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EDITORIAL COMMENT Speaking volumes


Estonia sank with the loss of 852 lives in September 1994 and the Joint Accident Investigating Committee concluded that the failure of the visor and the bow ramp were to blame for the casualty. To this day these findings have been hotly contested.


K


ey elements of the Final Report of the Joint Accident Investiga- tion Committee (JAIC) into the


sinking of Estonia have been called into question by Margus Kurm, the Estonian chief state prosecutor, who believes that the Final Report is “not convincing”. He is critical that essential evidence


failed to be gathered and that theses were proffered, but not tested scientifically. In short Mr Kurm says: “Te Final Report cannot be defended in all respects, because it contains contradictions and unanswered questions”. Te major questions for Mr Kurm are


clear; he needs to know if it is a fact that a ro-ro ship that is listing at 40degs will capsize? If this same vessel’s hull is intact with no water below the waterline would the ship turn upright in seconds? Lastly if this ship did capsize is it a fact that it could not sink within 10 minutes? “If these are really scientific facts,


based on today’s best knowledge, Estonia could not have sunk in the way the JAIC describes it in the Final Report. And if we want to know how the ship sank, we should start from determining whether the bottom of the ship is intact or not,” said Mr Kurm. In such circumstances the families of


the victims must be considered and if they still wish to find closure through knowing why this ship was lost then there should be no question that further free and open discussions with all the available evidence should be a matter of course. Tere is no question about it.


The Naval Architect September 2010


However, there are other considerations


namely that future vessel designers must make ships safer in order that further loss of life can be prevented and to do this lessons from past catastrophes must be learned. If through obfuscation certain authorities seek to muddle the issues and obscure the facts for their own, unknown, purposes pressure must be brought to bear on these authorities to make them alter course. Essentially the initial question must


be, is there enough evidence to create uncertainty in the JAIC’s version of events. Certainly there appears to be ample uncertainty as is so ably demonstrated by the lawyer Margus Kurm as well as the naval architects Anders Fisher and Anders Björkman. If, however, the JAIC’s version of events


prove to be the correct scenario and the vessel did capsize and sink following the flooding of its car deck and the free surface effect of the water that had flowed onto the ship. One then has to question whether the SOLAS 2009 regulation that can allow long low holds to be built into new designs should be reappraised? Certainly the authorities within the


European Union are sufficiently concerned about long low holds that they have maintained the regulations developed following the loss of Estonia, the so-called Stockholm Agreement, that was designed to improve the safety of ro-ro vessels and was to be replaced by SOLAS 2009, rather than the two regulations operating concurrently.


So the question remains are the


probabilistic rules enshrined in SOLAS 2009 safe? Unfortunately the answer appears to be yes until there is an accident that proves otherwise. Yet this is not the way that most designers and naval architects want to operate. Ships must be seen to be the safest that they can be when they set sail and if that means analysing the past disasters then so be it? Te time to act is now not aſter the


next disaster, there have already been too many accidents, with too many lives lost with the loss of Herald of Free Enterprise, Express Samina and Estonia in a 13-year period. Te total loss of life was 1127 people and the significant contributing factor for these losses was the lack of stability following the accident. In the case of the Express Samina it


was found that the vessel would not have sunk if nine of the 11 watertight doors had been closed as was required by regulation. Herald of Free Enterprise capsized after taking on water, through its open ramp as the master attempted to speed operations. Given that operational errors are


likely to happen it is important that the design of the vessel is sufficiently robust to allow passengers and crew enough time to escape a stricken ship. Do the new rules allow that? Like the sinking of Estonia it remains uncertain, but it is an unknown to which a solution can and should be found, before the next disaster. NA


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