The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-Opened

[whoanellie]

If the hull is intact, that is what it does.

Was the bow visor a part of the hull?


Sent from my SM-G981V using Tapatalk

 

[Vixen]

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.

If something cannot be explained in simple language someone is trying to pull the wool over your eyes.

Think about it, the three guys on the bridge all died. The three guys on Deck 0 - Sillaste, Kadak and Treu - in the engine room managed to sprint up to their cabins, change into warm gear and survivors suits and all escaped. They knew darn well the hull was being flooded by a sudden ingress or water and got the hell out of there.

Spare us the convoluted 'only us expert forensic licensed engineers can have any idea of what might have happened' mystique.

It is not mysterious. It is very simple.

 

[Andy_Ross]

If the hull is intact, that is what it does.

What is your evidence for this?
Lots of ships sink with intact hulls.

Estonia did not have an intact hull, the bow was missing.

 

[JayUtah]

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.

The hypothesis that random chance alone produces the results you are about to observe is the null hypothesis.

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.

Are you claiming that the standard deviation is defined only for, and is meaningful only for, a normal distribution? Can hypothesis testing occur using other distributions? (Hint: I know the answer; I'm merely asking you to clarify what you mean in the last sentence above.)

That doesn't mean the null hypothesis only applies mathematically.

It literally does. Thomas Kuhn's entire point was that in many cases practical science would have to resort to statistical means in order to determine empirical support for a hypothesis. He envisioned few cases where Popper's ideal world of competing affirmative hypotheses would give rise to practical experiments. The null hypothesis is literally the mathematical embodiment of "all other hypotheses," which we note by shorthand as "chance."

If you were investigating a shipping accident...

This whole paragraph is you pretending to know how to do something you admit you have no training or experience in, and chastising others for having done it in a way that doesn't meet your approval. Explain how your argument here is not just arrogant presumption.

 

[lobosrul5]

Am I having deja vu? Id swear we discussed ships partially capsizing/ sinking on their side weeks ago. Do I need to link video of the Andrea Doria going down on her side again?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

I am afraid that it is a law of physics that a ship designed to float will turn upside down if it capsizes.

That seems to be more like a collection of tautologies than a law of physics. Being designed to float is a fairly well recognised property of ships. Turning over is what capsize means.

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.

I posted previously that the official report says it would have sunk had it not grounded. You can go argue with the Department of Transport if you like. Perhaps they will stamp their foot. Perhaps not; they may be impressed by your credentials.

 

[Andy_Ross]

If something cannot be explained in simple language someone is trying to pull the wool over your eyes.

Think about it, the three guys on the bridge all died. The three guys on Deck 0 - Sillaste, Kadak and Treu - in the engine room managed to sprint up to their cabins, change into warm gear and survivors suits and all escaped. They knew darn well the hull was being flooded by a sudden ingress or water and got the hell out of there.

Spare us the convoluted 'only us expert forensic licensed engineers can have any idea of what might have happened' mystique.

It is not mysterious. It is very simple.

Didn't the bridge crew know the ship was sinking?

We went through this earlier too. Water on the car deck would flood the machinery spaces, they are open at sea from above for ventilation and induction air for the engines, big open intakes. Also the escape ways will be open to the upper decks. Engineers are very aware that the crew usually lost in a sinking are the engineers.

 

[JayUtah]

If something cannot be explained in simple language someone is trying to pull the wool over your eyes.

No. Expertise and complexity exist whether you choose to acknowledge them or not.

Spare us the convoluted 'only us expert forensic licensed engineers can have any idea of what might have happened' mystique.

You're hilarious. When you invoke Anders Björkman, even though he's thoroughly discredited you say we have to take his statements as gospel because he's a fully qualified marine engineer. When Professor Amdahl says he thinks a submarine hit the ship, and gives us a baffling array of collision energies, we have to take that as gospel because you say he's an expert in ship collisions. When it suits your beliefs, you're all about the experts you think support them. And in your mind it is heresy to question them.

But when expertise undermines your beliefs, you can't dismiss it fast enough. Expertise that doesn't agree with you simply doesn't matter, in your way of thinking. Not a very consistent or defensible approach.

It is not mysterious. It is very simple.

Yes, it's very simple: actual ships are not the simplistically pure structures you insist they must be. The mechanics of sinking ships are not fully described by Archimedes' Law alone. Your understanding of the problem is not complete. That's the simple answer for why you're in the mess you are.

Conspiracy theories exist largely to create a world in which the theorist is the hero. You want to be the champion of those poor, ill-treated survivors. And you want to have been on what you think is the right side of history as those evil, mustache-twirling villains of the JAIC receive their comeuppance. But most conspiracy theories involve specialized knowledge. The Moon-landing hoax theory requires knowledge of space. The JKF hoax theory requires knowledge of how crimes are committed and investigated. The coronavirus conspiracy theories require knowledge of immunology and virology. The 9/11 conspiracy theories require knowledge of structural engineering. What's common to all of those, and to your conspiracy theory, is that whatever little knowledge the theorist possesses must be sufficient to argue the theory. Everyone "knows" that jet fuel can't melt steel beams. Just like everyone "knows" that a ship that begins to capsize must behave in certain simplistic ways. Conspiracism is about dumbing down the physical world so that it fits the understanding of the claimant, so that the claimant can make believe to have figured it all out and then condescend to teach all the sheeple about it.

You say if something doesn't submit to a simplistic explanation, someone must be pulling the wool over your eyes. I say if someone insists that everything is simple, they are the ones pulling the wool.

 

[JayUtah]

Am I having deja vu? Id swear we discussed ships partially capsizing/ sinking on their side weeks ago. Do I need to link video of the Andrea Doria going down on her side again?

In Vixen's magical world, ships whose hulls are breached can sink any old way they like. Only ships whose hulls are intact, like Estonia's was, obey her laws. Oh, wait...

 

[Jack by the hedge]

In Vixen's world, one example of a ship which capsized and remained afloat means all ships which capsize must remain afloat (and so the report on the Herald of Free Enterprise which opines otherwise must ipso facto be wrong).

 

[LondonJohn]

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.

Aghhhhhh you got in there first with a good answer! Too bad

ETA: erwinl beat me to it!!

 

[JesseCuster]

I had to do five years of it.

After five years of studying physics, can you explain what's wrong with the following statement? (from another thread someone linked to)

10lb x six feet (72")= 720lbs (kinetic energy)

 

[Axxman300]

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.

...And that whole storm thing. Estonia was getting hammered.

 

[Axxman300]

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 need to stop with the Titanic stuff.

There is a 71-year gap between when both ships were constructed, other than being large oceangoing vessels they have zero in common other than sinking. The only people who can say exactly what kind of damage the Titanic received were the ship's engineers, and they went down with the ship. They managed to calculate the flow of water into the ship and give the captain an accurate estimate on how fast she would sink, None of Estonia's engineers made a physical inspection of the bow area of the car deck, or on the main deck leaving the command crew blind to the situation.

Had Titanic continued to steam at flank speed after the impacts she would have sank much faster...just ike the Estonia.

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?

Oh now you're talking. I built dozens of plastic model warships of various sizes and scales as a kid (still do). Since I was a kid many of these ships ended up in the bathtub with me.

Here's what I learned:

Ballast is important for keeping a ship upright in the water.

For example, the USS Missouri and DKM Bismarck have nice stable hulls conducive to an easy float, but modern aircraft carriers won't float in the tub unless you let in an little water into the hull to act as ballast, otherwise they instantly capsize and sink.

Next thing I learned is that not all plastic is created equal.

Example: They still make a plastic fishing boat that looks like the SS Minnow from Gilligan's Island that sells for around $5. Like all bath toys, that boat will float even when full of water. Plastic models are made from Styrene or various compositions which do not float. At the end of every summer my friends and I would load all of the battleships we'd built since Christmas into our backpacks and head out to the lagoon where we'd spend the afternoon sinking them with firecrackers and lighter fluid. It was great fun.

The ones which sank the fastest were the ones which had the biggest holes blown out of their hulls.

None of this has anything to do with the engineering, design, or accident reconstruction of an actual ship.

An open bow ramp in rough seas is a big hole last time I checked.

Thank you for coming to my 12-year old self's TED Talk.

 

[JayUtah]

The only people who can say exactly what kind of damage the Titanic received were the ship's engineers, and they went down with the ship.

Fun fact: I'm distantly related to Joseph Bell, Titanic's chief engineer.

 

[RolandRat]

The grammar schools were abolished as they were considered unfair to the less able pupil - the other 80% - but on the other hand they enabled social mobility, so someone from a poor home could have the same first class education as a rich kid, simply because of innate ability.

Sorry for the derail but grammar schools haven't been abolished. The one I went to is still around:

https://www.shsb.org.uk/

 

[Mojo]

After five years of studying physics, can you explain what's wrong with the following statement? (from another thread someone linked to)

That post was from 2016, so maybe the 5 years of studying physics was since then.

 

[GlennB]

Sorry for the derail but grammar schools haven't been abolished. The one I went to is still around:

https://www.shsb.org.uk/

Mine too - "Wilson's School is a boys' grammar school with academy status in the London Borough of Sutton", although it moved from Camberwell out to Sutton around 1970 iirc.

List of grammar schools in England^WP

Can Vixen get anything right? Is it deliberate pseudo-ignorance being paraded as 'arguments' here?

 

[Vixen]

What is your evidence for this?
Lots of ships sink with intact hulls.

Estonia did not have an intact hull, the bow was missing.

The bow visor covered the car ramp. The car ramp was attached to the car deck floor which was raised above the waterline and as a means for cars and lorries to drive up the ramp. In other words it was part of the superstructure and not the hull.

Stop trying to obsfuscate the situation.

 

[Vixen]

The hypothesis that random chance alone produces the results you are about to observe is the null hypothesis.



Are you claiming that the standard deviation is defined only for, and is meaningful only for, a normal distribution? Can hypothesis testing occur using other distributions? (Hint: I know the answer; I'm merely asking you to clarify what you mean in the last sentence above.)



It literally does. Thomas Kuhn's entire point was that in many cases practical science would have to resort to statistical means in order to determine empirical support for a hypothesis. He envisioned few cases where Popper's ideal world of competing affirmative hypotheses would give rise to practical experiments. The null hypothesis is literally the mathematical embodiment of "all other hypotheses," which we note by shorthand as "chance."



This whole paragraph is you pretending to know how to do something you admit you have no training or experience in, and chastising others for having done it in a way that doesn't meet your approval. Explain how your argument here is not just arrogant presumption.

Stop judging others by your own standards.