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

[Jack by the hedge]

So why did Arikas, leader of the current expedition say at the press conference that 'We are going to listen to what the witnesses say this time'?

He didn't. Those are words you stuffed into his mouth.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

This is where you err.

How can you possibly know they were mistaken. Several witnesses said they were thrown out of their beds or slammed against a wall or their belongings went flying across the room. All this is perfectly consistent with a collision of some sort or a sudden stop not dissimilar to same.

But someone on the internet knows these people are all mistaken.

Because there's no evidence for any of it.

Again, if the eyewitnesses to an event say "I heard a loud bang, it sounded like an explosion" that's a perfectly good place to start an investigation. I would not doubt that these people had indeed heard a large bang unless given credible reason to doubt their story. If however upon the physical investigation of the event there is no evidence for any kind of explosion, I would conclude that the person did indeed hear the loud bang, but were mistaken in attributing it to an explosion.

The problem you have Vixen, is you're trying to argue as if we are at the beginning point of the investigation. As if the event has only just happened and we are hearing these earwitness reports for the first time and there's nothing else to go on. But we aren't. The wreck has been investigated by people far more credible than you, and there was no explosion. There was no collision. The earwitnesses heard what they heard, no question, but if any of them claimed that the attribution was a collision or explosion, the attribution is wrong.

No, not because I say so, but because people who literally have as their business investigating maritime disasters have investigated and found no evidence of such. That all you have is cherrypicked statements made by people who either have no expertise (Rabe), have no credibility, have neither (Bjorkman), or who did not actually investigate and only saw pictures (Braidwood) shows just how weak your "arguments" are.

There are literally hundreds of words and phrases attributed to Shakespeare. Virtually none of them in their pure original context.

No, no deflecting. You claimed that it was a quote from King Lear. It is not. Admit it, or point to where exactly in the text it is.

 

[JayUtah]

So why did Arikas...

Asked and answered. Please summarize my previous answer for the group.

 

[JayUtah]

How can you possibly know they were mistaken.

Because their inference is not supported by physical evidence, and the physical evidence suggests a different explanation for their observation.

But someone on the internet knows these people are all mistaken.

You're a person on the internet. Why should your judgment be any better?

 

[W.D.Clinger]

Why is everything so difficult?

More difficult for some than for others.

Wind gusts, in addition, tend to have circular movement if you have ever noticed trees swaying back and forth.

To the long list of things Vixen insists upon getting wrong, we can add the physics of swaying trees.

Wind gusts, in addition, tend to have circular movement if you have ever noticed trees swaying back and forth.

You just made that up

And here's the reason she made it up:

I calculated on the back of an envelope that if the vessel reached a certain point of its journey after X time of travel, then its average speed appeared to be 20.91 knots and I pointed out - did you not see it - that as its reasonable maximum speed was no more than 20 knots realistically, then it 'must have been helped along by the wind'. As you know waves are driven by the wind.

My first question was where you got your starting figure of 193 km from, and you gave me the runaround, posting in reply a different calculation using different distances.

You said the 193km distance meant an average speed of 18 knots.

You then converted that 193km to miles and then to nautical miles but you got your sums wrong and your units wrong, saying it was '137 knots' instead of 104 nautical miles.

You then used that wrong figure to recalculate the speed as 20.91 knots, which you wrongly called 'knots per hour'. This should obviously have been the same 18 knots you calculated before, but instead of realising this was an indication you had messed up, you decided the vessel really had made almost 21 knots ('per hour') so must have been assisted by the wind and waves.

When it was pointed out your calculations were simply wrong and that the wind and waves were not helping but rather hindering the ship, you did your ususal "Oh! Squirrel!" distraction act instead of doing the impossible which is admitting you were wrong.

You were wrong. It was painfully obvious you were wrong. But it appears to be nothing compared to the pain of admitting how wrong you were.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

To the above I should probably have added that the stuff about wind gusts having 'circular movements' looked horribly like the start of an attempt to introduce a crazy notion that the prevailing wind might by some strange coincidence have circled around behind the ship and mysteriously pushed it in the opposite direction, so it could achieve 21 knots into almost a headwind.

A proposal of a magical explanation for an unachievable speed which is in fact just a miscalculation will get the reception it deserves so I hope it won't be forthcoming.

 

[Mojo]

The JAIC never dealt with the eye witness reports of a collision of some sort.

Vixen, please can you quote (with sources) these eye witness reports of a collision that you are claiming "the JAIC never dealt with"?

 

[phiwum]

This is where you err.



How can you possibly know they were mistaken. Several witnesses said they were thrown out of their beds or slammed against a wall or their belongings went flying across the room. All this is perfectly consistent with a collision of some sort or a sudden stop not dissimilar to same.



But someone on the internet knows these people are all mistaken.

All what people? You've said that one person said it "sounded like an explosion." I never caught the source for that quote.

Others heard bangs. A banging sound is consistent with a loose visor.

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

 

[JayUtah]

A proposal of a magical explanation for an unachievable speed which is in fact just a miscalculation will get the reception it deserves so I hope it won't be forthcoming.

Yes, if you subscribe to the Vixen Is Never Wrong article of faith, then certainly the forces of nature must bow to that superior knowledge. Barber's excellent Naval Shiphandler's Guide talks at length about the ways in which wind affects ship movement, even for ships that don't have explicit sails. I wish I had had it when I was steering a 700-ton sailing vessel in adverse seas back in the late 1980s. (Yes, I was terrified.) My brother-in-law is a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy and cut his teeth navigating, quartermastering, conning, and helming Perry-class frigates. (Now there's a name for all the Great Lakes deniers.) And yes, handling wind is a big, counterintuitive part of the job, especially in close-quarters maneuvering such as docking. But no, none of my family's combined ship-handling expertise subsumes any sort of magic wind pattern that's going to goose a large ship along in the manner claimed. Vixen's envelope is simply wrong.

 

[zooterkin]

Rubbish. Any fule no knots travel over nautical miles.

Well, any fule except this one, it seems:

There were two basic routes from Tallinn to Stockholm, changing westwards or carrying on northwestwards. The JAIC assumed it was the westward one but it was more normal to follow the same route as the Helsinki-Stockholm ferries. The archipelago is particularly fraught with dangers (rocks, skerries, shallows) so a captain is allowed to use his best judgment along them.

If MV Estonia had been travelling since 19:15 then by 1:48 (six hours and 33 minutes, or 6.55 hrs) when it went off the radar, it had travelled roughly 193 km which meant it was travelling an average of 18 knots, ergo, it will have travelled 119 miles*/.868976 [miles to knots conversion] = 137 knots over 6.55 hours = an average speed of 20.91 knots per hour. Its capability was only circa 20 knots at full speed, so must have been carried along by the waves - southwesterly, similar to the wind.

*119 miles = 191.512km

Utö to Stockholm is 193 km. Tallinn to Stockholm is 426km. But MV Estonia was still 40km away from Utö. Pretty much bang on midway.

Plus another salient point is that at this location MV Estonia was now in International Waters.

Note also that's the post where you said '137 knots'. When I pointed out that this was 157mph, you tried to make out that I'd made an error in quoting you, and that the first number should have been 117 knots. First of all, I hadn't (see the unedited quote, above); second, even if you had originally said 117 knots, that is barely less ludicrous, equating to a speed of 134mph.

Please explain what sort of game you are playing, when you disregard basic errors like this, not to mention the ridiculous conspiracy theories you persist with despite plenteous evidence to the contrary? What is the point of discussing this topic with you, when you ignore what has been said to you?

 

[zooterkin]

Can we drop the cockney king lear?

It's a distraction

From what? All the points of her many and various contradictory conspiracy theories have been demolished several times over. Just look back in this thread and the previous sections of it if you want to see the answers to whatever she regurgitates next.

 

[zooterkin]

Must check your work.


[qimg]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53217474032_1fc30a59d8.jpg[/qimg]knots into miles ph by Username Vixen, on Flickr

You made the mistake, and then compounded it by ignoring the correction and instead claiming I had made a error (ignoring the much more significant mistake you had made); please apologise now for accusing me of making one.

 

[JayUtah]

Others heard bangs. A banging sound is consistent with a loose visor.

I'm sure Vixen will supply us with suitable citations. [Pause for laughter]

Luckily I recall the testimony to which she refers. The ship rapidly lost headway at a certain point in the accident sequence. The deceleration caused some people to lose their footing, or be thrown about. Despite claims that this is "consistent" with a collision, there is no direct witness testimony to a collision and no physical evidence of a substantial collision on the surface. The inference drawn by some witnesses, and subsequently endorsed by some critics of the mainstream narrative, is that the ship collided with something that could have been a submarine or another ship.

The hole in the starboard side was put forward as evidence that a collision occurred on the surface. However, a collision with the side of the vessel would not produce the deceleration reported by witnesses.

What would, however, is the detachment of the bow visor. Simply the loss of the visor produces a sudden increase in hydrodynamic drag in response to wave impacts. A ship's bows—of which the visor, in this design, is an important part—deflect wave energy such that it doesn't translate to drag along the ship's way. If a wave suddenly impacts the relatively blunt car ramp where before there were proper bows, the result is sudden drag and sudden deceleration. And if the detached bow visor lands in front of the ship such that the ship pushes it ahead for a bit before it sinks, the increase in drag will be substantial. I don't recall whether the observed bow damage from the departing visor would have been consistent with that additional scenario.

In any case, that interpretation (1) is sound from an engineering perspective, (2) explains the witness observations, and (3) is consistent with all known physical evidence. Hence it is the prevailing conclusion. Conspiracy theorists, however, simply want to stick with the witness inference that the ship collided with something because it supports their desired believe that the ship was rammed by nefarious or accidental forces, causing it to sink and requiring a coverup.

 

[Mojo]

All what people? You've said that one person said it "sounded like an explosion." I never caught the source for that quote.

Others heard bangs. A banging sound is consistent with a loose visor.

Vixen also claims that there are eye witness reports of a collision.

 

[JayUtah]

From what?

Indeed, I expect a moderator to come along any moment and remind us of the topic of the thread and admonish us, including this my own attempt at moderation. I'll try to limit my comments to brief observation and agreement.

It has been conclusively established that Vixen is an unreliable reporter of nearly everything she proffers as fact, regardless of relevance to the thread. No further evidence needed, even for the latest example.

It has been conclusively established that Vixen unrepentantly errs in her nearly every attempt at analysis, regardless of relevance to the thread. No further evidence needed, even for the latest example.

It has been conclusively established that Vixen's presentation on the loss of MS Estonia is limited to recycling the same staid claims, and that those claims have been thoroughly discussed many times before, and in nearly every case refuted. No further discussion needed.

Some of us like talking about ships, shipping, and the skeptic topics surrounding the investigation of shipping accidents and conspiracy theories. This thread provides an opportunity, albeit not always in a way that appeals to everyone. Vixen herself occasionally provides new relevant topics, but only rarely.

If I may tread close to the cliff's edge for a moment: it has been suggested that some participation in this thread is aimed more at entertainment than education or investigation. To that point, I invoke the innumerable videos we can find on social media of a parent conversing with a toddler in a way apparently aimed only at getting the toddler to say increasingly absurd things in that child's way of reason. I wager this is why some of us want to talk about Cockney slang and spurious Shakespeare quotes. The actual answers is foregone and the facts are not in dispute. But we just want to see—for pure entertainment value—just how far a hole can be dug. Are we not entertained?

 

[Dabop]

It will have still have travelled a distance 20 miles, even if it was only going around in laps. Distance is not necessarily linear or 'as the crow flies'.

So why did you use the 'crow flies' distance in your (incorrect) calculations???

 

[Andy_Ross]

Yes, if you subscribe to the Vixen Is Never Wrong article of faith, then certainly the forces of nature must bow to that superior knowledge. Barber's excellent Naval Shiphandler's Guide talks at length about the ways in which wind affects ship movement, even for ships that don't have explicit sails. I wish I had had it when I was steering a 700-ton sailing vessel in adverse seas back in the late 1980s. (Yes, I was terrified.) My brother-in-law is a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy and cut his teeth navigating, quartermastering, conning, and helming Perry-class frigates. (Now there's a name for all the Great Lakes deniers.) And yes, handling wind is a big, counterintuitive part of the job, especially in close-quarters maneuvering such as docking. But no, none of my family's combined ship-handling expertise subsumes any sort of magic wind pattern that's going to goose a large ship along in the manner claimed. Vixen's envelope is simply wrong.

I've sailed thousands of knots in yachts of various sizes, we did around 1500 knots in the current one, but it doesn't need any experience at the helm of a sailing boat to know Vixen is talking out of her usual orifice.

I recommend the various Royal Navy Seamanship and Navigation manuals for ship handling guides. I have several complete sets from the 30s, 50s and 70s.

 

[zooterkin]

Vixen also claims that there are eye witness reports of a collision.

Indeed:

When the devices detonated at Swedish midnight, perhaps the ship swerved into the escorting submarine and was thus pranged.


The JAIC never dealt with the eye witness reports of a collision of some sort.

Vixen, please give your reference for the highlighted.

 

[Mojo]

I'm sure Vixen will supply us with suitable citations. [Pause for laughter]

Luckily I recall the testimony to which she refers. The ship rapidly lost headway at a certain point in the accident sequence. The deceleration caused some people to lose their footing, or be thrown about. Despite claims that this is "consistent" with a collision, there is no direct witness testimony to a collision...

Vixen claims that there is:

The JAIC never dealt with the eye witness reports of a collision of some sort.

I'd like to see her quote these reports, and give suitable citations for them.

 

[JayUtah]

Vixen claims that there is:
I'd like to see her quote these reports, and give suitable citations for them.

As would I, whereupon I predict we will discover that there is some disagreement on what "eye witness" and "direct witness testimony" actually mean. I predict her evidence will be a mixture of observation and inference, and she will not respect our desire to separate those.