "mix-and-match" approach to scientific quantities.

See: you cannot make linkage between a) surface area and b) mass of (sea)water, without also knowing c) the height of the water.
 
Vixen said:
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.
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What is your evidence for any of that?

We went through this in detail earlier in the thread.

Passenger decks are not watertight. They have open stairwells and cabins are not watertight compartments.
Sea water was flooding down from the car deck, the machinery space was flooding.

2000 tons of water on a deck that spanned most of the hull would through free surface effect amplify any rolling and take off he ship past the point of recovery.
Once the openings on the lower side were below the water the lower decks would flood.
Once the machinery space flooded the ship was on it's way down even if it turned completely over.

A few centimeters of hatch coaming are not going to make any difference.
 
Vixen said:
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.
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Uh no. More straw with your tea, vicar?

(He and I were actually in agreement that you're wrong to claim the Estonia would necessarily have "turned turtle" if its capsize had not involved any breach of the hull at the surface)
 
Vixen said:
Here's a quick recap of the principles of why a ship floats.

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LMAO

I think you can take it as read that most of us in this thread already understand full well why a ship floats. And why an aircraft flies, for that matter.

Science: BOOM!

:rolleyes:
 
Maybe after the water came in over the bow, the crew tried to save the ship by blasting a hole in the side to let the water out.



(Using The Three Stooges as a guide makes just as much sense as using The Posideon Adventure.)
 
Vixen said:
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.
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For God's sake, he said that JayUtah agreed insofar as both he and Jay say you don't know physics.

Whether Jay agrees or not with other comments (and I won't opine on this) is totally irrelevant. Jay has repeatedly commented on your lack of understanding of physics.

This is off the main point at present: can a boat sink quickly without a hole beneath the waterline? I don't know much about physics or boats myself, but it seems to me perfectly plausible that a large opening near the waterline in a choppy sea is just as good at sinking a boat as a smaller opening that extends below the waterline. And a larger opening explains a quick sinking more readily than a small opening.
 
Vixen said:
Because of eventual displacement of air.
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How did this happen?

Edit: LondonJohn asked this question better.
What was the mechanism causing this displacement of air?
 
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erwinl said:
How did this happen?

Edit: LondonJohn asked this question better.
What was the mechanism causing this displacement of air?
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It's most likely that water was creeping in to previously dry compartments. In the damage control manual I linked to there are at the start a selection of quotes from reports.

A lot of them note that water progressed through pipe and cable runs where they passed through bulkheads and decks in to previously dry and sealed compartments.
Another source of flooding was openings not properly secured after crew abandoned flooding spaces.

It is unusual for a passenger or cargo ship to completely capsize and stay afloat for any time. They don't have enough compartmentalisation to stop flooding. By the time a ship is on it's beam ends it's buoyancy has gone.

Always remembering there are exceptions but, on average two ships a week sink, very few capsize and stay afloat.
 
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Vixen said:
I was chuckling at the idea that JayUtah agrees with you that a boat would not turtle if it capsized.
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I do agree with him. A ship that rolls past its point of recovery does not necessarily have to turn turtle and remain afloat for hours.

So much for the master expert.
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So much for the notion that this thread is about ships sinking and whether there was a defensible investigation of it.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
It's most likely that water was creeping in to previously dry compartments. In the damage control manual I linked to there are at the start a selection of quotes from reports.

A lot of them note that water progressed through pipe and cable runs where they passed through bulkheads and decks in to previously dry and sealed compartments.
Another source of flooding was openings not properly secured after crew abandoned flooding spaces.

It is unusual for a passenger or cargo ship to completely capsize and stay afloat for any time. They don't have enough compartmentalisation to stop flooding. By the time a ship is on it's beam ends it's buoyancy has gone.

Always remembering there are exceptions but, on average two ships a week sink, very few capsize and stay afloat.
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I know.
But I was hoping Vixen would explain it to us.
 
Vixen said:
Well, well, well, Jay Utah agrees with you?
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As was pointed out, I do agree with him that your demonstrated understanding of physics is insufficient for the because-I-say-so arguments you're making that invoke physical principles. And now that another issue has been raised, I do agree with him that your simplistic understanding of the buoyancy and stability of actual ships is deficient and incorrect.

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.
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Why on earth would you think that this is even remotely like a modern ship?

Clear now?
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Yes, it's clear you don't really want to grasp the nuances of the topics you raise, but are content to spew uninformed analogies and vaguely recalled simplistic principles from your youth. As has been said, we went through all of this thoroughly earlier in the thread. It's approaching 100 pages not because there is so much to discuss, but because when you paint yourself in a corner you just pivot to a previously debunked point and fringe-reset it as if no one else in this thread has said anything.
 
Vixen said:
Archimedes Principle.
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You've mentioned this as the support for your claim many times, but you never bother to carry it any farther than mentioning it and insinuating that such a mention ends the discussion. Archimedes' Law is an elementary principle of buoyancy. The actual engineering starts there; it doesn't finish there. The actual dynamics of flooding ships and the actual principles of hull construction are far more complex than just a rough guess at the volume of water displaced if you pretend the ship is a sealed vessel.
 
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