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

[Vixen]

Is it standard maritime practice for ship repairers to take their work home with them?

That is what GlennB and Captain_Swoop seem to believe.

 

[Andy_Ross]

So are you claiming the Clausthal-Zellerfeld do not know what they are talking about? From wiki: The small public university is regularly ranked among the Top German universities in engineering by CHE University Rankings.[2]

No, we are claiming you don't know what you are talking about.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Don't be silly. That would be like saying one could have stopped World War II by simply killing one or two German soldiers. No, because there is a whole queue of millions more behind them. It is the German Third Reich you need to target.

Millions of smugglers just waiting for their chance, undeterred by murderous Russian reactions. So... what was the point of sinking the ship again?

 

[Mojo]

It has the Russian signature written all over it.

Compare and contrast the Wilhelm Gustloff and the Estonia:

Sunk within less than an hour

90% of those on board drowned with no means of escape

Of 10,000 on board the former, only about 1,320 were rescued.

Of 1,000 on board the latter only 137 survived.

The Mayday signal was not received in either for a long time.

That really doesn’t establish foreseeability, because these similarities could not have been noted until after the event. For something to be foreseeable the info needs to be available before the event. Even if the wreck turns out to bear Boris Yeltsin’s personal signature seared into the side of it with a B&Q home welding kit it wouldn’t make it foreseeable.

What evidence do you have which establishes that a reasonable man should have foreseen that the Estonia would be sunk?

 

[Andy_Ross]

Still at it. We did this already. Your "but, but, but the JAIC declared it was seaworthy" was a load of poisonous crap the first time around and still is.

JAIC did not survey the ship. They would be relying on the certification provided by the survey company contracted to undertake the survey on behalf of the certifying authority.

Bureau Veritas themselves did not do the survey, they are the organisation that the certifying authorities of the various countries use to set the standards for the survey.

 

[Mojo]

That is what GlennB and Captain_Swoop seem to believe.

Neither of them has posted anything that would allow you to draw such a conclusion. The person who brought up “home DIY welding kits” and living rooms was you.

 

[Andy_Ross]

That is what GlennB and Captain_Swoop seem to believe.

Why do you lie?

 

[Vixen]

So the Russian signature is three torpedoes. Or four torpedoes if they all work.

That's not written all over the Estonia.

Hole in the bow, at least three holes in the hull, we know now (one or two of which may or may not be do to stress).

Sunk within 35 minutes.

Series of three bangs and/or collision heard/felt by many survivors at Swedish midnight halfway through its journey. International distress channel 16 down. The third and fourth mate had to use a hand held device to broadcast a May Day on a localised channel. The responding ships, Mariella and Symphony had to use a hand held NMT device to ring the coast guard landline. Entire phone network down from 1:02 to 1:58 am EET for the duration. Signal for Channel 16 blocked by Russian military base at Hogland Island.

What does Sweden do within sixteen hours of losing >500 Swedish nationals, including little children and young adults? Declare it was just an accident.

 

[Vixen]

When my unit deployed to Bosnia, we used civilian trains (Deutsche Bahn) to move our Bradleys and most of our other "military" vehicles and stuff.

Yes, but this was not equipment stolen from a hostile foreign power.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Yes, but this was not equipment stolen from a hostile foreign power.

Your claim was it would not happen.

Military equipment is sent on ferries all the time.

 

[Vixen]

this is an obvious lie.

You do know we can look back through the thread and read what was claimed.

You claimed that 700 degrees was only possible in a lab or 'detonation'

We pointed out that welding uses far higher temperatures and that all the parts on the ship that were welded would show that they had been heated to over 700 degrees.

So you did.

 

[Vixen]

Are you trying to convince us that anyone is arguing the damage caused when the visor was ripped off its mountings was due to a saboteur doing some welding?

No, I am saying you are trying to downplay the forensic laboratories findings by coming up with specious alternative scenarios.

 

[Vixen]

JAIC did not survey the ship. They would be relying on the certification provided by the survey company contracted to undertake the survey on behalf of the certifying authority.

Bureau Veritas themselves did not do the survey, they are the organisation that the certifying authorities of the various countries use to set the standards for the survey.

The surveyors are answerable to their professional body, are they not?

 

[Reformed Offlian]

Yes, but this was not equipment stolen from a hostile foreign power.

For obvious reasons, I cannot comment on that.

 

[Andy_Ross]

No, I am saying you are trying to downplay the forensic laboratories findings by coming up with specious alternative scenarios.

How is it 'specious'?

Why wouldn't welding be the cause of indications of exposure to heat in a welded part?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

No, I am saying you are trying to downplay the forensic laboratories findings by coming up with specious alternative scenarios.

While in fact we are just trying to stop you gleefully misinterpreting them and galloping off in all directions at once.

Do you still have a nagging doubt that we're bluffing you somehow and that welding steel is performed at less than 700°C?

 

[The Man]

Hole in the bow, at least three holes in the hull, we know now (one or two of which may or may not be do to stress).

[polite snip]

What would those not due to stress holes be due to then?

 

[Andy_Ross]

The surveyors are answerable to their professional body, are they not?

Yes the are. If they did a survey and it passed the standards at the time of the test then what is the problem?

The last survey of Estonia was to recertify the load lines and cargo capacity for re-flagging.

Here is a list of all the certification required by a ship.

http://www.maritimeknowhow.com/home/ship-s-documents-and-certificates/required-by-law/all-ships


That first one the 'Certificate of Registry' is the one that will detail what structural surveys need to be undertaken and when they are needed.
It varies in scope and frequency depending on the flag state involved.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Hole in the bow, at least three holes in the hull, we know now (one or two of which may or may not be do to stress).



Sunk within 35 minutes.



Series of three bangs and/or collision heard/felt by many survivors at Swedish midnight halfway through its journey. International distress channel 16 down. The third and fourth mate had to use a hand held device to broadcast a May Day on a localised channel. The responding ships, Mariella and Symphony had to use a hand held NMT device to ring the coast guard landline. Entire phone network down from 1:02 to 1:58 am EET for the duration. Signal for Channel 16 blocked by Russian military base at Hogland Island.



What does Sweden do within sixteen hours of losing >500 Swedish nationals, including little children and young adults? Declare it was just an accident.

That gish gallop is a hopeless regurgitation of stuff we've already dealt with repeatedly and in no way suggests Estonia was attacked with torpedoes. It absolutely wasn't. Google yourself some photos of ships having torpedo damage repaired and then come back and tell is you think the Estonia suffered three of those.

 

[Vixen]

Big catastrophes are usually chaotic events with a big number of mistaken or confused observations and all sorts of wild rumours that the bereaved often latch on to: there must be some evil conspiracy that took my loved one away, not just a depressing series of human errors, failures and confusion.

If only we would have an exhaustive technical accident report compiled by top experts that would explain the overwhelming mass of observations and evidence and which would present a logical overall decription of the chain of events that led to the sinking.

Oh, wait, we actually do have one...

This is a Nordic-Baltic WTC 9/11: a goldmine for cynical conspiracy mongers and gutter media conning the easily duped.

Unfortunately, the JAIC report was not 'exhaustive'. Simply writing it off as being like the Herald of Free Enterprise accident without applying elementary equations as to stability or even examining the whole wreck and not just the bow area, was bound to cause objections from the public.

Calling something a conspiracy theory doesn't make it so.

If the reasons for the accident are so obvious within sixteen hours then why did the Swedish government need to set up a ministry of information defence to persuade the public to accept the findings?