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The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-opened Part II

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Oh my gosh. We sink to new lows.

Remind us all exactly why this genealogical nonsense (which, incidentally, appears to have been described in such toe-curling detail mainly/purely in a sad attempt at self-aggrandisement) is in any way relevant to the (increasingly pitiful) debate about the sinking of the Estonia?

Really? So not like JayUtah's chief engineer of the Titanic or your fighter pilot dad, an expert in noise?
 
Exactly. I'd suggest it's actually highly likely that quite a few of the crew who managed to successfully abandon the ship (together perhaps with some passengers who realised what they were looking at) were able to view the bow of the ship before it sank. And they'd have seen that the bow visor was entirely missing, and that the vehicle ramp had also been torn away from its stowed position.

And if they did see all this from the life boats, it would have been immediately entirely apparent to them exactly why the ship was sinking: the catastrophic failure/loss of the bow visor, coupled with the huge damage to the ramp, had allowed seawater to flood into the vehicle deck. And they'd have known enough about the dangers of serious water ingress to know that a flooding of the vehicle deck would easily be enough to destabilise the ship in terms of list and loss of buoyancy to the point where the ship would inevitably sink.

So yes, I'd say it's eminently possible - probable even - that within even a few hours of the sinking there were plenty of reasonably-credible reports of the primary cause being the loss of the bow visor and the consequent damage to the bow ramp. There need be no requirement whatsoever for any skulduggery or conspiracy-theorising when considering how the "bow visor" causal theory found its way to Bildt's ear so quickly.

'Would', 'could', 'should'. Pure conjecture. Sheer fantasy. No sources, references or citations.
 
Do you think Meek a reputable journalist for a respected British broadsheet, the GRAUNIAD would have published the story if he did not think it credible? He is not writing for the SUN or NATIONAL ENQUIRER where any old gossip will do. GRAUNIAD readers are sandal-wearing middle-class lefties who are conscious of climate change, social inequality and the need for reform. They could give a toss about sensationalist stories. Enter James Meek with his reasonable story that Estonia 'might have been sunk by a mine claim'. Note the word 'claim'.


You have evidently failed to note it.
 
You calling him a hack now does not substantiate your previous complaint that someone in the thread had called him a hack.

'Hack' is slang for a journalist. It is not necessarily derogatory, it is also affectionate. The point being made is that Meek is a first class professional journalist who is not the type of gutter-press hack who writes sex-obsessed stories about celebrities but who is sent abroad for serious news reports.
 
'Hack' is slang for a journalist. It is not necessarily derogatory, it is also affectionate. The point being made is that Meek is a first class professional journalist who is not the type of gutter-press hack who writes sex-obsessed stories about celebrities but who is sent abroad for serious news reports.


Why do you need to make this point when nobody has suggested that he is?
 
Er, they were half dead with hypothermia. It is not the rescuers' role to interrogate half-drowned people fresh from the sea. They are far more likely to be worried about their loved ones left behind than some poxy bow visor.

Why wouldn't they have told the rescuers what happened? why wouldn't the rescuers have asked?
You think not a word was spoken for 14 hours?
 
Meek is the journalist, the Head Honch at Estline is his source. So Meek did find a reliable source and duly reported it. He is a hack, not an expert in mines.

Where was an 'expert in mines' involved at all?
 


Sillaste and Kadak never saw the bow visor. All they saw was the car ramp door and it was shut. They could have had no idea the bow visor had fallen off or was hanging off from their vantage point looking at the monitor. According to Hummel, the water on the monitor lens was likely the fire alarm spray, as someone did trigger the fire alarm with a coded 'Mr Skylight' message on the tannoy.

Fire sprays on ships are of two types, automatic triggered by heat or manual triggered from the fire control board.
Manual systems are designed to drench entire machinery and deck spaces.

Do we know what type was fitted to the Estonia?
 
Turns out Carl Bildt is my ninth cousin, sharing the same seventh-great-grandparents as myself, who were born in Finland of Baltic German descent via Livonia (current day Estonia and Latvia) which was then in the Swedish Empire. My sixth-great-grandmother was a listed Swedish noblewoman; her forebears include Baltic German nobility who had vast estates in Livonia (they originated from Pomerania); my tenth-great-grandfather, a listed Swedish noble, from old Finnish stock, was actually Governor of Livonia and high commander of the Swedish Infantry in the Sixteenth Century.
Nobody care about any of that. It's entirely irrelevant.
 
Somebody questioned whether anybody could be so idiotic as to think it could have been a mine that sunk the ship.


Nobody has made any such statement, at least not in connection to Meek, and possibly not at all. People have pointed out that Meek was simply reporting a claim made by someone else, not expressing an opinion of his own, and have queried your claim that Meek is someone with particular expertise in nautical matters, but nobody has cast any aspersions on Meek’s journalism, or on Meek personally. Your implication that they have is, to put it bluntly, a lie.
 
Meek is the journalist, the Head Honch at Estline is his source. So Meek did find a reliable source and duly reported it. He is a hack, not an expert in mines.
Sorry, i should have been clearer in my post. I was responding to this:
Nonsense, I did not claim Meek was the person saying that it could have been a mine.

By reminding you that you had earlier posted this:
The CEO of Estline ... and a reputable prize-winning journalist James Meek thought a mine was a genuine possibility as of the time of the incident.

Note the part I have bolded, which shows your later assertion to be either mistaken, or dishonest. I wasn't addressing or making any claims about expertise in mines.

I hope that clears things up.
 
Somebody questioned whether anybody could be so idiotic as to think it could have been a mine that sunk the ship.
Nope, people questioned your claim that Meek agreed with the claim that a mine could have sunk the ship. He didn't agree with the claim, he merely reported the claim that the Estline head honcho made, but you said that Meek agreed with the claim that a mine could have sunk the ship when he did no such thing.

You have been repeatedly corrected on that and refuse to acknowledge that you were wrong and have launched into a bizarre series of invective posts about gutter hacks and sex-obsessed yellow press, which has nothing to do with anything anybody has said.

I'll repeat what someone else has said, it's hard to know if you're genuinely incapable of reading and following the thread and remembering what you and others have said or if you're just that intellectually dishonest.
 
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