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

[Vixen]

No. No it would not. It would (and here comes the HUGE SURPRISE) be banging on the main-hull-side part of the (now broken) bottom lock. Well away from the bulbous bow.

It is actually called the forepeak deck and that rests on the bulbous bow.

 

[Andy_Ross]

If it was AB seaman Linde, I would not believe him.

From JAIC 13.2.1



Now this is his 'final statement' (as of 1997).

He claims he was at the car ramp 12:55 EET then progressed down to deck 1 and 0 and then up to the bridge. He claims he saw Captain Andresson ahead of him on stairs up to the bridge circa 12:58.

So really? If he stayed at the car ramp for five minutes, how did he manage to go down to decks 1 and 0 and then up to the bridge via deck 7 by 12:58?

To get out of the car deck you have to walk some 17m just to get to the door and then walk along a corridor to get to the stairs up or down. Whilst the ship is upright, sure, he could get from 0 to 7 in two or three minutes if he was leaping up them. The alternative are the emergency stairs from the engine room on deck 0, which is literally a wall ladder that leads into the car deck. Even then, there was walking to do to get to the doors. If he went up the funnel chimney stairs then that is of course quicker but then how did he manage to to Andresson going up the usual stairs to take over watch on the bridge? Plus he claims he was handing out life jackets to passengers and still had time to change into a survivor suit and get a life raft.

A witness claims he saw Linde sitting in the Admiral pub at 12:45.

Was he an AB or the Bosun?

 

[Andy_Ross]

1) The area in blue (on that illustration) is nothing more - or less - than the area of the hull that sits below the typical waterline.

2) The area of the bulbous bow is (and I can barely believe I need to spell this out) the area of that bulbous protrusion right at the front end of the ship - which, since it sits below the waterline, is also coloured blue in your illustration.

3) The bottom lock of the bow visor was approximately half way along the bottom edge of the visor - just forward of the red circle in your illustration. And quite apart from the bulbous bow.

The demarcation between the blue and white hull areas was above the waterline.

 

[Vixen]

I don't think Vixen's quite got the hang of the concept of motion in an arc around a pivot point......

JAIC" Figure 13.6 Probable failure sequence of the bow visor."

As you can see from the JAIC pictures, it somehow fails to explain how the visor moved up 1.4m to rip the forward bulkhead.

JAIC 8.13.5
Excerpt:

Subsequent wave impacts caused the visor to move backwards and forwards in combination with some vertical movements, resulting in various impact damage to the bulkhead and the hinge beams. Impact marks indicate violent transverse movements, and upward movements of about 1.4 m."

How come Westermann and Ulfversson of Norway Technological University found no damage consistent with 'impact marks'?

So explain how the thing moved up by 1.4m as described by the JAIC?

<fx gets into listening pose>

 

[LondonJohn]

Sinking occurs only, when the weight of the ship and cargo exceeds the available buoyancy of the hull. In the Estonia AIUI this was 18,000 tonnes so loading 40,000 tonnes of metal on to the superstructure is just silly and it would sink like a stone.

However, it could handle the 2,000 tonnes ingress of water because with its tonnage of 15.5 tonnes with maximum allowed cargo and passengers (it was only half occupied 28.9.1994) if it capsized due to imbalance, it would simply float upside down.

Try it. Get an empty plastic bottle. Fill up a kitchen sink or bath. Throw the bottle in. It floats of course. Now half fill it with [very heavy] water and throw it in. Guess what it still floats! Now fill it completely with water. It immediately sinks. Why? It is all to do with displacement of air.

If the car deck was never violently filled with sea water nor breached its doors with a 9cm water barrier, then there is no way the vessel would have sunk.

So the JAIC had to assume it breached the doors, smashed windows on the next deck up and this displacement of air by very heavy water caused the sinking. However, it would still take time for it to displace all of the air in each of the cabins.

However, Kurm's investigators found the car deck doors shut and intact.

I repeat: it's not all (just) to do with the displacement of air.

In your silly experiment, how about you feed 15 AA batteries through the neck of your bottle. Then report back to me a) how much of the air in the bottle has been displaced, and b) whether the bottle floated or sank.

The other factor you're not considering wrt the real-world sinking of a ship due to flooding of the hull is the considerable impact owing to the very fluidity of the floodwater itself.

See: if, for example, a ship has a 1 degree list to starboard, and if there's a high mass of water now present within the hull, well that water will obviously gather towards the lower side - the side of the list. And all of a sudden, you've got far worse than a 1 degree list to worry about. That's how & why any significant amount of internal flooding - even if it doesn't push the overall ship's mass over into negative-buoyancy territory - can easily destabilise the ship so severely that it capsizes and subsequently sinks.


Seriously, you really don't know enough about this to facilitate any sort of serious debate.

 

[Vixen]

"On top of the bulbous bow" (="above the bulbous bow") isn't "the bulbous bow".

This is all rather elementary stuff.

Technical term: forepeak deck.

 

[LondonJohn]

Well he managed to reveal the Swedish FSU arms smuggling in 1998, some seven years before Sweden admitted it officially in the Riksdag in 2005.

Howzat!?

You know what they say about the thing that even a stopped clock can do twice a day....?

 

[Andy_Ross]

JAIC" Figure 13.6 Probable failure sequence of the bow visor."

As you can see from the JAIC pictures, it somehow fails to explain how the visor moved up 1.4m to rip the forward bulkhead.

JAIC 8.13.5
Excerpt:



How come Westermann and Ulfversson of Norway Technological University found no damage consistent with 'impact marks'?

So explain how the thing moved up by 1.4m as described by the JAIC?

<fx gets into listening pose>

When the final pivot broke the action of the bow plunging and the rising wave front would force the visor upwards.

It's not difficult.

 

[LondonJohn]

It is actually called the forepeak deck and that rests on the bulbous bow.

Yes. And it's situated above the bulbous bow. It is not the bulbous bow (nor is it any part of the bulbous bow).

So are we now - finally - in agreement that the bow visor, once its bottom lock had broken, was not banging down against the bulbous bow?

 

[Vixen]

I repeat: it's not all (just) to do with the displacement of air.

In your silly experiment, how about you feed 15 AA batteries through the neck of your bottle. Then report back to me a) how much of the air in the bottle has been displaced, and b) whether the bottle floated or sank.

The other factor you're not considering wrt the real-world sinking of a ship due to flooding of the hull is the considerable impact owing to the very fluidity of the floodwater itself.

See: if, for example, a ship has a 1 degree list to starboard, and if there's a high mass of water now present within the hull, well that water will obviously gather towards the lower side - the side of the list. And all of a sudden, you've got far worse than a 1 degree list to worry about. That's how & why any significant amount of internal flooding - even if it doesn't push the overall ship's mass over into negative-buoyancy territory - can easily destabilise the ship so severely that it capsizes and subsequently sinks.


Seriously, you really don't know enough about this to facilitate any sort of serious debate.

If the hull is intact - as it is assumed to be by the JAIC in their report notwithstanding their overlooking the hole in the starboard, which would explain the rapid sinking - then if there is enough list to topple the boat over, for example, say a load of lorries toppled over to one side, then it would simply capsize and float upside down just like the MS Jan Heweliusz, a similiar ferry. did for five hours before finally sinking.

Sure, it would sink eventually as the superstructure spaces are filled with air but it would not have sunk like a stone as the Estonia did.

 

[LondonJohn]

JAIC" Figure 13.6 Probable failure sequence of the bow visor."

As you can see from the JAIC pictures, it somehow fails to explain how the visor moved up 1.4m to rip the forward bulkhead.

JAIC 8.13.5
Excerpt:



How come Westermann and Ulfversson of Norway Technological University found no damage consistent with 'impact marks'?

So explain how the thing moved up by 1.4m as described by the JAIC?

<fx gets into listening pose>

You do know that the entire ship was riding up and down on big swells, don't you? And that therefore, once the bow visor was effectively swinging loose from its top pivots, it (the bow visor) would easily have been capable of moving up by that amount?


(And "gets into listening pose" is not something that would be annotated in a script/screenplay as an effect. You're still not getting the hang of this, are you?)

 

[Vixen]

Yes. And it's situated above the bulbous bow. It is not the bulbous bow (nor is it any part of the bulbous bow).

So are we now - finally - in agreement that the bow visor, once its bottom lock had broken, was not banging down against the bulbous bow?

Only an idiot would claim that as it was obviously not banging on the bulbous bow but the area above it.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Sinking occurs only, when the weight of the ship and cargo exceeds the available buoyancy of the hull. In the Estonia AIUI this was 18,000 tonnes so loading 40,000 tonnes of metal on to the superstructure is just silly and it would sink like a stone.

However, it could handle the 2,000 tonnes ingress of water because with its tonnage of 15.5 tonnes with maximum allowed cargo and passengers (it was only half occupied 28.9.1994) if it capsized due to imbalance, it would simply float upside down.

Try it. Get an empty plastic bottle. Fill up a kitchen sink or bath. Throw the bottle in. It floats of course. Now half fill it with [very heavy] water and throw it in. Guess what it still floats! Now fill it completely with water. It immediately sinks. Why? It is all to do with displacement of air.

If the car deck was never violently filled with sea water nor breached its doors with a 9cm water barrier, then there is no way the vessel would have sunk.

So the JAIC had to assume it breached the doors, smashed windows on the next deck up and this displacement of air by very heavy water caused the sinking. However, it would still take time for it to displace all of the air in each of the cabins.

However, Kurm's investigators found the car deck doors shut and intact.

Half a meter depth of water on the car deck would be 2000 tons. If the ship rolled that 2000 tons would move outboard and increase the roll, this is called the 'free surface effect'.
It is enough to push the hull past the point of recovery and it would not come back up from the roll.

If the ship rolled far enough then the openings on the lower side would be under water. 9cm of coaming round a door would not stop it.

Water would cascade down the open stairways and escape routes to the machinery space, it would cascade down the air vents and air intakes for the engines and generators.

Once windows were under water they would burst due to the difference in pressure between the water and air inside.

None of the superstructure is watertight. If the superstructure flooded there would not be enough buoyancy left in the unflooded part of the hull to keep it afloat. Just the machinery space flooding would be enough to take it down.

We went through this at length earlier in the thread.

 

[LondonJohn]

Technical term: forepeak deck.

Yes. Are you having to keep reminding yourself that the part of the ship that the broken bow visor would have been banging against was not the bulbous bow?

 

[Andy_Ross]

It is actually called the forepeak deck and that rests on the bulbous bow.

No, the 'forepeak deck' is not the visor. It is the deck behind it. The forepeak is actually the space below the weather deck in the bow.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Technical term: forepeak deck.

That is any space below the weather deck in the bow.

 

[LondonJohn]

If the hull is intact - as it is assumed to be by the JAIC in their report notwithstanding their overlooking the hole in the starboard, which would explain the rapid sinking - then if there is enough list to topple the boat over, for example, say a load of lorries toppled over to one side, then it would simply capsize and float upside down just like the MS Jan Heweliusz, a similiar ferry. did for five hours before finally sinking.

Sure, it would sink eventually as the superstructure spaces are filled with air but it would not have sunk like a stone as the Estonia did.

No. You do not know what you're talking about.

(When you do your experiment with the bottle and the 15 AA batteries (meaning that almost all of the air in the bottle remains in place, and the bottle (cf "hull") remains intact), report back as to whether the bottle, uhm, "turned turtle". Or whether it simply sank.)

 

[Vixen]

Half a meter depth of water on the car deck would be 2000 tons. If the ship rolled that 2000 tons would move outboard and increase the roll, this is called the 'free surface effect'.
It is enough to push the hull past the point of recovery and it would not come back up from the roll.

If the ship rolled far enough then the openings on the lower side would be under water. 9cm of coaming round a door would not stop it.

Water would cascade down the open stairways and escape routes to the machinery space, it would cascade down the air vents and air intakes for the engines and generators.

Once windows were under water they would burst due to the difference in pressure between the water and air inside.

None of the superstructure is watertight. If the superstructure flooded there would not be enough buoyancy left in the unflooded part of the hull to keep it afloat. Just the machinery space flooding would be enough to take it down.

We went through this at length earlier in the thread.

Fortuitously, we have a few survivors from Deck 1 the cheapo cheapo cabins. They all report water over their cabin floors but none coming down the stairs. Paradoxically, despite being furthest down, Reintamm was first up on deck 7 just in time to see something 'bright or white gliding away'.

 

[LondonJohn]

Only an idiot would claim that as it was obviously not banging on the bulbous bow but the area above it.

I seem to remember at least one "idiot" who was claiming that - in the official version of events - the bow visor was indeed banging against the bulbous bow.

 

[Andy_Ross]

If the hull is intact - as it is assumed to be by the JAIC in their report notwithstanding their overlooking the hole in the starboard, which would explain the rapid sinking - then if there is enough list to topple the boat over, for example, say a load of lorries toppled over to one side, then it would simply capsize and float upside down just like the MS Jan Heweliusz, a similiar ferry. did for five hours before finally sinking.

Sure, it would sink eventually as the superstructure spaces are filled with air but it would not have sunk like a stone as the Estonia did.

2000 tons of water on the car deck moved outboard would tip the ship past the point of recovery. Any openings below the water would flood. Again, the machinery spaces are not watertight from above, by their nature they are open to allow induction air for the engines and generators, cooling air for the considerable air conditioning plant on a modern passenger ship and also crew egress int he case of emergency.