Cont: The sinking of MS Estonia: Case Reopened Part VI

[MarkCorrigan]

Any update on this? I'd love to know exactly I could be proved wrong when I quoted the posts in question.

Well Vixen?

 

[JayUtah]

I am surprised you are not familiar with the language of resolutions presented at conventions and AGM's.

These are the documents that regulate my profession. I trust myself to read them more correctly than I trust you to read them for me from your layperson's armchair.

There is one resolution that requires float-free beacon releases. There is another resolution that recommends immersion-activated beacons. Those are different statements that mean different things and describe different devices. No amount of bluff or bluster lets you blur them together the way you want.

 

[Andy_Ross]

I am surprised you are not familiar with the language of resolutions presented at conventions and AGM's.

They are not resolutions presented at conventions and AGMs.

 

[Mojo]

I provided the link. You can read the entire document/s for yourself.

Yes, and people have.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Yes, and people have.

so we read the changes brought in after the sinking of the Estonia that made immersion activated beacons mandatory.

It's all been linked in the thread.

 

[Vixen]

They are not resolutions presented at conventions and AGMs.

The IMO is an international convention comprised of 175 member states. As with the Geneva Convention UN Convention for Human Rights, UN Convention for Refugees, WHO, NATO, et al., it does not have the power to pass laws in any individual country. How it works is that every two years there is a 'convention' of members with each states sending a delegate if they wish. These delegates vote on behalf of their member states on resolutions that have been raised for the convention. The IMO passed a resolution 6 Nov 1991 which was adopted (came into force) 25 Nov 1991, and stipulated that member states were expected to ensure their relevant shipping had at least one free-floating automatic EPIRB with a grace period meaning they had to comply by August 1993.

As with ECHR, Geneva, Rome Treaty, etc., etc., member states are expected to comply, as that is the whole point of membership and the Convention.

 

[Vixen]

so we read the changes brought in after the sinking of the Estonia that made immersion activated beacons mandatory.

It's all been linked in the thread.

The Lt Commander of the Coastguard at Turku, the testers at Turma tug boat and Asser Koivisto, technical expert to the JAIC all confirmed that the buoys should have emitted signals after having become submerged in water. The Estonian Marine Administrator said he had assumed the buoys had got trapped beneath the ship which was why there were no signals.

So your claim that the buoys on Estonia were manually activated ones is demonstrably complete rubbish.

 

[Andy_Ross]

The IMO is an international convention comprised of 175 member states. As with the Geneva Convention UN Convention for Human Rights, UN Convention for Refugees, WHO, NATO, et al., it does not have the power to pass laws in any individual country. How it works is that every two years there is a 'convention' of members with each states sending a delegate if they wish. These delegates vote on behalf of their member states on resolutions that have been raised for the convention. The IMO passed a resolution 6 Nov 1991 which was adopted (came into force) 25 Nov 1991, and stipulated that member states were expected to ensure their relevant shipping had at least one free-floating automatic EPIRB with a grace period meaning they had to comply by August 1993.

As with ECHR, Geneva, Rome Treaty, etc., etc., member states are expected to comply, as that is the whole point of membership and the Convention.

If you don't comply with SOLAS your ship isn't getting any insurance, or admission to any port and certainly no contracts.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

The Lt Commander of the Coastguard at Turku, the testers at Turma tug boat and Asser Koivisto, technical expert to the JAIC all confirmed that the buoys should have emitted signals after having become submerged in water. The Estonian Marine Administrator said he had assumed the buoys had got trapped beneath the ship which was why there were no signals.

So your claim that the buoys on Estonia were manually activated ones is demonstrably complete rubbish.

It's genuinely pathetic the way you twist what these people said to pretend they support your fantasy about a non-existent model of immersion-activated buoy with an overriding off switch.

Everyone can see what you're doing and nobody is fooled. You're still as wrong as you always have been on this.

 

[Andy_Ross]

If you don't comply with SOLAS your ship isn't getting any insurance, or admission to any port and certainly no contracts.

Just to add
If your ship is none compliant it's not going to get flagged and certainly won't be allowed to leave port.

Private craft are different. In the UK I don't have to comply with any regulations and could put to sea in an old bathtub if I wanted.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

Vixen, why are you ignoring me again?

You stated that you posted replies to my posts where I showed you to be wrong that apparently showed that you were not in fact wrong in your statements. That's great! So post them again. Prove me wrong.

I know you said they "disappeared" and if that's true that sucks, I wouldn't want them to disappear, so why not take screenshots before you post them, and send the screenshots to me and someone else. That way, if they disappear again, you can prove that you posted them and showed me to be wrong.

So come on Vixen, prove me wrong! Put egg on my face and show that you didn't really claim that passengers heard explosions, and that you never insinuated that muzzle velocity remains constant (or alternatively demonstrate that you were right to insinuate that and that it does).

Make a big point. Show everyone that we've been mischaracterising you.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

Vixen has PMed me regarding the missing post, and I have asked her if I'm allowed to reproduce the PMs here. I will not reproduce any of her PMs without explicit permission.

I have requested that she repost the proof that I was incorrect and screenshot the post as per my request in this thread.

 

[JayUtah]

The Lt Commander of the Coastguard at Turku, the testers at Turma tug boat and Asser Koivisto, technical expert to the JAIC all confirmed that the buoys should have emitted signals after having become submerged in water. The Estonian Marine Administrator said he had assumed the buoys had got trapped beneath the ship which was why there were no signals.

All discussed at length the previous two times you dragged everyone through your issues with the EPIRBs. Perhaps you can summarize for the group what I said last time about, say, Koivisto. That way we know you're actually participating instead of just vying for attention.

So your claim that the buoys on Estonia were manually activated ones is demonstrably complete rubbish.

Backed into corner on the regulation point, as usual. So now you have to shift gears.

 

[catsmate]

You forget that pre-online newspapers, people read paper copies and often kept souvenirs of key events. These days, one often sees retrospective 'corrections' to articles, for example in the GUARDIAN. In the 90's people had hard copies of the original!

If you want to watch the Oprah interview with Harry and Meghan, you'll discover it is completely unavailable anywhere. Wiped clean off the internet and all sources. Yet anyone who recorded it at the time, will still have the hard copy of the original.

And yet it took me around five seconds to find it......

 

[catsmate]

That is pretty dishonest of you, isn't it? All those guys from 2009 who received the Gold Medal of Merit with Sword, were guys in action in Afghanistan.

No mention of rescuing people from a civilian ship, no matter how commendable.

As I said, and please take note - nota bene - it is a Military Medal for Military bravery.

More bollocks.
In each class, the medal can be awarded either for actions in battle or during war-like situations or for personal efforts in other circumstances.

 

[GlennB]

And yet it took me around five seconds to find it......

You win. Took me closer to 10.

 

[JayUtah]

And yet it took me around five seconds to find it......

It must be exhausting for her to live in a world seemingly composed entirely out of her imagination.

What you're looking at is not the real interview. Those were all wiped from the Internet and are now classified. What you found is the AI-generated replacements. Royal watchers will note that they didn't get Meghan's skin tone exactly the right shade.

 

[SpitfireIX]

Well, like a broken clock, it seems that Vixen was right on this particular point. I found a copy of the 1992 SOLAS regulations on a Ukrainian website, apparently connected with the port of Odesa. From Chapter IV (radio communications):

Regulation 1.
Application​

1 This chapter applies to all ships to which the present regulations apply and to cargo ships of 300 tons gross tonnage and upwards. . . .

4 Every ship shall comply with regulations IV/7.1.4 (NAVTEX) and 7.1.6 (satellite ЕРIRВ) not later than 1 August 1993. . . .

Regulation 7.
Radio equipment - General​

1 Every ship shall be provided with: . . .

.6 subject to the provisions of regulation IV/8.3, a satellite emergency position-indicating radio beacon (satellite EPIRB) which shall be:

.6.1 capable of transmitting a distress alert either through the polar orbiting satellite service operating in the 406 MHz band or, if the ship is engaged only on voyages within INMARSAT geostationary satellite service operating in the 1.6 GHz band;

.6.2 installed in an easily accessible position;

.6.3 ready to be manually released and capable of being carried by one person into a survival craft;

.6.4 capable of floating free if the ship sinks and of being automatically activated when afloat; and

.6.5 capable of being activated manually. [footnotes omitted]​

However, two points, Vixen. First, you failed to provide actual evidence that you were right. You showed neither the text of SOLAS in effect at the time, nor a resolution where SOLAS was actually amended (in fairness, I couldn't find the latter on the IMO's website, either); you simply jumped to a conclusion that happened to be correct, and kept posting links to resolutions which were clearly only recommendations.

Second, and far more important, this doesn't mean what you desperately wish it to mean, i.e., that the Estonia was carrying automatically activated beacons which were somehow sabotaged as part of a vast conspiracy to sink the ship and kill as many passengers [ETA: and crew] as possible. It simply means that the Estonia was not carrying the required beacons, and thus was not in compliance with SOLAS. Given what we know about all of the other instances of negligence displayed by the owners and the crew, and the fact that the regulations had been in effect for less than 18 months at the time, this should come as no great surprise.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

SpitfireIX I'm not sure that's all there is to it, and the broken clock did not in fact manage to get something right.

After point 4 (every ship shall comply by 1st Aug '93) there's point 5, which seems to provide temporary exemption for ships built before 1st Feb '95.

It's rather curious legalese and seems a very peculiar way to say what you mean it to say, but the text seems to me to amount to;
Ships built before 1st Feb '95 (like the Estonia), for the period from 1st Feb '92 to 1st Feb '99, must comply with this regulation or comply with the 1974 version. And after Feb '99 they must comply with this version.

It's an odd construction but <shrug> I guess it keeps the lawyers happy.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that Estonia seemingly didn't have to comply with this new version until 1999, it was sufficient to comply with the 1974 regulation.

PS a quick search back reminds me two years ago I quoted the JAIC report noting the Estonia was indeed certified under the 1974 SOLAS Convention.

 

[SpitfireIX]

But it says that Paragraph 5 is subject to the provisions of Paragraph 4. So I read it as every ship is required to comply with Paragraph 4, regardless of when it was constructed.

It is possible that there was some genuine confusion about the applicability of the new regulations to the Estonia, however. That might explain why the JAIC report didn't call attention to the issue.