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

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JayUtah said:
You're being asked about this post: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=13597334#post13597334

Yes, it's obvious even from that context that you are aware that the KGB was disbanded years before the Estonia accident. And most of your critics have acknowledged either knowing it or having been informed of it. Therefore the question is why you brought up the KGB in the linked post. You were not asked about the generally nefarious character of Russian intelligence agencies, however they are named or whenever they were active. You were asked what specific relevance the KGB has to your overall argument.
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We have a saying in Finland: 'A Russian fried in butter is still a Russian'.
 
theprestige said:
Terrible analogy. Vandalism has an obvious human agency. A poorly maintained bow visor coming off in heavy seas does not. I honestly can't think of an apt analogy involving a car.

How about this, instead?

Russia (allegedly) issues "stern warnings" about stealing their secrets. Some time later, a poorly-maintained, poorly-crewed ferry that may have previously been used to transport some secrets founders in heavy weather, apparently due to a mechanical failure of a critical subsystem. Is there any reason to think the Russians somehow arranged this? If they wanted to send a message, wouldn't they make some effort to indicate that a messenger was involved?
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  • it happens at midnight
  • it happens when the bridge watch is changing
  • it happens at the mid-point of the journey
  • it happens in international waters
  • it happens when Channel 16 is blovked by signals from a Russian military base
  • it happens when the entire phone network is down
  • it happens when the APIRB buoys (or 'boo-wees') are switched off

Riiiiight. <fx broad Brummie accent: Yes, mate!>
 
RolandRat said:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/05/a-sea-story/302940/

Adjective laden description but it does give a good indication of the weather conditions and what happened based on the passengers testimony. Surprisingly, it doesn't mention mines, submarines, explosions, Israel, Bill Clinton, MI6 or Putin.

" On a stormy night on the Baltic Sea, more than 850 people lost their lives when a luxurious ferry sank below the waves. From a mass of material, including official and unofficial reports and survivor testimony, our correspondent has distilled an account of the Estonia's last moments—part of his continuing coverage for the magazine of anarchy on the high seas

That night the ship knifed ahead at its full 19 knots, with all four main engines fully throttled up to their combined output of 23,500 horsepower, driving the hull across the gently accumulating seas. The vessel's motion was at first barely noticeable to the passengers

As the weather grew worse and the ship began to roll more heavily, the waiters had trouble moving among the chairs with their trays, and a speaker on wheels began to move back and forth dangerously on the stage; at one point a dancing girl fell into the band.

It was soon afterward that Thiger heard a heavy, metallic-sounding blow that reverberated sharply through the ship's structure. At first he thought it must have been caused by a heavy wave, but it didn't quite feel like ordinary "slamming." He wondered if a truck might have overturned on the car deck—but no, the impact was too strong for that; it was almost as if a whiplash had run through the bulkheads."
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The best account IMV which is devoid of any so-called 'conspiracy theory' is a book Flashes in the Night by an American author whose geography and spelling are a bit off at times, but a brave effort. (He annoyingly doesn't seem to know the difference between the Swedish Archipelago and the Finnish one and thinks Åbo is a separate town from Turku.) He interviews survivors personally although he strings it out a bit, presumably to get the word count up to book length.
 
Vixen said:
  • it happens at midnight
  • it happens when the bridge watch is changing
  • it happens at the mid-point of the journey
  • it happens in international waters
  • it happens when Channel 16 is blovked by signals from a Russian military base
  • it happens when the entire phone network is down
  • it happens when the APIRB buoys (or 'boo-wees') are switched off

Riiiiight. <fx broad Brummie accent: Yes, mate!>
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Once again the EPIRB buoys are always off until activated.
Those on the Estonia were manually activated. If no-one turned them on and released them they would not work.
 
Vixen said:
  • it happens at midnight
  • it happens when the bridge watch is changing
  • it happens at the mid-point of the journey
  • it happens in international waters
  • it happens when Channel 16 is blovked by signals from a Russian military base
  • it happens when the entire phone network is down
  • it happens when the APIRB buoys (or 'boo-wees') are switched off

Riiiiight. <fx broad Brummie accent: Yes, mate!>
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If the ship had sailed on time or weather conditions had been different it would have been at a different position at midnight.
Would the KGB have then sunk it at midnight or at the half way point?
 
Captain_Swoop said:
If the ship had sailed on time or weather conditions had been different it would have been at a different position at midnight.
Would the KGB have then sunk it at midnight or at the half way point?
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The passenger cruise ferries run a tight schedule as they need to get the passengers to their connecting transport at the other end on time (it actually debarks at Sodertalje which is some distance away from Stockholm). Nor do they want to be fined by the port authorities. So it'd never be more than a few minutes behind schedule.

As one minute (latitude coordinate) equals approximately 1.5 miles there is plenty of leeway in leaving 15" late. If Estonia was doing 18 knots, that is roughly 0.3 miles a minute (time), or a difference of 0.2' in coordinates, that would show up as seconds.

So the idea a timed device or a timed attack would not work if the ship leaves a few minutes late is ill-conceived.

I bet you were that annoying kid at school who constantly asked the teacher a question.
 
Current, wave and wind all contribute to the speed of a ship over the ground.
Why are you using degrees of latitude to work out the total distance sailed?
 
Vixen said:
Sent to M16, and through diplomatic channels, apparently.

Have you managed to find any clues as to who might have punctured your tyres yet?
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I'm assuming you mean MI6.

Do you have a source for this claim, or is it just a widely believed fact, like alligators in the NYC sewers?
 
Foster Zygote said:
I'm assuming you mean MI6.

Do you have a source for this claim, or is it just a widely believed fact, like alligators in the NYC sewers?
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And why would then send the message to MI6 is the message is supposed to be for the Swedes?
 
Vixen said:
The passenger cruise ferries run a tight schedule as they need to get the passengers to their connecting transport at the other end on time (it actually debarks at Sodertalje which is some distance away from Stockholm). Nor do they want to be fined by the port authorities. So it'd never be more than a few minutes behind schedule.

As one minute (latitude coordinate) equals approximately 1.5 miles there is plenty of leeway in leaving 15" late. If Estonia was doing 18 knots, that is roughly 0.3 miles a minute (time), or a difference of 0.2' in coordinates, that would show up as seconds.

So the idea a timed device or a timed attack would not work if the ship leaves a few minutes late is ill-conceived.

I bet you were that annoying kid at school who constantly asked the teacher a question.
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1) It is a ferry. Wouldn't most of the passengers have their own connecting transport?
2) Do you have any evidence that the port authorities would impose a fine if the ferry arrived late for safety or passenger comfort reasons? Citations?

Do you just make this crap up?

From The Atlantic article:
As a young man Sörman had toyed with the idea of going to sea, and indeed had spent some weeks as an officer in training on a Swedish ferry before deciding that law school would provide a better life. Like Thiger, he had disapproved of the speed with which the Estonia was being driven into the waves, and he had contrasted this handling, as he later said to me, with the policies he remembered from his Swedish ferry service, during which ships had been slowed early for passenger comfort in the expectation that people would maintain their spending in the restaurants and bars. The Estonians were evidently not yet appreciative of such capitalistic subtleties. Earlier in the evening Sörman had watched as the officers pushed their ship past another ferry in a typically brutish Soviet manner. At dinner many of the people in his seminar group were sick.
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Do you remember how important it is to believe the survivors?

Thiger noticed that there was something very wrong with the front end—that the ship's openable bow had somehow fallen off. Thiger was face to face with the cause of the Estonia's demise.
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An instant later, in the confusion of a nightmare, they passed into the flooded entrance of a huge dark tunnel that was swallowing the surging waves. It was the open end of the car deck, the gaping wound left when the bow fell off. Sörman realized that he had not escaped the Estonia after all—that it would catch him now and take him down. Unable to endure the sight, he turned his head away in fear. When finally he found the courage to look again, the Estonia was gone.
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Vixen said:
We have a saying in Finland: 'A Russian fried in butter is still a Russian'.
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And that utterly failed to address a single thing I said. Why did you bring up the KGB in the linked post if your position is that, having been disbanded years earlier, they were irrelevant to the Estonia accident?
 
Vixen said:
...it happens when the entire phone network is down
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You've provided no evidence that this happened, nor have you reconciled this with claims that others were somehow still able to communicate by cellular telephone.

You invoked a secondary source that cited Walter Hummel for this claim. But that provides no evidence. You simply declare that since Hummel is a "reputable marine engineer," who has, at times, "been willing to testify in court," we have to accept the claim. The claim is absurd on its face, and neither Hummel's reputation in a profession irrelevant to telephony nor his participation in irrelevant legal proceedings stands as evidence for an allegation of fact.
 
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