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

[Vixen]

I also like how before it was 'military precision', but now she is adding a tolerance range that she arbitrarily assigned.

How do you calculate the midpoint of a sea journey when you have unpredicatable variables such as wind and waves, together with the effects of listing and trim?


It is not hard ground where you can aim with confidence at an exact spot.

 

[Vixen]

We understood the humor of your 15 kg bow visor.

But it's true that, by spouting that nonsense, you were really poking fun at the source of that nonsense.

Big deal, so I got mixed up with the 15kg Atlantic lock, also the object of blame.


The error was acknowledged and I issued a post correcting the weight of the visor as 55 tonnes.

 

[phiwum]

I
So, in the case of the MV Estonia, the disaster happened:

• Swedish midnight
• Midpoint of its journey, within a 21 nm margin
• Just 22' past the 59° international waters boundary.
• Equally equidistant between Helsinki, Tallinn and Stockholm.
• At the halfway point of its journey to within a quarter of an hour, temporally.

Preplanned operation or 'just an accident with a lot of coincidences'?

You are quintuple counting one occurrence. The accident happened at a particular time. Once we fix the time, the location is also fixed, so it's not as if these are five coincidences. It's one at most.

NOTE: I'm still not assuming these are all facts, but merely pointing out the methodological fallacy.

 

[phiwum]

Apart from rafts, life jackets and rings or boats I can't think what else she would expect and all of those items were seen and recovered.

Nor why the lack of flotsam indicates sabotage. Did the saboteurs prudently remove all the ship items they could, so they might resell them at a tidy profit?

 

[Mojo]

Apart from rafts, life jackets and rings or boats I can't think what else she would expect and all of those items were seen and recovered.

A large crate marked:

ACME CORPORATION
FLOTSAM
THIS WAY UP​

 

[phiwum]

The buoys were not automatic activation.

What, and how much extra ' detritus and flotsam' do you think there should have been?

Why is this presumed lack suspicious?

Do you think someone went round the ship nailing everything down before it sank?

Take the Titanic. It split in two, It took up to four hours to sink.

Did you actually read what he wrote? He didn't mention a damned thing about how long it took to sink. He asked why it would be suspicious that there's not much flotsam.

 

[zooterkin]

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.

How do you calculate the midpoint of a sea journey when you have unpredicatable variables such as wind and waves, together with the effects of listing and trim?


It is not hard ground where you can aim with confidence at an exact spot.

You tell us. You're the one claiming that it was the midpoint (which you seem to be backing away from now), and that this was somehow indicative of a conspiracy to sink the ship.

 

[Vixen]

While my name is biblical, my son's is not. His name is the far less common of the two. But all of this is just aiming at establishing the probability of choosing these two names. You can find out the probability that an American male was born with each of these names and then multiply them to discover the odds that two American males have these names.

Using this site, we can find that the probability that two American babies born in the same decade we lived in the Netherlands have his name and my name is about one in 10 million. Of course, the odds that two Dutch dogs have these names is far, far less.

So the odds are very slim that this arrangement would occur.



Of course, it's a matter of probabilities. Any particular unlikely occurrence that we find noteworthy for some reason is a coincidence. Because there are so many possible coincidences at any moment, the odds that no coincidence occurs is very low.

But that is to say that OF COURSE coincidences occur. That's rather different than saying there are no coincidences.

Anyway, this is a bit of a tangent and I don't care to chase down this track very far. It's just that people who claim not to believe in coincidences have always confused me. It is a ridiculous stance.

You are approaching it wrongly statistics-wise. This is because you haven't factored in nested variables. You've looked up the probability of two random US males having the same two discrete names together to match that of two random dogs in a foreign land. This is because members of the same family will be in their own distinct cultural group. If you factored in your particular cultural identity, the odds against wouldn't be so high (unless perhaps your son's mother comes from a completely different culture and she named him according to her culture). But, the fact of two dogs in the Netherlands having the same name as you and your son would not be so probable. So OK, that is a real coincidence, if your two names are genuinely unforeseeable in pet dogs.

 

[zooterkin]

Big deal, so I got mixed up with the 15kg Atlantic lock, also the object of blame.


The error was acknowledged and I issued a post correcting the weight of the visor as 55 tonnes.

More lies. You acknowledged no such thing, just tried to deflect from the error with weasel words.

With the casing it weighs 55 tonnes.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

Can I refer you to the M/S Jan Heweliusz car ferry disaster, a Norwegian vessel that was Polish-owned.



It was in hurricane force winds of up to 50 m/s, a far more severe storm than the Estonia's.



wiki



It took over eight hours to sink despite being in waters on 27m deep and having been in 28 other incidents, including crashes with fishing boats and a fire. It had been in a much more sorry state than the MV Estonia, which was only 14 years old as compared to the MS Jan Heweliusz being eight years older.



People concentrate on the 'terrible storm' that afflicted the Estonia and about how incredibly unseaworthy she was meant to be and the dreadful design of the bow visor. But this all detracts from what we are not being told.

A different kind of sinking that occurred to a different ship in different conditions happened in a different amount of time. DO YOU SEE IT?!

The depth of the water is, of course, significant as well, and I have included it as a variable along with some other random circumstantial facts!

I will make no mention whatsoever of the tons of seawater freely entering the vessel from its bow as it motored on as a possible factor in the difference.

COME ON IT IS STARING YOU ALL IN THE FACE!

:9

 

[Vixen]

You are quintuple counting one occurrence. The accident happened at a particular time. Once we fix the time, the location is also fixed, so it's not as if these are five coincidences. It's one at most.

NOTE: I'm still not assuming these are all facts, but merely pointing out the methodological fallacy.

I pointed out that speed, i.e., time., of journey is not constant. It starts off at full speed from Tallinn 19kn and is only allowed 14kns at the archipelago. So the midpoint location does not necessarily match midpoint time ipso facto.

 

[phiwum]

You are approaching it wrongly statistics-wise. This is because you haven't factored in nested variables. You've looked up the probability of two random US males having the same two discrete names together to match that of two random dogs in a foreign land. This is because members of the same family will be in their own distinct cultural group. If you factored in your particular cultural identity, the odds against wouldn't be so high (unless perhaps your son's mother comes from a completely different culture and she named him according to her culture).

There is no cultural connection between my family's background and my son's name, aside from the fact that we are Americans. There is no relative I know with even a remotely similar name.

But, the fact of two dogs in the Netherlands having the same name as you and your son would not be so probable. So OK, that is a real coincidence, if your two names are genuinely unforeseeable in pet dogs.

Okay. So you do admit coincidences happen. Good enough.

 

[Vixen]

Nor why the lack of flotsam indicates sabotage. Did the saboteurs prudently remove all the ship items they could, so they might resell them at a tidy profit?

The inference is that they made dang sure the think would sink and no-one would stop it. Nor could anyone effectively rescue the survivors. 94 dying on the life rafts waiting for the helicopters and nearby ships.

If you planned an operation to make sure a vessel was destroyed, you would make sure it absolutely was, wouldn't you? So you'd block communications and remove life saving equipment.

 

[Mojo]

How do you calculate the midpoint of a sea journey when you have unpredicatable variables such as wind and waves, together with the effects of listing and trim?


It is not hard ground where you can aim with confidence at an exact spot.

Exactly. But your conspiracy theory* is based on it being sunk precisely at midnight and exactly half way, in order to "send a message". That was central to your case for the existence of conspiracy.


*Well, one of them. Other conspiracy theories have been made available.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

They were clearly taking the piss with a joke 'theory' that you swallowed hook line and sinker.

Gibberish.

Can nuclear waste melt steel, yes or no?

Well Vixen?

 

[zooterkin]

The inference is that they made dang sure the think would sink and no-one would stop it. Nor could anyone effectively rescue the survivors. 94 dying on the life rafts waiting for the helicopters and nearby ships.

Er, what? The survivors were rescued. 94 passengers didn't die.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Take the Titanic. It split in two, It took up to four hours to sink.

kaggle


Compare and contrast to the Estonia survival rate: 137 out of apx 1052. Half that of the Titanic, yet only 0.34% of its parts were missing. The pointy bit at the end, which is normally of no particular consequence, as it was not unusual for such a vessel to sail with the visor open.

Deranged

 

[Andy_Ross]

The inference is that they made dang sure the think would sink and no-one would stop it. Nor could anyone effectively rescue the survivors. 94 dying on the life rafts waiting for the helicopters and nearby ships.

If you planned an operation to make sure a vessel was destroyed, you would make sure it absolutely was, wouldn't you? So you'd block communications and remove life saving equipment.

Why would removing life saving equipment help the ship sink?
Rafts, boats and jackets were recovered.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

How do you calculate the midpoint of a sea journey when you have unpredicatable variables such as wind and waves, together with the effects of listing and trim?





It is not hard ground where you can aim with confidence at an exact spot.

Since you now accept the measurement is vague at best you have all the information you need to see why we find your excitement at such a suspicious coincidence to be worthy of ridicule.

 

[Mojo]

Big deal, so I got mixed up with the 15kg Atlantic lock, also the object of blame.


The error was acknowledged and I issued a post correcting the weight of the visor as 55 tonnes.

Nope, you said that "with the casing" it weighed 55 tonnes. You invented the "casing" to avoid having to admit that the 15kg was wrong.