Cont: The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-opened Part III

[Mojo]

Yes. I am sorely disappointed. You tell us you have "five years" of physics education. You tell us that instead of just parroting outside sources unthinkingly, you prefer to think for yourself. But when push comes to shove, all you can do is post links to others' work...

That’s not entirely true; Vixen has also copied and pasted others’ work without attribution.

 

[phiwum]

Sorry to hear about your catboat. If the hole was below the waterline then not sure why it turtle after capsizing?

Here's a visual of a sailboat being struck by lightning and what it might look like.

Are you saying that if the hole is above the waterline, turtling is inevitable, but if it's below the waterline, the boat will sink without turtling?

If so, then we can conclude the only way Estonia could have sunk is by a hole under the waterline. All this nonsense about blowing the visor off, pushing vehicles out the stern or bow, etc., is irrelevant. There has to be a large hole under the waterline, sufficient to let it enough water so that she would sink within an hour or so. That can't be too hard to find, right?

 

[lobosrul5]

Are you saying that if the hole is above the waterline, turtling is inevitable, but if it's below the waterline, the boat will sink without turtling?

If so, then we can conclude the only way Estonia could have sunk is by a hole under the waterline. All this nonsense about blowing the visor off, pushing vehicles out the stern or bow, etc., is irrelevant. There has to be a large hole under the waterline, sufficient to let it enough water so that she would sink within an hour or so. That can't be too hard to find, right?

Remember, she's argued that even though you can see vehicles thru the hole they found, that because they are upside down this makes the car deck below the waterline. So good luck getting her to admit this.

 

[LondonJohn]

If you are expecting me to fill these pages up with formulae and graphics, you will be sorely disappointed. Those who really want to understand the concepts of buoyancy, centre of gravity, stability and instabilty and the metacentre in respect of boats and ships, this youtube video should help.

No. I suspect that he was hoping - as was I - that you would answer his question properly, rather that 1) firstly giving an "answer" that was anything but an answer, then 2) responding to further pressing for an answer by doing what you quite obviously did: putting the salient terms into google, then posting the YouTube video which matched the search terms.... still without even attempting to address the question*.


* The question, incidentally, whose (correct) answer would have shown you how ill-informed you were about the principles behind capsizing and sinking of a ship.

 

[LondonJohn]

Are you saying that if the hole is above the waterline, turtling is inevitable, but if it's below the waterline, the boat will sink without turtling?

If so, then we can conclude the only way Estonia could have sunk is by a hole under the waterline. All this nonsense about blowing the visor off, pushing vehicles out the stern or bow, etc., is irrelevant. There has to be a large hole under the waterline, sufficient to let it enough water so that she would sink within an hour or so. That can't be too hard to find, right?

I don't even know her position any more - other than that it's fundamentally based upon a dogged refusal to believe that the official report might have been broadly correct.

Frankly, by this point I'm frustrated that this thread has descended into a low-quality farce (perhaps not quite as bad as "The Play that went Wrong", but fairly close behind). If there ever was any incremental learning that could be had over the cause of the sinking, it's long-since been subsumed by The Vixen Show (the participation in which has got us precisely.... nowhere).

 

[Vixen]

No. I suspect that he was hoping - as was I - that you would answer his question properly, rather that 1) firstly giving an "answer" that was anything but an answer, then 2) responding to further pressing for an answer by doing what you quite obviously did: putting the salient terms into google, then posting the YouTube video which matched the search terms.... still without even attempting to address the question*.


* The question, incidentally, whose (correct) answer would have shown you how ill-informed you were about the principles behind capsizing and sinking of a ship.

One wonders how well informed you are if you genuinely believe a boat doesn't turtle when it capsizes ceteris paribus rather than immediately sink. Time to get those bath toys out again. Let us know how you get on!

Have to laugh heartily at your earlier answer, 'Oh, but a boat's got buoyancy in its hull so that doesn't count...'

Or maybe..."What if we get buckets of water and try to sink it that way...or try piling on 40K tonnes of iron ore.'

It's the way he tells'em.

 

[Vixen]

Are you saying that if the hole is above the waterline, turtling is inevitable, but if it's below the waterline, the boat will sink without turtling?

If so, then we can conclude the only way Estonia could have sunk is by a hole under the waterline. All this nonsense about blowing the visor off, pushing vehicles out the stern or bow, etc., is irrelevant. There has to be a large hole under the waterline, sufficient to let it enough water so that she would sink within an hour or so. That can't be too hard to find, right?

To have sunk within half an hour, then the massive hole in the starboard does explain it.

The MS Jan Heweliusz another ro-ro car ferry suffered no such affliction and floated turtle for about five days.

 

[JayUtah]

Time to get those bath toys out again.

What was the answer you were given the last time you suggested bath toys?

 

[JayUtah]

To have sunk within half an hour, then the massive hole in the starboard does explain it.

Except that it's clearly above the water line. Can you tell me the flood rate that would be required to sink Estonia in half an hour and whether such a hole -- even if it were below the waterline -- is compatible with that flood rate?

C'mon, let's get those five years' worth of physics education going.

 

[Vixen]

What was the answer you were given the last time you suggested bath toys?

Something about them cheating because they had built in buoyancy.

 

[JayUtah]

Something about them cheating because they had built in buoyancy.

That's part of it. What else?

 

[phiwum]

I don't even know her position any more - other than that it's fundamentally based upon a dogged refusal to believe that the official report might have been broadly correct.

Frankly, by this point I'm frustrated that this thread has descended into a low-quality farce (perhaps not quite as bad as "The Play that went Wrong", but fairly close behind). If there ever was any incremental learning that could be had over the cause of the sinking, it's long-since been subsumed by The Vixen Show (the participation in which has got us precisely.... nowhere).

Among the most curious bits of her deep understanding of nautical stuff is the following:

(1) If the bow visor had fallen off, the ship wouldn't have sunk without turtling.

(2) Ships sink only after collisions, explosions or other sources of holes in the hull.

(3) If the bow visor had been blown off (rather than fallen off due to ripples in the water), then the Estonia would have sunk and not turtled.

Source: Archimedes.

 

[phiwum]

To have sunk within half an hour, then the massive hole in the starboard does explain it.

The MS Jan Heweliusz another ro-ro car ferry suffered no such affliction and floated turtle for about five days.

So, the "massive hole" in the starboard (which others have said is largely above the waterline) could have sunk the Estonia.

But the much larger hole formed when the bow visor fails couldn't have sunk the Estonia even in conditions with 6m waves[1].

I wonder how much water that "massive hole" would let in. What would the expected rate of flow be, even assuming that the thing was entirely below the waterline? How many gallons of water would be required before Estonia finally sinks due to the ingress of water from that massive hole? (Here, I'm assuming, contrary to evidence, that the hole was there prior to sinking and was below the waterline.)

Obviously, this is an open question to anyone who can give a back of the envelope estimation. It seems to me that the massive hole is a bit small to explain such a reasonably fast sinking, but, like Vixen, I'm just going with my gut. I'd be interested in whether I'm wrong.

[1] From memory, someone can correct me if I exaggerate the wave height.

 

[phiwum]

Except that it's clearly above the water line. Can you tell me the flood rate that would be required to sink Estonia in half an hour and whether such a hole -- even if it were below the waterline -- is compatible with that flood rate?

C'mon, let's get those five years' worth of physics education going.

I hadn't read this when I posted my query above.

I'll go out on a limb and guess that Vixen won't answer your question. So, if you have the answer, I'd be interested in seeing it.

 

[LondonJohn]

One wonders how well informed you are if you genuinely believe a boat doesn't turtle when it capsizes ceteris paribus rather than immediately sink. Time to get those bath toys out again. Let us know how you get on!

Have to laugh heartily at your earlier answer, 'Oh, but a boat's got buoyancy in its hull so that doesn't count...'
Or maybe..."What if we get buckets of water and try to sink it that way...or try piling on 40K tonnes of iron ore.'

It's the way he tells'em.

I really have very little idea what you're on about here. The one thing I do know is that you've been misrepresenting me left, right and centre.

Oh no, I do know one other thing: almost all boats/ships that capsize through 90 degrees.... sink to the bottom at or near this angle. They do not "turn turtle", as you bafflingly still assert.

Ah, wait, I think I've deciphered a little bit of it! Are you here referring (albeit incorrectly and dishonestly) to the discussion about racing dinghies and similar boats that have sealed buoyancy chambers built into them? Because if you are, then the clue is in the word "sealed". By contrast, a ship's hull is not sealed. Therein lies the huge difference.

(And isn't it time to retire this tedious - and wholly-unnecessary - Latin terms such as ceteris paribus? You haven't even used it properly in the above instance.)

 

[Andy_Ross]

One wonders how well informed you are if you genuinely believe a boat doesn't turtle when it capsizes ceteris paribus rather than immediately sink. Time to get those bath toys out again. Let us know how you get on!

Have to laugh heartily at your earlier answer, 'Oh, but a boat's got buoyancy in its hull so that doesn't count...'

Or maybe..."What if we get buckets of water and try to sink it that way...or try piling on 40K tonnes of iron ore.'

It's the way he tells'em.

Ships are not 'bath toys'.

Ships very rarely 'turn turtle' before they sink. Those few that do rarely float for any length of time.

On average two ships a week sink, the vast majority remain the right way up or turn on to their beam ends, not completely upside down.

 

[LondonJohn]

Oh hang on: I've figured out another bit of it!

It's where you (Vixen) make a mocking reference to "40K tonnes of iron ore".

But you see, Vixen, that example was used by me in order to shoot down one particular component of your bad-science/no-science theory: that the displacement of air in the hull plays a critical role in determining whether the ship sinks or not.

Perhaps I might illustrate this to you even more vividly by proposing that I have managed to get hold of some material from the heart of a neutron star, which is (if I remember correctly) something like 10¹⁴ kg/m³ in density.

So imagine if I got just one cubic centimetre of this substance, and I placed it onto a lower deck of (eg) the Queen Mary II. This cubic centimetre would, obviously, displace purely one cubic centimetre of air from the hull. Right?

But that one cubic centimetre would have a mass of something like 100 billion kilograms. I think even you could see that this 1cc - while only displacing the tiniest amount of 1cc of air in the hull - would (just possibly) cause the ship to sink.....

 

[Andy_Ross]

Bulk Carriers regularly carry hundreds of thousands of tons of iron ore.

 

[lobosrul5]

I really have very little idea what you're on about here. The one thing I do know is that you've been misrepresenting me left, right and centre.

Oh no, I do know one other thing: almost all boats/ships that capsize through 90 degrees.... sink to the bottom at or near this angle. They do not "turn turtle", as you bafflingly still assert.

Ah, wait, I think I've deciphered a little bit of it! Are you here referring (albeit incorrectly and dishonestly) to the discussion about racing dinghies and similar boats that have sealed buoyancy chambers built into them? Because if you are, then the clue is in the word "sealed". By contrast, a ship's hull is not sealed. Therein lies the huge difference.

(And isn't it time to retire this tedious - and wholly-unnecessary - Latin terms such as ceteris paribus? You haven't even used it properly in the above instance.)

I actually came here to say I just googled "turtling" after seeing Vixen use the term for about the 100th time, I had never even heard the term before. I thought she had meant it as saying a ship fully capsizing (180 degrees) rather than partially capsizing, but it seems she means it as the ship just stays fully capsized for some arbitrary amount of time.... maybe

Anyways it seems to be a term used in sailing dinghy's which are designed to continuously float upside down, since they have a built in airtight compartment with enough buoyancy to keep them afloat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtling_(sailing)

 

[GlennB]

I actually came here to say I just googled "turtling" after seeing Vixen use the term for about the 100th time, I had never even heard the term before. I thought she had meant it as saying a ship fully capsizing (180 degrees) rather than partially capsizing, but it seems she means it as the ship just stays fully capsized for some arbitrary amount of time.... maybe

That's the only explanation that I can see, given that Vixen has been shown video of an actual sinking (beneath the waves, not grounding) of a largish ship that never passes a 90 degree capsize. I think she misunderstands the idea of 'turning turtle', taking it to mean sinking while leaning over at a significant angle?

It's hard to tell what she thinks any more.