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

[Vixen]

She is wrong, most sinkings are by flooding in machinery spaces, they don't tend to be on the telly.
What we see are the high profile sinkings resulting from rammings, explosions or running in to rocks etc.

That might be so, but from what I've seen on Wiki, sinking ships seem to sink bow first rather than stern first, as claimed by JayUtah.

Ships that have flooding in machine spaces or pipes do not seem to sink within 35 minutes.

Take Carnival Sunrise, there was a fire in the engine room which led to a loss of power and propulsion. She ended just drifting about. This continued from 10 Feb 1999 to 14 Feb 1999 - no disastrous plunge to the bottom in half an hour.

The goal was to reach port in Mobile by early afternoon on February 14, but strong winds delayed the expected arrival. Eventually, four tugboats were towing the ship, with a fifth on standby. After a tow line broke, arrival was delayed still further. The ship finally docked by 9:20 p.m.

wiki




See from about 4:09.

 

[Vixen]

This is in reference to your film of a boat undergoing a capsize test. It was not sinking.

But it didn't float on its superstructure at all did it? It flipped right over.

 

[Vixen]

No, the term is meaningless. It floats on its hull until it loses buoyancy then sinks.

FIFY

 

[JayUtah]

That might be so, but from what I've seen on Wiki, sinking ships seem to sink bow first rather than stern first, as claimed by JayUtah.

I made no such claim. You claim MS Estonia must have sunk stern first because there was a breach in the hull. I pointed out that there are other reasons for a ship to sink stern first besides a hull breach in that area. Your further claim that ships predominantly sink bow first had nothing to do with my rebuttal, so I ignored it.

Ships that have flooding in machine spaces or pipes do not seem to sink within 35 minutes.

And your evidence for this is a completely unrelated failure:

Take Carnival Sunrise, there was a fire in the engine room which led to a loss of power and propulsion.

But there was no break in the piping, which was the scenario Captain Swoop pointed out. An engine fire is not a hull breach or a piping failure.

 

[JesseCuster]

That might be so, but from what I've seen on Wiki, sinking ships seem to sink bow first rather than stern first, as claimed by JayUtah.

Ships that have flooding in machine spaces or pipes do not seem to sink within 35 minutes.

Take Carnival Sunrise, there was a fire in the engine room which led to a loss of power and propulsion. She ended just drifting about. This continued from 10 Feb 1999 to 14 Feb 1999 - no disastrous plunge to the bottom in half an hour.

Did it flood?

 

[JayUtah]

It's all in Braidwood's report here.

This again. That's a number of levels of hearsay. Where may I read the lab reports themselves?

 

[JayUtah]

FIFY

No, he's correcting your misconception. You shoehorning it back in doesn't rebut anything; it just doubles down on your ignorance. Roll stability and buoyancy are governed by entirely different laws of physics. Emphasizing your continued misconception of ship design and construction doesn't change that. A ship will float in whatever orientation is dictated by the equilibrium of its mass properties. It will continue floating in that orientation for as long as it has buoyancy. It doesn't float only on portions of its structure magically designated for that purpose.

 

[Andy_Ross]

That might be so, but from what I've seen on Wiki, sinking ships seem to sink bow first rather than stern first, as claimed by JayUtah.

Ships that have flooding in machine spaces or pipes do not seem to sink within 35 minutes.

Take Carnival Sunrise, there was a fire in the engine room which led to a loss of power and propulsion. She ended just drifting about. This continued from 10 Feb 1999 to 14 Feb 1999 - no disastrous plunge to the bottom in half an hour.


wiki




See from about 4:09.

Maybe because water wasn't getting in anywhere?
Why would it sink after a fire?

 

[Andy_Ross]

But it didn't float on its superstructure at all did it? It flipped right over.

Because it wasn't sinking and was designed to self right.

Why would it 'float on it' superstructure?

 

[Vixen]

He was looking for the cause of the failure. Explosive damage would be a part of that if it existed.

This is incorrect. Hoffmeister was not looking for the cause of failure. He was examining the same locks, lugs and bolts as the JAIC. Scientific findings should be replicable. Hoffmeister did not replicate the JAIC findings. I believe this is because it declared the Estonia seaworthy and hence did not look into the care and maintenance aspect or lack thereof.

5.2 Status of the vessel on departure

On departure from Tallinn on 27 September the ESTONIA was seaworthy and properly manned. There were no outstanding items either from the authorities or from the classification society's surveys. The maintenance standard of the vessel was good as witnessed by various instances.

JAIC

What Hoffmeister of Hamburg University independently showed was that the maintenance was poor and the car ramp general area in a dreadful state, with a constant gap on the visor and car ramp due to unrepaired misalignment mean at any time there was about 150 tonnes of seawater on every journey sloshing about between them, so whilst the ship designers do estimate wave impacts and integrate them into design specifications, there was no reasonable way of foreseeing that type of negligence in care.

Thus for the JAIC to seize on the Atlantic lock and side locks as being a design fault, their conclusions do not agree with the independent expert, hired by the shipbuilders.

In fact, the incredibly poor maintenance of this area and we know the crew had to bash the bottom bolt through, means it obviously was in an awful condition but it doesn't follow that a wave was the primary cause of the locks loosening almost together.

 

[Andy_Ross]

This is incorrect. Hoffmeister was not looking for the cause of failure. He was examining the same locks, lugs and bolts as the JAIC. Scientific findings should be replicable. Hoffmeister did not replicate the JAIC findings. I believe this is because it declared the Estonia seaworthy and hence did not look into the care and maintenance aspect or lack thereof.

JAIC

What Hoffmeister of Hamburg University independently showed was that the maintenance was poor and the car ramp general area in a dreadful state, with a constant gap on the visor and car ramp due to unrepaired misalignment mean at any time there was about 150 tonnes of seawater on every journey sloshing about between them, so whilst the ship designers do estimate wave impacts and integrate them into design specifications, there was no reasonable way of foreseeing that type of negligence in care.

Thus for the JAIC to seize on the Atlantic lock and side locks as being a design fault, their conclusions do not agree with the independent expert, hired by the shipbuilders.

In fact, the incredibly poor maintenance of this area and we know the crew had to bash the bottom bolt through, means it obviously was in an awful condition but it doesn't follow that a wave was the primary cause of the locks loosening almost together.

JAIC did not declare the ship seaworthy or in good condition, they reported the certification and report findings that was in place when the ship sailed.

JAIC commissioned reports on the parts they had concerns over.
Their conclusions were the same, locks and hinges failed, they differ only in the detail of the order they failed in.

You haven't read the report at all have you?

 

[Andy_Ross]

This is incorrect. Hoffmeister was not looking for the cause of failure. He was examining the same locks, lugs and bolts as the JAIC. Scientific findings should be replicable. Hoffmeister did not replicate the JAIC findings. I believe this is because it declared the Estonia seaworthy and hence did not look into the care and maintenance aspect or lack thereof.

JAIC

What Hoffmeister of Hamburg University independently showed was that the maintenance was poor and the car ramp general area in a dreadful state, with a constant gap on the visor and car ramp due to unrepaired misalignment mean at any time there was about 150 tonnes of seawater on every journey sloshing about between them, so whilst the ship designers do estimate wave impacts and integrate them into design specifications, there was no reasonable way of foreseeing that type of negligence in care.

Thus for the JAIC to seize on the Atlantic lock and side locks as being a design fault, their conclusions do not agree with the independent expert, hired by the shipbuilders.

In fact, the incredibly poor maintenance of this area and we know the crew had to bash the bottom bolt through, means it obviously was in an awful condition but it doesn't follow that a wave was the primary cause of the locks loosening almost together.

If you now admit it was in such poor repair and so badly built, why do you think explosives were used to blow the bow off?

 

[Vixen]

Where?

12.6.1

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. The capsize could only have been completed through water entering other areas of the vessel.
According to the hydrostatic calculations, a continuously increasing amount of water on the car deck would make the aft windows of deck 4 the first possible flooding point to other areas. Soon thereafter the windows and the aft entrance doors of deck 5 would also be submerged. A little less than 2,000 t of water on the car deck would be sufficient to bring the first flooding points down to the mean water surface. In this condition the list would be about 35° . The lowest corner of the ramp opening would here be still a little above the mean water surface.

As soon as water was free to enter the accommodation decks all residual stability would be impaired and the ship in practice lost. Without an intact superstructure above deck 4, the largest possible equilibrium heel angle before a complete capsize would be 40° . This condition would be exceeded with about 2,000 t of water on the car deck.

JAIC


Enter the broken windows, never proven or demonstrated, never calculated, glass type never analysed.

IN the scenario above, we have the Estonia floating on it superstructure whilst the ingress of water slowly displaced the air via the windows of deck 4 and 5, presumed broken on reaching the water. However, this is only a hypothesis to overcome the problem of water on the car deck not being sufficient to capsize the boat.


We saw with the Oceanos that after some 18hours, it finally capsized and sank extremely rapidly after that point.


Yet JAIC has Estonia floating on its superstructure from list 40° at 0124 until finally sinking for good at 0148: A whole 25 minutes of the 35 minute super-rapid sinking with an intact hull.

As we know in that scenario,. once it capsized it should have toppled over turtle, as its hull was intact, according to the JAIC.

 

[JayUtah]

This is incorrect. Hoffmeister was not looking for the cause of failure. He was examining the same locks, lugs and bolts as the JAIC. Scientific findings should be replicable.

I covered this already. What was my answer?

Hoffmeister did not replicate the JAIC findings.

I covered this already. What was my answer?

Thus for the JAIC to seize on the Atlantic lock and side locks as being a design fault...

Not a conclusion JAIC drew, but likely to be a conclusion drawn by others who might want to sue Meyer Weft.

In fact, the incredibly poor maintenance of this area and we know the crew had to bash the bottom bolt through, means it obviously was in an awful condition but it doesn't follow that a wave was the primary cause of the locks loosening almost together.

Why wouldn't it follow? Are you qualified to draw those conclusions?

 

[Vixen]

You are claiming sabotage. So far you have claimed various submarines, a spetsnaz suicide squad, explosives of various sorts, nuclear waste melting the hinges, personel opening the doors to jettison cargo and who knows what else.

You are plainly claiming a CT, you simply cannot seem to decide which one.

Are you claiming he is a marine engineer with expertise appropriate? If your doctor presumed to instruct you how to recondition the turbo charger on your car, would you automatically assume he was a heart surgeon? Or knew anything about turbo chargers? How does one balance a turbo charger? Have you any idea?

The point is that an expert in one area does not automagically become an expert in any other areas.

I said IMV it is likely sabotage. Do you not understand the difference between a scientifically factual report by an academic and someone expressing a general opinion.

 

[Vixen]

Rena sank by the stern.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weWHSTSGCQA

But Vixen has never seen any such thing.

Plenty more where that came from.

Only because its stern was sliced off in the first place, and sank immediately.

 

[JayUtah]

I said IMV it is likely sabotage.

It's an allegation of fact, no matter how much you want to dress it up as an idle opinion. You can present no credible evidence for sabotage, so why should your allegation be taken seriously?

Do you not understand the difference between a scientifically factual report by an academic and someone expressing a general opinion.

You suggested that others shared your view that sabotage was likely. When I asked for the details, you handed me Hoffmeister's report. That report says nothing about sabotage. It says that the relevant locks were in poor condition for various reasons that clearly took quite some time to develop.

 

[Vixen]

"Tell me why my lock broke but only look for fatigue and corrosion."

Have you never heard of replicating an experiment? Did your Chemistry teacher never get you to boil up some water in a calorimeter over a bunsen burner and take all sorts of recordings.

Did your results differ from anybody else's?

The JAIC experiments when replicated by Hamburg University, simply did not agree with Hamburg University's results.

Do you not understand that one of them must be wrong?

 

[Vixen]

I accept Braidwood as an expert in diving and explosives. I do not accept you as an an expert in either.



I do not accept Rabe as an expert in explosives. But if you can provide the original laboratory reports, I will be happy to review them for the thread. How is it that Westermann found no such evidence?

You posited a scenario involving the placement of explosives such that no residue or physical effects would be found on any of the examined pieces, yet it would have caused the ship to sink. I want to know why we should trust you to have done this with anything more than a fertile imagination unfettered by knowledge.

Braidwood and Fellows supply their references. Easy to follow them and look up them.

 

[Vixen]

Your words aren't being twisted. You've spent the last few pages arguing that Hoffmeister's report cannot be considered preclusive evidence against the presence of explosives. This is because you raised the issue in connection with Braidwood's claim. Now that your incompetence in forensic engineering is being trotted out for all to see, you're trying to change the subject.



I'm not talking about what someone else did. I asked you for evidence of sabotage. The insinuation on the table was that others had concluded or suggested sabotage, not just you. You pointed me to the Hoffmeister report and to nothing else. When I pointed out that Hoffmeister did not conclude it was sabotage, you apparently forgot the point and agreed that Hoffmeister did not investigate sabotage explicitly, nor did he conclude that any had occurred, despite this being ostensibly the reason you cited him. And then after that, you have tried so very hard to show that Hoffmeister would have ignored (or failed to search for) evidence of explosives had they been present. Now you're trying to rush back to the failure sequence. I already talked about that. Apparently it wasn't very interesting to you until your explosives debate started to go poorly.



I am at least Hoffmeister's peer. As such, I am perfectly qualified to comment on his methods, findings, and any deficiency therein. And peer review is common -- sometimes even required -- in our industry. Despite your huffing and puffing, I did provide my commentary when you first brought up Hoffmeister, yet for some reason you don't seem to have read it.

I am sorry you thought Hoffmeister was testing for sabotage but as I pointed out several times, Hoffmeister clearly explains the scope of his testing in the the first few paragraphs, so I am at a loss as to why you still have a misapprehension Hoffmeister 'was testing for sabotage', bearing in mind we were discussing the status of the locks.