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

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Vixen said:
If you read the Kurm paragraph carefully - and it is not an invention - bear in mind it is an English translation from Estonian it does indeed mention they saw the bow was damaged (= presumably the visor not there_ which thus revealed a ramp with the type of pattern the guys described, that is with transverse and longitudinal grids, which is exactly what it does look like. In addition, these two guys are professional athletes and I have no doubt they managed to do what they said they did. As I said, I am not sure I believe they would have been able to grip the wedges with their fingers. Like most people they had no choice but to jump into the sea. The breadth of the Estonia was 24.5m.
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That is the beam at the widest. If you notice it is (like a theoretical Brontosaurus) thin at the end.
 
Vixen said:
A breach of the keel - which we now see there is indeed - explains the water seen on deck 1 and the rapid sinking. The numerous witnesses who heard bangs or a series of bangs circa 1:00 could well be describing explosions and/or some kind of collision.

Kurm in his recent expedition has found yet a third breach of the hull, albeit too early to know what type of breach.

I rule nothing out.
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Breach of the keel? Where are you seeing that?

What is a 'breach of the keel?
 
Vixen said:
... there is no evidence it flapped about, let alone managed to rise 1.4m ...
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You don't think there was anything which might have forced the visor upwards?

Maybe Captain_Swoop could repost one of those videos of a ship making its way in heavy seas, with its bow regularly plunging into the oncoming waves.
 
Jack by the hedge said:
You don't think there was anything which might have forced the visor upwards?

Maybe Captain_Swoop could repost one of those videos of a ship making its way in heavy seas, with its bow regularly plunging into the oncoming waves.
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A short one of HMS Sirius a Leander class frigate heading in to a lively sea.
Bear in mind that the Leanders were built to cope with heavy swells in the Atlantic, that's why they have the raised bow to aid buoyancy forwards.

 
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Vixen said:
Yes, and because we know it is a satirical site, why are people insisting in having proof.
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That is a frankly bizarre response to being repeatedly told that the Hikipedia website, that you linked to as a source for the nuclear-waste-dissolving-the-bow idea, is a website of absurdist parody humour.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Breach of the keel? Where are you seeing that?

What is a 'breach of the keel?
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Whoops. The starboard hull.

“The most important thing to report is that studying the starboard hull with a smaller AUV, we managed to access the section of the hull between two larger tears. We could not see all of it, while we managed to get some way in and film the hull,” expedition lead Margus Kurm said. “What we found was another opening.”

Kurm had not had time to review the material on Thursday afternoon. “It is an eye-shaped tear that is horizontal in shape and widens in the middle. The injury penetrates the hull and is smaller than the two known holes,” Kurm said.

The former prosecutor emphasized that it is a smaller opening the full extent of which is difficult to assess as the AUV could only film it up close. “However, it is not a separate breach in another area. The discovery is that of a third tear near the two existing ones,” Kurm explained.
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Postimees
 
Vixen said:
It is all guess work by the JAIC as they announced all of this (17 October 1994) before the bow visor had even been found (18 October 1994). There is no evidence anyone saw the bow visor or the ramp fall off or open and nor is there any evidence that the car deck was flooded as a cause of the accident. The JAIC are going by the word of third engineer Treu, who claimed to have seen water entering the ramp at 1:15 on his monitor in the engine room.and before the vessel started to list and AB Seaman Linde, the fire patrolman, who kept changing his story. He told Dagens Nyheter 7 October he was on the bridge and was then sent down to inspect the car deck because of water on inside the area. He told the commission he was on the bridge with different persons and this time he was sent down to check the noise.

Instead of waiting to examine the bow visor and carry out a proper investigation, the JAIC already decided to run with the observations of two or three of the crew. Whilst eyewitness accounts are invaluable, an eyewitness can't necessarily determine the cause of an accident if it is based on intricate technical faults such as weak mechanics.

It decided that the car ramp was open by 10° leaving a gap of about a metre and too small for them to send in their ROV's. They didn't really test their own hypotheses. It is hard to see how water flooded in through this relatively small gap to an area 5m high to sink the ship so quickly.
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Hmmmmm..... I wonder:

The bow visor was missing from the wreck of the ship when it was surveyed on the seabed. The bow visor was also nowhere remotely near to the wreck on the seabed. The bow visor is/was incapable of having been moved (or of getting up and moving under its own steam) so far from the wreck. If the bow visor had been properly closed and locked at the time the ship sank, it would have remained attached to the ship and would still be attached to the wreck on the seabed.

Therefore: the bow visor must have come detached from the wreck before the ship sank. That's Part 1.


Part 2: when the wreck was officially surveyed, there was visible damage to the part of the bottom lock (for the bow visor) that was attached to the hull of the ship. And there was also visible damage to the top hinges and the hydraulic piston mountings. And there was also visible damage to the area of the hull against which the bottom of the bow visor would ordinarily have mated.

Therefore 2: the bow visor must have detached from the ship because its bottom lock failed, causing it to swing up and down by its top hinges (banging down each time against that mating surface on the hull) until eventually the top hinges and pistons failed in turn - at which point the bow visor no longer had anything attaching it to the ship and it ripped free, sinking separately some distance away.


Part 3: the bow ramp, as viewed when the wreck was officially surveyed, was visibly deformed. And this - coupled with what the investigators knew about a) the operational interactions/interference between the bow visor and the bow ramp and b) the fact that they knew by then that the bow visor had failed and totally detached from the ship before it sank - mean that.....

Therefore 3: the loss of the bow visor and the deformation to the bow ramp meant that the bow was no longer watertight at these points, and that the vehicle deck of the ship must have been exposed to open seas prior to the ship sinking.


Part 4: knowing all of the above, and knowing the sea conditions on the night of the sinking, and knowing the appropriately-weighted sum of witness testimony, and knowing the likely rate of seawater ingress through the broken bow door section, and knowing the mass of seawater on the vehicle deck that would cause the ship to become terminally unstable and non-buoyant....

Therefore 4: the ship sank because the bottom lock on the bow visor failed; causing the bow visor to swing up and down in the ocean swells until its other fastenings failed as well; causing it to detach completely from the ship; causing the bow ramp to become dislodged and deformed; causing the vehicle deck to become open at the bow to the oncoming seawater; causing seawater to rush in at rapid volume/mass into the vehicle deck; causing the ship to experience a terminal loss of stability and buoyancy; causing the ship to capsize and sink.


Let me know if you'd require any further clarification.
 
Vixen said:
A breach of the keel - which we now see there is indeed - explains the water seen on deck 1 and the rapid sinking. The numerous witnesses who heard bangs or a series of bangs circa 1:00 could well be describing explosions and/or some kind of collision.

Kurm in his recent expedition has found yet a third breach of the hull, albeit too early to know what type of breach.

I rule nothing out.
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A "breach of the keel"? What fresh hell is this?

Going on the supposition that you meant "breach of the hull", then no: the (relatively) recently-revealed damage to the starboard hull, including an area where the hull was punctured, does not "explain the water seen on deck 1 and the rapid sinking". For starters, the puncture was very clearly above the waterline - and however much you want to continue arguing otherwise, the ferry's paint scheme simply doesn't lie.

But over and above that, water flowing sideways along the side of a forwards-travelling ship-shaped object is a very different proposition from water flowing head-on hitting the bow of a forwards-travelling ship-shaped object. It's a shame you don't know much (if indeed anything) about fluid dynamics, specifically wrt how fluids flow around a solid object. Otherwise you'd realise this yourself.

But perhaps an (imperfect*, but sufficient to illustrate the general principle) example from something you might already understand would help you out: Imagine you're driving in your car, at (say) 40 miles per hour. Now you open your driver's side window about half way. There's plenty of wind noise in the cabin, sure. And some of the outside air will enter the cabin too. But not actually all that much. And that's because almost all the outside air passing your driver's-side window is channeling straight down the side of your car: there's no significant sideways vector of momentum that would be necessary for the air to make that sideways move through your window and into the cabin.

Now imagine you wind your window back up, then you kick out half your car's windscreen/windshield. You might perhaps be able to conceptualise how a wall of air that's (in relative terms) travelling head-on towards your windscreen/windshield would find its way into your cabin quickly and easily.


(And by the way: having an open mind is only valuable when one has the necessary knowledge and analytical ability to figure out a) which possibilities can be safely excluded with reference to the (reliable) known evidence, b) which possibilities are consistent with the (reliable) know evidence, and c) which possibilities are simply not feasible on their face.)


* The main imperfection being that the car example involves air displacing air, thereby implying the need for pressure differentials. Whereas for a ship, it would be a case of water displacing air. But, as I said, there's sufficient similarity of general principles to make the illustration relevant and fair.
 
LondonJohn said:
Hmmmmm..... I wonder:

The bow visor was missing from the wreck of the ship when it was surveyed on the seabed. The bow visor was also nowhere remotely near to the wreck on the seabed. The bow visor is/was incapable of having been moved (or of getting up and moving under its own steam) so far from the wreck. If the bow visor had been properly closed and locked at the time the ship sank, it would have remained attached to the ship and would still be attached to the wreck on the seabed.

Therefore: the bow visor must have come detached from the wreck before the ship sank. That's Part 1.


Part 2: when the wreck was officially surveyed, there was visible damage to the part of the bottom lock (for the bow visor) that was attached to the hull of the ship. And there was also visible damage to the top hinges and the hydraulic piston mountings. And there was also visible damage to the area of the hull against which the bottom of the bow visor would ordinarily have mated.

Therefore 2: the bow visor must have detached from the ship because its bottom lock failed, causing it to swing up and down by its top hinges (banging down each time against that mating surface on the hull) until eventually the top hinges and pistons failed in turn - at which point the bow visor no longer had anything attaching it to the ship and it ripped free, sinking separately some distance away.


Part 3: the bow ramp, as viewed when the wreck was officially surveyed, was visibly deformed. And this - coupled with what the investigators knew about a) the operational interactions/interference between the bow visor and the bow ramp and b) the fact that they knew by then that the bow visor had failed and totally detached from the ship before it sank - mean that.....

Therefore 3: the loss of the bow visor and the deformation to the bow ramp meant that the bow was no longer watertight at these points, and that the vehicle deck of the ship must have been exposed to open seas prior to the ship sinking.


Part 4: knowing all of the above, and knowing the sea conditions on the night of the sinking, and knowing the appropriately-weighted sum of witness testimony, and knowing the likely rate of seawater ingress through the broken bow door section, and knowing the mass of seawater on the vehicle deck that would cause the ship to become terminally unstable and non-buoyant....

Therefore 4: the ship sank because the bottom lock on the bow visor failed; causing the bow visor to swing up and down in the ocean swells until its other fastenings failed as well; causing it to detach completely from the ship; causing the bow ramp to become dislodged and deformed; causing the vehicle deck to become open at the bow to the oncoming seawater; causing seawater to rush in at rapid volume/mass into the vehicle deck; causing the ship to experience a terminal loss of stability and buoyancy; causing the ship to capsize and sink.


Let me know if you'd require any further clarification.
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I want to hear more about the tattooed dude on the bridge that shot the captain before applying radioactive waste to the bow. And bombs/mines. And submarines. And the crew that were wearing survival suits in anticipation of the sinking. And all the other bizarre stuff that was proposed earlier in the thread and seems to have been dropped in favour of the current wacko theory of the week.
 
Vixen said:
Whoops. The starboard hull.

Postimees
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And that damage was caused by the ship colliding with a rock outcrop sticking out of the clay-silt seabed when it sank.

Y'know, the rock outcrop which is now visible right next to the now-revealed area of damaged hull. The rock outcrop whose topology closely fits with the deformation/puncturing of the hull.


Those good ol' twins Logic and Reason ride to the rescue once again......
 
Steve said:
I want to hear more about the tattooed dude on the bridge that shot the captain before applying radioactive waste to the bow. And bombs/mines. And submarines. And the crew that were wearing survival suits in anticipation of the sinking. And all the other bizarre stuff that was proposed earlier in the thread and seems to have been dropped in favour of the current wacko theory of the week.
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I heartily commend your commitment to "ruling nothing out".
 
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