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

[junkshop]

How is that a false claim about myself?

I said:

*Looks like it was listing on its port side, not starboard side.


Because that is what it looks like to me. Either the video was transposed right to left or the film was from behind the ship, which from my viewpoint looked as though it was listing to the left.

I never said you made false claims about yourself.

You claimed that you do not make false claims.

I disproved that with an example of you making a false claim.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

If we take the JAIC assumption that the only damage to the ship was both the bow visor and the bow ramp falling off due to a strong wave, then ipso facto the hull must be intact and there was no collision or explosion (whether due to ingress of water into pipes or not), in addition to the vessel being seaworthy when it departed (as the JAIC state), then it is correct that once the boat heels far enough either to port or starboard, there comes a point when it will topple over - and this happens quite quickly - and floats upside down.


Normally, because of water gradually displacing the air it would sink eventually.

Just about a page ago you quoted the report page 12.6.1 thereby hinting that you have indeed seen it.

The report does not say what you claim you agree with it about. What it shows there for starters is the calculations for how the ship would tend to right itself at various angles of list and with various loads of water on its car deck. Rather absent is any claim that if it heels over far enough it will topple right over and float upside down. Maybe I missed it. You could point it out to us.

Just as an aside, one part of that section you never quote says "Theoretical studies were ordered by the Commission to clarify and simulate the rapid flooding, capsize and sinking of the ESTONIA. These studies include analysis of hydrostatic floating conditions and stability, wave-induced motions in heeled condition and water inflow rate on the car deck in the initial phase of the capsize. The full reports are included in the Supplement." This flatly contradicts your claim of today that the JAIC had no calculations and were simply guessing.

 

[Vixen]

Just to add to what others have written, it is possible for a person to be a competent expert in one field, and yet be a hopeless crank in another. For example, Isaac Newton believed in and actively practiced alchemy. But someone who demonstrates such a tenuous grip on reality as Björkman has must be assumed to be incompetent in the absence of strong, credible evidence to the contrary. And as has been noted many times, you are not qualified to provide any such evidence.

Additionally, you have repeatedly protested that you are not promoting any conspiracy theory. Although this claim is demonstrably false on its face, I would also point out that using Björkman as a source does not tend to bolster your contention, as many of his claims are clearly conspiracy theories. His assertion about nuclear weapons is a particularly blatant example, which you attempted to handwave away by characterizing it as simply "an opinion." To state that this is like calling Holocaust denial "simply an opinion" is no exaggeration.

And finally, on that note, you have on more than one occasion claimed that anyone who doesn't support investigations into your various conspiracy theories is disrespecting the victims and their families. Yet Björkman clearly disrespects the victims and survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, going so far as to insinuate that there were very few casualties, and that all of the witnesses are either made up, lying, or were hoodwinked.

So please explain to us, Vixen, why you're okay with using Björkman as a source.

It is one of literally dozens of sources. Bjorkmann is a qualified naval architect who got his masters at the prestigious Chalmers, so I see no reason to disregard him. He might be a pain in the neck and given to prolix but I can see nothing wrong with his basic calculations on buoyancy and Finite Elements calculation. I couldn't care less what he thinks about other topics.

 

[Vixen]

No, that is not correct. This is a case where, without full knowledge and analysis of the relevant factors and "rules," the correct answer is "it depends." To state that there must be a point where it will topple over is like saying my work clothing must be tax deductible. You haven't established the relevant facts (e.g. coordinates and magnitudes of the centers of buoyancy and mass, let alone the crucial turning moments) to justify that specific a conclusion.

'It depends' might be salient to your tax accountant or IRS. However, if you were expected to investigate an accident which killed 852 very suddenly, people want definite answers. Not, 'it depends'.

 

[Vixen]

This isn't a school physics exam where you can assume that all the info you need is in the question.

The real world is complex and sometimes you simply don't have enough information to come to a conclusion, so the correct answer is to say that "it depends" because you lack the information to come to a more definitive conclusion. Welcome to the real world.

It makes no sense when given a complex real world situation that you're trying to understand, and take the approach "take a view and then justify it". That's how school debates work, not how the real world works.

Although if Vixen thinks that it's scientific and rigorous to "take a view and then justify it" with regards to real world situations, then it would certainly explain this thread.

We have public inquiries into various issues. Do you expect the persons carrying out the inquiry to hum and hah, or do you want them to get to the bottom of whatever the inquiry is about?

 

[JayUtah]

IBjorkmann is a qualified naval architect...

He got drummed out of that profession many years ago. No one considers him qualified anymore.

I see no reason to disregard him.

The fact that he wantonly lies in public about engineering topics isn't sufficient reason? What else, in your book, would need to happen in order to disregard him?

I can see nothing wrong with his basic calculations on buoyancy and Finite Elements calculation.

But you're not competent to evaluate those, are you?

I couldn't care less what he thinks about other topics.

You've decided that MS Estonia is the one engineering topic he isn't completely bonkers on, on the basis of credentials that have now effectively been discredited, and your lay opinion that he's getting the science right. How convincing do you think that argument is?

 

[Vixen]

I never said you made false claims about yourself.

You claimed that you do not make false claims.

I disproved that with an example of you making a false claim.

In the context of a poster claiming I said I was a hundred and one different types of expert, a blatant lie.

Please quote me in full context in future, including the post to which I was responding.

 

[Vixen]

Just about a page ago you quoted the report page 12.6.1 thereby hinting that you have indeed seen it.

The report does not say what you claim you agree with it about. What it shows there for starters is the calculations for how the ship would tend to right itself at various angles of list and with various loads of water on its car deck. Rather absent is any claim that if it heels over far enough it will topple right over and float upside down. Maybe I missed it. You could point it out to us.

Just as an aside, one part of that section you never quote says "Theoretical studies were ordered by the Commission to clarify and simulate the rapid flooding, capsize and sinking of the ESTONIA. These studies include analysis of hydrostatic floating conditions and stability, wave-induced motions in heeled condition and water inflow rate on the car deck in the initial phase of the capsize. The full reports are included in the Supplement." This flatly contradicts your claim of today that the JAIC had no calculations and were simply guessing.

Produce or cite these supplements which explain exactly how the water entered the broken windows and at what force and rate.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

'It depends' might be salient to your tax accountant or IRS. However, if you were expected to investigate an accident which killed 852 very suddenly, people want definite answers. Not, 'it depends'.

"People want definite answers" is the sort of attitude to investigation that got the Birmingham six jailed for years for something they didn't do.

 

[JayUtah]

'It depends' might be salient to your tax accountant or IRS. However, if you were expected to investigate an accident which killed 852 very suddenly, people want definite answers. Not, 'it depends'.

What people want does not suddenly make it possible to deliver.

Let's just take a step back. You posed a thought experiment on buoyancy. But, as others pointed out, your thought experiment wasn't specific on a very important detail -- the density of the material the vessel was made of. Rather than admit that your thought experiment wouldn't invariably work out the way you had planned, you went on a pseudodidactic tirade about the supposed unacceptability of a nonspecific outcome to an underspecified problem. In the process you got so wrapped up in saving face that you pontificated about how real-world engineering must be just like the exams you took as a schoolgirl. You're so far down the rabbit hole of pretending you know all about how the world works that you're committing wantonly absurd acts of arrogance.

You aren't an engineer. You have no idea how engineering is practiced in the real world, forensically or otherwise. You therefore have no business pretending that your irrelevant student experience in an unrelated field gives you the slightest understanding for how we go about our business. Now all of that is tangential to the more relevant fact that your thought experiment reveals part of your ignorance on the subject of buoyancy, which means your dicta on the subject, against which you propose to measure observations in the real world, is utterly worthless.

 

[Vixen]

He got drummed out of that profession many years ago. No one considers him qualified anymore.



The fact that he wantonly lies in public about engineering topics isn't sufficient reason? What else, in your book, would need to happen in order to disregard him?



But you're not competent to evaluate those, are you?



You've decided that MS Estonia is the one engineering topic he isn't completely bonkers on, on the basis of credentials that have now effectively been discredited, and your lay opinion that he's getting the science right. How convincing do you think that argument is?

OK, so explain in which way he got 'drummed out' of his profession many years ago. Anyone can slag someone else off behind their back, or when they do not have the right or means of a reply. So if you are going to make that type of claim, you need to be explicit about what you mean.

 

[JayUtah]

We have public inquiries into various issues.

Yes, and you've demonstrated you have very little idea how the people who make those inquiries actually do them. Yet for some reason you feel qualified to sit in judgment over their more technical aspects. How does that get the world closer to a better solution? How does that help the victims of the accident?

 

[JesseCuster]

This isn't a school physics exam where you can assume that all the info you need is in the question.

The real world is complex and sometimes you simply don't have enough information to come to a conclusion, so the correct answer is to say that "it depends" because you lack the information to come to a more definitive conclusion. Welcome to the real world.

It makes no sense when given a complex real world situation that you're trying to understand, and take the approach "take a view and then justify it". That's how school debates work, not how the real world works.

Although if Vixen thinks that it's scientific and rigorous to "take a view and then justify it" with regards to real world situations, then it would certainly explain this thread.

We have public inquiries into various issues. Do you expect the persons carrying out the inquiry to hum and hah, or do you want them to get to the bottom of whatever the inquiry is about?

That doesn't address the point, that reaching a conclusion despite lacking the information to come to a conclusion is not a scientific or sound way of approaching problems.

Do you think that public inquiries into disasters should "pick a view and then defend it"? I'm of the radical idea that conclusions should follow from arguments, not that arguments should be there to confirm conclusions already come to.

 

[Vixen]

What people want does not suddenly make it possible to deliver.

Let's just take a step back. You posed a thought experiment on buoyancy. But, as others pointed out, your thought experiment wasn't specific on a very important detail -- the density of the material the vessel was made of. Rather than admit that your thought experiment wouldn't invariably work out the way you had planned, you went on a pseudodidactic tirade about the supposed unacceptability of a nonspecific outcome to an underspecified problem. In the process you got so wrapped up in saving face that you pontificated about how real-world engineering must be just like the exams you took as a schoolgirl. You're so far down the rabbit hole of pretending you know all about how the world works that you're committing wantonly absurd acts of arrogance.

You aren't an engineer. You have no idea how engineering is practiced in the real world, forensically or otherwise. You therefore have no business pretending that your irrelevant student experience in an unrelated field gives you the slightest understanding for how we go about our business. Now all of that is tangential to the more relevant fact that your thought experiment reveals part of your ignorance on the subject of buoyancy, which means your dicta on the subject, against which you propose to measure observations in the real world, is utterly worthless.

No, I wasn't a school girl, I was a working professional and my bosses were paying £10,000 per module. See how you try to degrade anyone who disagrees with you? It is a poor form of debate. It is what you expect from the man in the street. It is one level up from cat fighting.

 

[JayUtah]

OK, so explain in which way he got 'drummed out' of his profession many years ago.

He was abruptly dismissed from the company he worked for, and since then has worked out of his house only as a single proprietor. It took a bit of detective work on the part of my colleagues, but the reason given was his misrepresentations of his role as a "marine engineer" and of the work he did.

Keep in mind we have interacted with him. You have not. Many years ago he made the mistake of trying to make the same claims about himself as you have made about him. This got a lot of people interested.

Anyone can slag someone else off behind their back, or when they do not have the right or means of a reply.

Perhaps not unlike your blanket dismissal of Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, based solely on your misconceptions about psychology. I, however, work in the same field as Anders, and I, unlike you, interacted with him directly and offered him the means of reply. He had the opportunity to defend himself. But he could not, and still can't. As a result, no one accepts him as an expert.

So if you are going to make that type of claim, you need to be explicit about what you mean.

You are the one trying to qualify him as a witness. You say he is a fully qualified marine engineer, but the facts are that he hasn't worked in that field for many years and has subsequently disgraced himself as an online crackpot. You have the burden to qualify your witness as an expert. Enough evidence has been presented to question his expertise as an engineer as well as his credibility as a person.

 

[zooterkin]

How is that a false claim about myself?

Where did I say it was a false claim about you?

 

[JayUtah]

No, I wasn't a school girl, I was a working professional and my bosses were paying £10,000 per module. See how you try to degrade anyone who disagrees with you?

Very well, I stand corrected on when you took a particular exam that you've just now decided to mention. Your original objection was phrased as an abstract hypothetical: any exam in which partial credit was offered. If you're determined to be offended, I won't stop you. But the relevant point remains unrebutted. School exams offering partial credit for partial competence are still no substitute for real-world engineering work, done by licensed professions, as per regulation and law. This remains true no matter how much you want to pretend we've hurt your feelings.

Just admit you aren't qualified to know how engineers approach their work. Just admit your thought experiment didn't work out as planned. Then all of this unpleasantness will go away.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

Er, more than 90° means it is no longer above the surface.

I thought that ships that turned turtle (roll angle of roughly 180 degrees) could float for hours? Do you suppose that a ship "turning turtle" submerges completely when it his 90 degrees, only to pop back up above the surface as the angle reaches 180?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Produce or cite these supplements which explain exactly how the water entered the broken windows and at what force and rate.

I don't have the supplement. I infer nor do you. Can't speak for you but I do not assume it never existed. Neither of us is qualified to criticize the work anyway.

The report I do have says

"The speed of flooding, however, depended on the size of the openings to the sea and on the escape of air from inside the hull regarding which there are several witness observations. Calculations indicate - as an example - that 18,000 tons of water on board, distributed between the car deck and decks 4 and 5, would have given a heel angle of about 75 degrees. This amount of water had entered the vessel in about 15 minutes, indicating an average flow rate of 20 tons per second. This is feasible through openings which have a total area of 5 - 10 m².

 

[junkshop]

It is true I did proceeds of crime.

Garnering benefits (proceeds) from crime makes one a criminal, not a forensic specialist. Consider clarifying your wording.

I have worked under the Proceeds of Crime Act to help recoup hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money.

I do not make false claims, nor have I alternatively, claimed to be an expert in marine matters.

In the context of a poster claiming I said I was a hundred and one different types of expert, a blatant lie.

Please quote me in full context in future, including the post to which I was responding.

Your 'I do not make false claims' claim was in reply to Myriad pointing out that your post #620 could be misconstrued.