Anyone Interested in Ships

[The Johnster]

She's not a bad looker (the ship, I mean, not the one in St Enodoc's next room, who I'm sure is delighful), a fairly normal cargo vessel with handling equipment, funtion dictates form.  I've seen much worse, especially cruise liners and ferries.

 

A ship is designed to move efficiently through the water without sinking, and this would in most circumstances result in a smoothed streamlined shape, which would be attractive.  This reached it's zenith in the tea clippers, fast fishing/racing schooners like Bluenose, and the classic Blue Riband liners (I would argue that Normandie was one of the most beautiful objects ever created by humanity).  Modern box boats look quite sleek and lovely if the boxes are taken off, but cruise ships...  Floating blocks of flats, most seem pretty hideously fitted out inside as well, sort of Butlin's on steroids.  They look top-heavy and I can't see how one would safely handle them at low speeds in a decent crosswind; to summarise, you'll never get me up in one of those contraptions...

 

Pretty difficult to make warships look attractive, especially aircraft carriers, but some would look pretty sleek if you took the outline-disrupting guns and all that radar jiggerypokery off.  The paint jobs don't help.

 

The enemy of good appearance on a ship is, I submit, anything in a straight line; gentle curves are the key to it.

Edited July 20, 2023 by The Johnster

[J. S. Bach]

Any carrier out there is so much better-looking than most of those abominable cruise ships.

[Fat Controller]

On 17/07/2023 at 21:44, KeithMacdonald said:

 

Are these the new Immigration / Prison Ships we were warned about?

Glad I'm not the only person to notice that, Keith.... Wouldn't be surprised if the Home Office were paying more that the cruise passengers.

[MarkC]

Surprised that this hasn't been mentioned yet

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12338705/One-sailor-dead-23-evacuated-burning-18-500-tonne-cargo-ship-carrying-3-000-cars-North-Sea-Holland-electric-vehicle-caught-fire.html

 

Apologies for the source, but it's pretty much verbatim per more reputable sources, some of which are behind paywalls...

 

Tragically, one member of the crew lost their life trying to tackle the fire - condolences to his shipmates, family & friends.

 

What's not mentioned is that some of those who jumped into the water suffered injury on impact with the 'oggin - it's a long way down on these car carriers...

 

Mark

[Bon Accord]

Carriage of electric cars as cargo is now causing real concern, particularly in the ferry industry where the potential for a major incident is high considering how many of the things are carried now, something that's only going to get worse.

The current advice on tackling an electric car fire seems to be either let it burn or effectively immerse it with large volumes of water, neither of which are entirely ideal on the enclosed car deck of a car ferry.

I have seen it suggested that the risk of an electric car immolating itself is less than the petrol/diesel version and whilst that might be true we can at least put the latter out!

I know the major players within the UK ferry scene and MCA are actively talking about how to mitigate the risk, but unless electric car technology improves to either limit or negate "thermal runaway" then restrictions on carriage are likely the only answer.

[Pacific231G]

On 19/07/2023 at 13:38, jjb1970 said:

If ever a ship was aptly named this isn't it.

 

I don't really see anything particularly ugly about it and at least it looks like a ship, unlike the cruise "ships" that would make a Vogon constructor fleet look good.

If one of those mega cruise ships founders (which the workings of chance and ducks lining up is probably going to happen sometime) what are the chances of getting even a  fraction of the souls on board away?

Edited July 27, 2023 by Pacific231G

[MarkC]

1 hour ago, Bon Accord said:

 

I have seen it suggested that the risk of an electric car immolating itself is less than the petrol/diesel version and whilst that might be true we can at least put the latter out!

 

And that is EXACTLY the issue we face. Scary stuff. I'm glad I work on nice, safe, clean liquid gas carriers...

 

Mark

[durham light infantry]

1 hour ago, Bon Accord said:

Carriage of electric cars as cargo is now causing real concern, particularly in the ferry industry where the potential for a major incident is high considering how many of the things are carried now, something that's only going to get worse.

The current advice on tackling an electric car fire seems to be either let it burn or effectively immerse it with large volumes of water, neither of which are entirely ideal on the enclosed car deck of a car ferry.

I have seen it suggested that the risk of an electric car immolating itself is less than the petrol/diesel version and whilst that might be true we can at least put the latter out!

I know the major players within the UK ferry scene and MCA are actively talking about how to mitigate the risk, but unless electric car technology improves to either limit or negate "thermal runaway" then restrictions on carriage are likely the only answer.

 

22 minutes ago, MarkC said:

And that is EXACTLY the issue we face. Scary stuff. I'm glad I work on nice, safe, clean liquid gas carriers...

 

Mark

 

I have seen other electric vehicle fires on the internet. Pardon my ignorance I am holding off on an electric car until I absolutely have to. But don't they have a master switch/battery isolator. In all my years working with buses and lorries they all had them, never had any issues with fires with putting them to bed on an evening.

[MarkC]

4 minutes ago, durham light infantry said:

 

 

I have seen other electric vehicle fires on the internet. Pardon my ignorance I am holding off on an electric car until I absolutely have to. But don't they have a master switch/battery isolator. In all my years working with buses and lorries they all had them, never had any issues with fires with putting them to bed on an evening.

Problem is, even with a battery isolator, if the battery develops an internal short then it self-immolates, and there's not a lot you can do to stop it, certainly by conventional means.

 

Mark

[jjb1970]

5 hours ago, MarkC said:

Surprised that this hasn't been mentioned yet

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12338705/One-sailor-dead-23-evacuated-burning-18-500-tonne-cargo-ship-carrying-3-000-cars-North-Sea-Holland-electric-vehicle-caught-fire.html

 

Apologies for the source, but it's pretty much verbatim per more reputable sources, some of which are behind paywalls...

 

Tragically, one member of the crew lost their life trying to tackle the fire - condolences to his shipmates, family & friends.

 

What's not mentioned is that some of those who jumped into the water suffered injury on impact with the 'oggin - it's a long way down on these car carriers...

 

Mark

 

I remember lifeboat drills where if the mate was doing his job thoroughly he'd see if there was any slack in the lifejacket strap after tying it, and if there was he'd tell you to do it again until it was almost bar tight to mitigate the risk of neck injury in the event of having to jump in the water.

 

The issue of EVs and fire hazard has been a major concern for quite a few years now but most maritime administrations aren't falling over themselves to do much about it at IMO (probably because they don't know what to do). It's another sign of the down skilling of many administrations which are now bureaucratic organizations. A friend of mine likes to say they're now administrators of marine rather than maritime administrations (for those not familiar, 'administration' is a specific and defined term in maritime regulation). At the risk of sounding cynical, nobody wants to be accused of 'not being with the program' on saving the world by making it more difficult to distribute EVs.

[jjb1970]

2 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

If one of those mega cruise ships founders (which the workings of chance and ducks lining up is probably going to happen sometime) what are the chances of getting even a  fraction of the souls on board away?

 

That's a question everyone hopes won't be asked in anger, though for all the Costa Concordia was a complete shambles it is also true that the vast majority of passengers and crew survived (32 fatalities out of just over 4200 on-board).

 

The safe return to port regulation of SOLAS is based on keeping the ship afloat, cruise ships are divided into three vertical zones and all the machinery and systems are redundant and segregated similar to DP3 on offshore vessels. If properly designed and maintained it should work (I've done some of the calculations as training exercises when I did my familiarisation with hull structures in a class society), the problem is that incidents tend to be the result of everything not having been done properly.

[MarkC]

1 hour ago, jjb1970 said:

 

I remember lifeboat drills where if the mate was doing his job thoroughly he'd see if there was any slack in the lifejacket strap after tying it, and if there was he'd tell you to do it again until it was almost bar tight to mitigate the risk of neck injury in the event of having to jump in the water.

 

Agreed 100% - but as I said, it's a hell of a long way from the open deck to the water, and I suspect that realistically it's beyond the design limits for the lifejackets.

 

Mark

[Pacific231G]

53 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

 

That's a question everyone hopes won't be asked in anger, though for all the Costa Concordia was a complete shambles it is also true that the vast majority of passengers and crew survived (32 fatalities out of just over 4200 on-board).

 

The safe return to port regulation of SOLAS is based on keeping the ship afloat, cruise ships are divided into three vertical zones and all the machinery and systems are redundant and segregated similar to DP3 on offshore vessels. If properly designed and maintained it should work (I've done some of the calculations as training exercises when I did my familiarisation with hull structures in a class society), the problem is that incidents tend to be the result of everything not having been done properly.

As you say- If properly..... Fortunately, the Concordia (and the Herald) both ended up on the ground albeit on their sides. In deeper water I think it would have been different as sadly it was with the Estonia.  

[MarkC]

1 hour ago, jjb1970 said:

 

That's a question everyone hopes won't be asked in anger, though for all the Costa Concordia was a complete shambles it is also true that the vast majority of passengers and crew survived (32 fatalities out of just over 4200 on-board).

 

The safe return to port regulation of SOLAS is based on keeping the ship afloat, cruise ships are divided into three vertical zones and all the machinery and systems are redundant and segregated similar to DP3 on offshore vessels. If properly designed and maintained it should work (I've done some of the calculations as training exercises when I did my familiarisation with hull structures in a class society), the problem is that incidents tend to be the result of everything not having been done properly.

In fairness, Costa Concordia was laid open in excess of what you'd normally hope was a worst case scenario - in many ways she was almost a modern day "Titanic". The gods were looking down favourably that day...

 

Mark

[Pacific231G]

On 27/07/2023 at 17:09, MarkC said:

In fairness, Costa Concordia was laid open in excess of what you'd normally hope was a worst case scenario - in many ways she was almost a modern day "Titanic". The gods were looking down favourably that day...

 

Mark

As you say. Nobody anticipated the Olympic class vessels losing five compartments and the Titanic was more than unusually unfortunate. I understand that no other ship has ever been sunk in that particular way (though many others have been lost after collisions with icebergs). Ironically, the disaster probably saved more lives in the long run than it cost. Townsend Thoresen on the other hand seems to have become a ferry company looking for a disaster. At least one sister ship had previously sailed across the channel with its bow doors open- though without flooding- and I know there were other concerns before the Herald Disaster. Whether P&O simply hadn't had time to overhaul the ferry operation's management in the time between taking TT over and the Herald disaster I have no idea.

Edited July 28, 2023 by Pacific231G

[MarkC]

42 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

As you say. Nobody anticipated the Olympic class vessels losing five compartments and the Titanic was more than unusually unfortunate. I understand that no other ship has ever been sunk in that particular way (though many others have been lost after collisions with icebergs). Ironcally, the disaster probably saved more lives in the long run than it cost. Townsend Thoresen on the other hand seems to have been a ferry company looking for a disaster (At least one sister ship had previously sailed across the channel with its bow doors open- though without flooding- and I know there were other concerns before the Herald Disaster. Whether P&O simply hadn't had time to overhaul the ferry operation's management in the time between taking TT over and the Herald disaster I have no idea.

Indeed so. SOLAS was born from the Titanic's demise - and rightly so.

 

The Herald was a shockingly awful cockup. No checks, plenty of assumptions made, I suspect that there was an element of incapacity too... I was on a ship that was outbound from Terneuzen, bound for the USA, just after it happened. We passed fairly close. Our Master offered our help, but we weren't needed. I'll always remember the scene - utterly shocking.

 

Sadly it takes serious loss of life before anything happens - the ISM Code only came about because of the "Scandinavian Star" disaster, of course...

 

Mark

[Covkid]

6 hours ago, Bon Accord said:

Carriage of electric cars as cargo is now causing real concern, particularly in the ferry industry where the potential for a major incident is high considering how many of the things are carried now, something that's only going to get worse.

The current advice on tackling an electric car fire seems to be either let it burn or effectively immerse it with large volumes of water, neither of which are entirely ideal on the enclosed car deck of a car ferry.

I have seen it suggested that the risk of an electric car immolating itself is less than the petrol/diesel version and whilst that might be true we can at least put the latter out!

I know the major players within the UK ferry scene and MCA are actively talking about how to mitigate the risk, but unless electric car technology improves to either limit or negate "thermal runaway" then restrictions on carriage are likely the only answer.

Haha.  I see the Youtuber "Geoffbuyscars" mentioned this fire on one of his regular youtube electric car rants. He absolutely hates electric cars and expounds at great detail how much of a disaster they are. 

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-biwc2NLwtw

 

[Simon Lee]

3 hours ago, MarkC said:

Agreed 100% - but as I said, it's a hell of a long way from the open deck to the water, and I suspect that realistically it's beyond the design limits for the lifejackets.

 

Mark

Chatting to a friend in the Netherlands today who is a former Rotterdam pilot,  he estimates 30 meters, approx 100 feet from deck to sea level.  Not a jump l would want to make.

 

Regarding the "Herald", l worked at Dover during the 80s and 90s on the train ferry berth. Around 1989 we employed a lad who was a regular bosun on the Herald, that fateful day he had taken the day off, as his wife had qualified as a midwife and it was the presentation event that night. For a longtime after he suffered bouts of guilt, knowing he should have been on duty and responsable for the doors on that sailing.

 

 

[Pacific231G]

4 hours ago, MarkC said:

Indeed so. SOLAS was born from the Titanic's demise - and rightly so.

 

The Herald was a shockingly awful cockup. No checks, plenty of assumptions made, I suspect that there was an element of incapacity too... I was on a ship that was outbound from Terneuzen, bound for the USA, just after it happened. We passed fairly close. Our Master offered our help, but we weren't needed. I'll always remember the scene - utterly shocking.

 

Sadly it takes serious loss of life before anything happens - the ISM Code only came about because of the "Scandinavian Star" disaster, of course...

 

Mark

I'm not sure if the Herald was just a cock-up. I think rather that the ducks just hadn't lined up before but were likely to sooner or later. I'd not that long before had a conversations with a Townsend second on a different route who had some concerns - though not about bow doors. 

The Herald disaster affected me because I'd travelled from Dover to Calais and back the previous weekend on another Townsend ferry and, though I'd used their ships quite often always felt slightly uneasy about them compared with Sealink. Ironically, they were showing a video claiming how dangerous from fire (I think the interviewee was Kent's Chief Fire Officer) the Channel Tunnel, which had been agreed but not yet started construction, was going to be.

[The Johnster]

9 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

though for all the Costa Concordia was a complete shambles it is also true that the vast majority of passengers and crew survived (32 fatalities out of just over 4200 on-board).

 

In calm conditions on a warm evening close enough for many passengers to swim ashore, the 32 deaths were not a large percentage of her souls on board, but still not a particularly good result; better evacuation procedures should have resulted in none at all.  An accident to a big fully-booked cruise liner under even slightly less favourable conditions could be a very different, and much worse story.

 

The erstwhile Swansea-Cork ferry Celtic Pride was often in trouble for one reason or another and crewed & captained by (IIRC) Slovenians.  In a news interview following a tragic incident when problems with the ship's ventilation system had resulted in the deaths of two passengers in their cabin from carbon monoxide fumes, the latest in a series of breakdowns, food poisoning outbreaks, and other misfortunes, her captain commented 'I have had two ships sink under me with this crew, and I would trust them anywhere under any situation'.  Well, I'd have thought that that was a pretty strong reason not to trust the b*ggers as far as you could throw them, though of course the captain might have been the source of the trouble and it was the crew that should have jumped ship...

 

These sort of incidents often have a build-up of other problems, near misses, and sweepings under the carpet that denote a ship ill-served by her officers and crew, and with turnaround times being always under pressure and captains incentivised to get away on time or early, by her owners as well.  I recall reading after the Herald disaster that some Townshend Ro-Ros had had simple lamp indicators rigged up to the bridges to indicate that the doors were shut, these being installed off their captains' own bats.  Something as simple as this, a car sidelight bulb or a buzzer, battery, and some bell wire, cost less than a fiver in those days and you hardly needed a qualified electrician to install it, could have saved the Herald, and the Estonia as well. 

 

It does seem a tragedy that lessons learned in the Princess Victoria sinking were not apparently fully learned, despite the failure of the car doors being well reported and known to be the cause of the sinking at the time.  Or had something that had happened in 1953 been forgotten thirty years later...

[MarkC]

7 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

I'm not sure if the Herald was just a cock-up. I think rather that the ducks just hadn't lined up before but were likely to sooner or later. I'd not that long before had a conversations with a Townsend second on a different route who had some concerns - though not about bow doors. 

The Herald disaster affected me because I'd travelled from Dover to Calais and back the previous weekend on another Townsend ferry and, though I'd used their ships quite often always felt slightly uneasy about them compared with Sealink. Ironically, they were showing a video claiming how dangerous from fire (I think the interviewee was Kent's Chief Fire Officer) the Channel Tunnel, which had been agreed but not yet started construction, was going to be.

That's usually the case with accidents - all links (ie circumstances/actions) in a chain join up. Break a link & the accident doesn't happen - on that occasion...

 

Regarding the ferry bow doors - later that year I was rejoining the same ship that I mentioned upthread,  at Port Jerome, France. This required me to fly from Newcastle to Heathrow, get the bus to Portsmouth & the ferry to Le Havre. Crazy - but that's how things were often done back then - and this was a certain mob which paints their hulls blue & has a star on the lum...

 

Anyway, the ferry, a P&O job, was moored bow in, so on sailing it was necessary to back off the linkspan until the visor could be lowered & locked. Obviously the inner doors would be closed prior to undocking, especially after the events of earlier that year. I was in the bar which looked forwards during departure - a woman further along the bar realised that the visor was still up and that we were moving, & promptly went into absolute hysterics, screaming that we were all about to die because the ship would sink etc etc. It took 3 or 4 people to restrain her & calm her down. Not a nice thing to witness, but shows the way that people can be influenced by the media etc.

 

Mark

 

 

[johnofwessex]

5 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 

In calm conditions on a warm evening close enough for many passengers to swim ashore, the 32 deaths were not a large percentage of her souls on board, but still not a particularly good result; better evacuation procedures should have resulted in none at all.  An accident to a big fully-booked cruise liner under even slightly less favourable conditions could be a very different, and much worse story.

 

The erstwhile Swansea-Cork ferry Celtic Pride was often in trouble for one reason or another and crewed & captained by (IIRC) Slovenians.  In a news interview following a tragic incident when problems with the ship's ventilation system had resulted in the deaths of two passengers in their cabin from carbon monoxide fumes, the latest in a series of breakdowns, food poisoning outbreaks, and other misfortunes, her captain commented 'I have had two ships sink under me with this crew, and I would trust them anywhere under any situation'.  Well, I'd have thought that that was a pretty strong reason not to trust the b*ggers as far as you could throw them, though of course the captain might have been the source of the trouble and it was the crew that should have jumped ship...

 

These sort of incidents often have a build-up of other problems, near misses, and sweepings under the carpet that denote a ship ill-served by her officers and crew, and with turnaround times being always under pressure and captains incentivised to get away on time or early, by her owners as well.  I recall reading after the Herald disaster that some Townshend Ro-Ros had had simple lamp indicators rigged up to the bridges to indicate that the doors were shut, these being installed off their captains' own bats.  Something as simple as this, a car sidelight bulb or a buzzer, battery, and some bell wire, cost less than a fiver in those days and you hardly needed a qualified electrician to install it, could have saved the Herald, and the Estonia as well. 

 

It does seem a tragedy that lessons learned in the Princess Victoria sinking were not apparently fully learned, despite the failure of the car doors being well reported and known to be the cause of the sinking at the time.  Or had something that had happened in 1953 been forgotten thirty years later...

 

 

I suspect that the root cause of the Princess Victoria sinking, the failure of the stern doors, was to some extent 'covered up' by the fact that she sank in a storm.  On the Herald on the other hand the cause was staring everyone in the face.

 

What I dont understand though why Naval Architects or ship operators or Officers didnt seem to grasp the impact of Water on the Car Deck.  I understand that Aircraft Carriers have very large drains on the hanger deck precisely because of the risk of water accumulation

[MarkC]

6 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 

In calm conditions on a warm evening close enough for many passengers to swim ashore, the 32 deaths were not a large percentage of her souls on board, but still not a particularly good result; better evacuation procedures should have resulted in none at all.  An accident to a big fully-booked cruise liner under even slightly less favourable conditions could be a very different, and much worse story.

 

The erstwhile Swansea-Cork ferry Celtic Pride was often in trouble for one reason or another and crewed & captained by (IIRC) Slovenians.  In a news interview following a tragic incident when problems with the ship's ventilation system had resulted in the deaths of two passengers in their cabin from carbon monoxide fumes, the latest in a series of breakdowns, food poisoning outbreaks, and other misfortunes, her captain commented 'I have had two ships sink under me with this crew, and I would trust them anywhere under any situation'.  Well, I'd have thought that that was a pretty strong reason not to trust the b*ggers as far as you could throw them, though of course the captain might have been the source of the trouble and it was the crew that should have jumped ship...

 

These sort of incidents often have a build-up of other problems, near misses, and sweepings under the carpet that denote a ship ill-served by her officers and crew, and with turnaround times being always under pressure and captains incentivised to get away on time or early, by her owners as well.  I recall reading after the Herald disaster that some Townshend Ro-Ros had had simple lamp indicators rigged up to the bridges to indicate that the doors were shut, these being installed off their captains' own bats.  Something as simple as this, a car sidelight bulb or a buzzer, battery, and some bell wire, cost less than a fiver in those days and you hardly needed a qualified electrician to install it, could have saved the Herald, and the Estonia as well. 

 

It does seem a tragedy that lessons learned in the Princess Victoria sinking were not apparently fully learned, despite the failure of the car doors being well reported and known to be the cause of the sinking at the time.  Or had something that had happened in 1953 been forgotten thirty years later...

The "Celtic Pride" was definitely jinxed - as I recall, the poisoning of the passengers was due to a serious fault with the sewage plant, combined with poor ventilation in the accommodation itself - another classic case of the links in the chain all being present...

 

"Estonia" - the official line, I understand, is that her bow doors simply gave way due to the mountainous seas she was encountering. However, many are not so sure...

 

Regarding the "Princess Victoria", as I recall from reading reports of the disaster the car deck was actually open; the doors were more to merely keep rain & spray out; they weren't watertight as such. She was pooped, (the term given when a large wave lands, uninvited, on the stern deck - the poop); the doors failed to stop the sheer volume of water involved and the drain ports on the car deck couldn't allow the water that then ran onto the car deck to drain quickly enough. Free Surface Effect did the rest.

 

And yet, everyone should have been aware of FSE - the "Normandie" capsized at her berth in New York as a result of firefighters using hoses & lots of water to extinguish a fire on board, without thinking about where the water would go. Answer - it didn't drain away quickly, and once the ship listed slightly, it ran to the low side, making the list worse until she went over...  Ditto the "Empress of Canada", which suffered a similar fate whilst berthed in Liverpool.

 

Mark

[The Johnster]

As I understand it, the stern car-loading doors on Princess Victoria were battered in by heavy seas as she attempted to leave Loch Ryan going astern; that is, the doors failed rather than the ship being pooped by a sea overtopping them.  She remained afloat for some hours after this event despite broaching and whatever FSE she suffered, suggesting that her scuppers mostly coped, but that the length of time she was at sea in those conditions and the resultant accumulation of water aboard her ultimately overwhelmed her.  A feature of the Estonia sinking was her captain’s insistence on maintaining full speed in adverse conditions. 
 

3 hours ago, johnofwessex said:

What I dont understand though why Naval Architects or ship operators or Officers didnt seem to grasp the impact of Water on the Car Deck. 
 

 

Perhaps part of their training should involve an obstacle race against the clock in which they have to carry a shallow tray of water without spilling any…

[MarkC]

21 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

As I understand it, the stern car-loading doors on Princess Victoria were battered in by heavy seas as she attempted to leave Loch Ryan going astern; that is, the doors failed rather than the ship being pooped by a sea overtopping them.  She remained afloat for some hours after this event despite broaching and whatever FSE she suffered, suggesting that her scuppers mostly coped, but that the length of time she was at sea in those conditions and the resultant accumulation of water aboard her ultimately overwhelmed her.  A feature of the Estonia sinking was her captain’s insistence on maintaining full speed in adverse conditions. 
 

 

Perhaps part of their training should involve an obstacle race against the clock in which they have to carry a shallow tray of water without spilling any…

FSE is always a cumulative effect - so the designers obviously were aware of the risks of it, hence the good sized scuppers, but perhaps didn't consider that the deck would be opened up as much as it was because of the stern doors failing. If the doors were, indeed, damaged during departure then one does have to question why the Master insisted on continuing with his voyage. Easy to say with hindsight, of course, but surely he would have been made aware of the damage down aft? Or was he a martinet - we know the type - "My way or the gangway, mister. I'M THE MASTER, and don't you forget it"? As such, were his Officers scared to report damage to him?

 

Estonia's Master reportedly keeping on full speed raises more questions, of  course - was he under pressure to do so? However, wasn't she equipped with secondary doors too - the visor being only really hull plating? Was she Ice-classed too? I presume that she was, being built to operate in the Baltic.

 

Mark