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

[phiwum]

You keep ignoring that the tear extends below the waterline. Two other holes have also been found, yet to be analysed.

One wave in ten will be a superwave, so if the average wave height in the storm was 4m to 6m then there will have been some as high as ten metres, possibly higher. They would need to reach 2+5 = six to seven metres at least.

I didn't forget any of that. I'm satisfied with first pretending the hole was below the water and asking what rate the water would flow in.

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[phiwum]

Not quite. The issue is rapidity of sinking. By all accounts, the car ramp was only open 10° at the top at a height of 5m for the car deck. The car deck itself is two metres (six feet) above the water line. There are now questions as to whether the car deck was flooded at all in the proportions mentioned, given that the inner doors appear to be intact, firmly shut and undamaged.

Note that if the car deck wasn't flooded, then the starboard hole doesn't explain the sinking, since it opens into the car deck.

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[Andy_Ross]

1) Where did you get this "one wave in ten will be a superwave" from?

2) Once again, you fail in your attempt to analyse the situation. You're assuming (it would appear) that the ship remained in a horizontal bow-to-stern attitude throughout. But for a ship sailing headlong into swell, that's very far indeed from the case. In fact, once the ship sails over the high point, it will point downwards significantly as it travels down towards the trough. So that it actually "digs in" to a fair degree into the following swell. And this would be more than enough, in and of itself, to guarantee that huge volumes of water would enter through the bow opening.
.

I have a video that demonstrates this.

Maybe I need to post it again

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Just for perspective I quickly copy/pasted Vixen's photo of a 4m gash in the ship's side onto the profile drawing from MS Estonia's Wiki page. (That damage was on the starboard side, right? And it looks like the partial letter which appears in the photo must be the bottom half of the last letter in ESTLINE.)

The waterline is not the line immediately below the text. That seems only to match the boundary between the white and blue paint scheme. The waterline is the next horizontal black line below that.


So it's above the normal waterline, which would limit the time water could get to it even in that storm and, as phiwum points out, it opens onto the car deck. So if you have "questions" about car deck flooding being the cause of the sinking you may need to go back to the drawing board.

 

[LondonJohn]

Just for perspective I quickly copy/pasted Vixen's photo of a 4m gash in the ship's side onto the profile drawing from MS Estonia's Wiki page. (That damage was on the starboard side, right? And it looks like the partial letter which appears in the photo must be the bottom half of the last letter in ESTLINE.)

The waterline is not the line immediately below the text. That seems only to match the boundary between the white and blue paint scheme. The waterline is the next horizontal black line below that.
[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_35619616ffbf106367.jpg[/qimg]

So it's above the normal waterline, which would limit the time water could get to it even in that storm and, as phiwum points out, it opens onto the car deck. So if you have "questions" about car deck flooding being the cause of the sinking you may need to go back to the drawing board.

Stop it! These devastatingly-effective applications of logic, reason and the scientific method.... seriously risk robbing this thread of its humour/satire potential!

 

[Vixen]

There are already questions like this one: Vixen, what is your reference for your claim that the report assumes the car deck doors were not closed and intact?

Do you have any answer or can we just regard the two intact doors as a red herring?

From Kurm (Glasgow):

As we know, according to the Final Report, the cause that brought about the shipwreck was
that the bow visor locks broke, the visor fell into water and the ramp opened completely.
Water started to come in through the ramp opening at a speed of 300 to 600 tons per minute.
This caused the ship quickly to heel. When about 2000 tons of water had entered the ship, a
list of 40 degrees had developed. From that moment the waves started to break the windows
and doors on deck four and five, creating new openings for water inflow.

<snip>

It is stated in section 12.6.1 of the Final Report that:
“Even though the list developed rapidly, the water on the car deck would not alone be sufficient to make the ship capsize and lose its survivability. As long as the hull was intact and watertight below and above the car deck, the residual stability with water on the car deck
would not have been significantly changed at large heel angles. Capsize could only have been completed through water entering other areas of the vessel.”
Thus, JAIC itself has stated that the filling of lower decks with water is of decisive importance from the point of view of the sinking.

ibid

In other words, the JAIC has had to assume, quote, "When about 2000 tons of water had entered the ship, a list of 40 degrees had developed. From that moment the waves started to break the windows and doors on deck four and five," yet if the doors and window are now found not to be broken, then the assumption fails.

 

[Vixen]

That line between the blue paint and the white paint is not the waterline. Not even close to the waterline.

Please, have even a rudimentary look at photos of the Estonia before making these sorts of embarrassing claims.

Your denying it won't make it go away.

 

[Vixen]

1) Where did you get this "one wave in ten will be a superwave" from?

2) Once again, you fail in your attempt to analyse the situation. You're assuming (it would appear) that the ship remained in a horizontal bow-to-stern attitude throughout. But for a ship sailing headlong into swell, that's very far indeed from the case. In fact, once the ship sails over the high point, it will point downwards significantly as it travels down towards the trough. So that it actually "digs in" to a fair degree into the following swell. And this would be more than enough, in and of itself, to guarantee that huge volumes of water would enter through the bow opening.

And in passing, there's also the bow wave effect to consider (though this effect would have been dwarfed in this instance relative to the effect I described above). After all, the Herald of Free Enterprise managed to take on enough water - onto a car deck that was some way above the waterline - in almost flat seas to sink it within just two minutes. And the primary reason was the bow wave, in which the act of the bow pushing through water caused water levels at the bow to rise up significantly above sea level.

Stop lying. The Herald of Free Enterprise only partially sank. Even Wikipedia will tell you that. You saying a thing doesn't make it so. Learn to argue honestly.

Re the waves. This comes from a Finnish expert, Kimmo Kahma , a research professor at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, in a newspaper interview 27.9.2014.

Estonia sank in the North Baltic Sea on 28 September 1994 after the lock of its bow visor failed due to the shock of the waves. The significant wave height at night at the time of the accident was about 4 meters, individual waves could be about 8 meters high. The wind was gusty and intensified slightly in the morning while rescue operations were underway. - The waves were hard, but by no means the worst possible. The highest significant wave height measured in the Baltic Sea has been 8.2 meters, at the time of the accident it was just over 4 meters. The waves in the northern Baltic Sea are really big at worst. It is typical of the Baltic Sea that large waves are steep and burden ships in particular, says Kimmo Kahma

In the Finnish sea areas, the highest waves are observed in the North Baltic Sea. The largest single waves in the Baltic Sea have been up to 14 meters high.

<snip>

So what caused the wave? During the Estonian accident, the low pressure intensified and moved rapidly through southern Norway and the eastern parts of Sweden to southern Finland. At the time of the accident at night at about 1 o'clock the wind was from the southwest and its average speed was 18-20 m / s. According to statistics, wind speeds in the northern Baltic Sea are so high 5-10 times a year during autumn and winter. Thus, in the event of an accident, there was no mean wind in the area breaking the storm limit of 21 m / s, but in gusts the wind was in places at sea at the nearest observation stations at least 24-29 m / s. The wind picked up a little in the morning.

The significant wave height was thus about 4 meters. A southwest wind of 15-20 m / s is required for the development of a wave with such a significant wave height for at least ten hours.

Several studies of wave statistics show that if the significant wave height is 4 meters, one wave in a hundred is more than 6 meters high. The maximum value of the wave height is estimated to be about twice as high as the significant wave height, ie in the case of Estonia about 8 meters. The calculations are in line with the estimates of the masters of the ships involved in the rescue operation that before the accident the waves were up to 5-6 meters high, while after the accident the individual waves could be up to 7-8 meters high and usually the waves were 4-6 meters. Some pilots of Swedish rescue helicopters estimate the individual waves to be even higher.

According to experts, significant wave heights may increase in shallow water due to refractive waves. However, according to the accident report, there was no impact of shallow water at the Estonian accident site, as the minimum water depth in the accident area is more than 40 meters.

- According to the nautical chart, the area would have been lower, but the nautical chart information turned out to be an error. There are lower areas in the Baltic Sea that raise the wave height, but there was none at the scene of the accident, says Kimmo Kahma.

Wave height refers to the difference in height between the bottom and peak of a wave. An irregular wave height is described as a significant wave height that roughly corresponds to the wave height observed by the eyes or the average of the highest third of the waves in deep water.

MTV Uutiset

See also Rogue Waves or 'sneaker waves' which Axxman300 refers to, earlier.

 

[Vixen]

If the state of the car deck precludes rapid sinking, then any alleged explosions at the bow visor are irrelevant to the sinking too.

Hence, you must be all in on the claim that at least one hole sufficient for a massive ingress of water is to blame. You can now focus on that and ignore explosions at the bow as well as intentional opening of the bow. This would be progress of a sort.

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It is important to remember the bow visor explosion claim is that of Jutta Rabe/Brian Braidwood and the Fokus Group. The latter believe this did not necessarily happen above water, implying Naval activity. If you recall Braidwood spotted what looked like an unexploded device attached to the bow bulkhead in an official Rockwater tape of the scene, which then disappeared from the clip.

 

[Vixen]

Note that if the car deck wasn't flooded, then the starboard hole doesn't explain the sinking, since it opens into the car deck.

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What came first? The starboard breach or the list? The JAIC believes the bow visor falling off and pulling open the car ramp door caused a flood of water into the car deck, which caused the list, which could not be rectified as the opposite ballast was full (remember we talked about centre of gravity=trim). Water into the lower decks, JAIC claim, must have come from the force of this water breaching deck 4 and 5 windows and doors. However, nobody saw the bow ramp door open nor did they see any gap at the top of it. It is a JAIC assumption, having decided the water must have come in from the bow. It is an untested hypothesis.

 

[LondonJohn]

Your denying it won't make it go away.

*cough* gigantic irony *cough*

 

[erwinl]

Your denying it won't make it go away.

The white/blue divide just below the letters on the Estonia is roughly at the height of the car deck, near as I can tell.
This based on photographs of the Estonia, wher you can see this devide curve up a bit towards the bow and the visor having the tiniest sliver of blue at the bottom (tiniest in comparison to the total height of the visor).

So. As you have told us the cardeck was about 2 meters above the waterline (and that is what we can see in LondonJohn's photograph), this means the hole is also above the waterline. With possibly the exception of the lowest 10-20 cm of the gash.

 

[Vixen]

Just for perspective I quickly copy/pasted Vixen's photo of a 4m gash in the ship's side onto the profile drawing from MS Estonia's Wiki page. (That damage was on the starboard side, right? And it looks like the partial letter which appears in the photo must be the bottom half of the last letter in ESTLINE.)

The waterline is not the line immediately below the text. That seems only to match the boundary between the white and blue paint scheme. The waterline is the next horizontal black line below that.
[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_35619616ffbf106367.jpg[/qimg]

So it's above the normal waterline, which would limit the time water could get to it even in that storm and, as phiwum points out, it opens onto the car deck. So if you have "questions" about car deck flooding being the cause of the sinking you may need to go back to the drawing board.

Don't forget, there is a vertical tear, as well as a horizontal one.

Pretty sure one of the expedition crews confirmed it goes down as far as the swimming pool area, which is Deck 0.

 

[LondonJohn]

Stop lying. The Herald of Free Enterprise only partially sank. Even Wikipedia will tell you that. You saying a thing doesn't make it so. Learn to argue honestly.

I see. "Attack is the best form of defence" in your world, huh?

See, the thing is, Vixen: if terms such as "lying" and "learn to argue honestly" are to be employed in this thread, the only person's posts to whom they apply are yours. Yours, Vixen. And everybody in this thread knows it, except for you.

The HOFE sank. It only partially sank because it was physically prevented from sinking fully by the fact that the seabed where it sank was shallower than the beam width of the capsized ship.

Re the waves. This comes from a Finnish expert, Kimmo Kahma , a research professor at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, in a newspaper interview 27.9.2014.


MTV Uutiset

See also Rogue Waves or 'sneaker waves' which Axxman300 refers to, earlier.

I note that you chose to avoid completely addressing the actual elephant in the room of my post: my clear and obvious refutation of your ill-informed claims wrt how so much water was able to get into the Estonia via the broken bow opening (by pointing out that ships in these conditions will "dig in" to oncoming swells). Does your silence indicate concession, Vixen?

 

[LondonJohn]

Don't forget, there is a vertical tear, as well as a horizontal one.

Pretty sure one of the expedition crews confirmed it goes down as far as the swimming pool area, which is Deck 0.

1) Find a photograph of a fully-laden Estonia.

2) Note where the waterline lies along the side of the ship, relative to the dividing line between the blue paint and the white paint.

3) Look again at the photo of the tear in the starboard hull of the Estonia.

4) Look back again at the photo of the fully-laden Estonia.

5) Get back to the thread with your observations.

 

[Vixen]

I have a video that demonstrates this.

Maybe I need to post it again

Go on, then.

 

[Vixen]

I see. "Attack is the best form of defence" in your world, huh?

See, the thing is, Vixen: if terms such as "lying" and "learn to argue honestly" are to be employed in this thread, the only person's posts to whom they apply are yours. Yours, Vixen. And everybody in this thread knows it, except for you.

The HOFE sank. It only partially sank because it was physically prevented from sinking fully by the fact that the seabed where it sank was shallower than the beam width of the capsized ship.

I note that you chose to avoid completely addressing the actual elephant in the room of my post: my clear and obvious refutation of your ill-informed claims wrt how so much water was able to get into the Estonia via the broken bow opening (by pointing out that ships in these conditions will "dig in" to oncoming swells). Does your silence indicate concession, Vixen?

You are incorrect. The waves were not 'head on' into the swell. The waves were South Westerly like the wind, whilst the boat was travelling West North West. In effect, the port side of the vessel was taking the brunt, and in particular, the port side bow visor was subject to transverse waves, which would have a greater impact on it then face forward (which you claimed not to be able to grasp). So, no, the ship was not head onto the waves. And no, it would not have been dipping and bowing into them but rather, battered by them from the side.

 

[LondonJohn]

Go on, then.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=13623386#post13623386


(It was easy to find, if you'd had the inclination to learn and to debate in good faith)

 

[Andy_Ross]

I note that you chose to avoid completely addressing the actual elephant in the room of my post: my clear and obvious refutation of your ill-informed claims wrt how so much water was able to get into the Estonia via the broken bow opening (by pointing out that ships in these conditions will "dig in" to oncoming swells). Does your silence indicate concession, Vixen?

RoRo Ferry bow pitching in to the waves in a stiff sea.

 

[Steve]

Stop lying......

Oh my!