Today we're going to look at what happened to the Estonia in the mid-1990s.
The incident occurred around seven years after the infamous Herald of Free Enterprise and although the case is different.
Ultimately both the caused by a fatal loss of stability due to the free surface effect.
It was the 27th of September 1994 and the cruise ferry Estonia was completing her loading in the port of Tallinn.
She was 155 metres long with a gross tonnage of 15 and a half thousand tonnes.
As a cruise ferry, she was kind of a hybrid between a cruise ship and a ferry with a capacity of around 2,000 passengers and over 400 cars.
To get vehicles aboard, she had an opening at the bow, the outer section or "visor" gave weather protection and formed part of the outer hull.
When in port, that would hinge up exposing the loading ramp, which
could lower down onto the key so that traffic who drives straight onto the vehicle deck.
On that day, she completed loading in the late afternoon, the ramp closed, sealing the deck and the visor was lowered down, giving protection to the ramp.
At around quarter past 7:00 in the evening
she left the berth to begin her passage to Stockholm in Sweden
where she was due to arrive at 9:30 the following morning.
On departure, she had a slight list to starboard due to the loading of the cargo.
Too much weight had been placed on the starboard side, which shifted the Center of Gravity slightly off the center line.
It wasn't too bad and only actually resulted in a list angle of a degree or two.
Throughout the evening, Estonia continued on passage, running at full speed as the wind and weather continued to build.
By midnight, the wind had increased to 30 or 40 knots from the southwesterly direction with three to four meter waves.
The ship's starboard list had increased since departure, mainly because the wind was on the port side.
Now Estonia did have healing tanks. These are water tanks used to keep vessels upright for both stability and for the comfort of passengers.
With a starboard list, you can pump some water onto the port side to bring the ship back upright
but, once that port tanks full, you've done all you can and the ship's just going to continue with a list.
In Estonia's case, she still carried three to four degrees of starboard list.
At around 00:25 the ship altered course to a heading of 287 degrees
at a plan waypoint, placing the weather on the port bow. She was pitching a role in quite a lot
so to improve passenger comfort, she extended her fin stabilizers.
They use the forward motion of the ship to generate of rioting force in the same way in aircrafts the wing generates lift.
Crucially though, fin stabilizers can dampen a roll but they don't do anything to help with the pitching.
That pitching motion meant the bow was rising up and down, slamming into the waves,
the visor taking the full impact of each wave.
At around 1:00 a.m, a loud bang was heard.
It was the secured in bolts on the bottom of the visor failing. Over the course of the next 15 minutes or so, the visor flapped around
damaging the hull and the loading ramp.
Water started entering the vehicle deck around the sides of the ramp where the seal was broken.
Within about 15 minutes, the visor broke free completely, ripping the ramp open and falling away striking the bulbous bow as it sank.
Given the wide open nature of the vehicle deck, the free surface effect from the water entering rapidly led to a complete loss of stability.
The effect is easily illustrated in a wide open space with water sloshing around.
With a smallest angle, the water rushes to the lowest side, adding more weight to that side.
This moves the center of gravity further out from the center line,
increasing the list further and reducing overall stability.
As more and more water entered the vehicle deck, cars and lorries broke free.
The free surface effect meant Estonia rapidly developed a list over to starboard.
Now, a peculiarity of Estonia's design meant that the bow visor was not visible from the navigational bridge due to the accommodation.
they had an indication panel, but that showed everything was okay.
obviously because the sensors was still in place. The officers had no idea the visor had broken free.
They assumed the list was caused by the weather,
so they tried altering course to port to change the relative direction though and ultimately that maneuver actually
accelerated the list which passed 90 degrees in a matter of minutes.
At around 20 past one, the first official "mayday" call from the Estonia was transmitted.
given her location, it wasn't picked up by shore stations. So it was first acknowledged by the passenger ferry
Silja Europa. She was or actually still is a 60,000 ton cruise ferry.
On that night, she was traveling from Helsinki to Stockholm and was ten and a half nautical miles northwest of Estonia when the mayday was recieved.
As the first responding vessel, the Europa started handling at the emergency radio traffic.
Almost immediately, the Mariella, another cruise ferry on the Helsinki to Stockholm route also
responded and started working with the Europa to try and work out Estonia's position.
Around 10 minutes later, Estonia made her final radio communication and crucially she managed to give her position to the Europa.
As the magnitude of the situation became clear, more and more vessels
started reporting to the Silja Europa to confirm the messages and relay the actions they were taking.
The Maritime Rescue Control Center in Turku initiated its rescue plan, taking charge of the whole operation and
activating standby aircraft.
They quickly designated to the master of the Silja Europa as the on-scene coordinator.
Basically, he was tasked with coordinating the rescue at the scene itself.
At 01:50, in the morning of the 28th of September 1994
Estonia's echo disappeared from radar screens in the area as she sank below the surface.
20 minutes later, the Mariella was the first ship to arrive on the scene. The weather was so bad
they couldn't lower any rescue boats, instead they lowered life rafts down on wires
so the people could transfer from Estonia's life rafts into them and be winched up onto deck.
10 minutes after the Mariella, the Europa arrived on the scene, followed by the Silja Symphony and the Isabella.
Around 3:00 a.m
The first helicopter arrived and started winching survivors from the water onto the ships.
Only three hours after the sinking, 4 helicopters and 8 vessels were already on scene.
The helicopters were either ferrying casualties from the sea onto the waiting ships
or flying them directly to shore for treatment. As day broke, the true scale of the scene became apparent.
More and more vessels continued to arrive with surface craft searching for survivors and aircraft winching them from the water.
At 6:50, the first air operation coordinator was flown out to the Silja Europa
With portable air band radios to help manage all the aircraft on the scene.
By midday, the rescue was being conducted by 19 vessels and 19 helicopters
all directed on-scene by the team on board the Europa.
They spent the afternoon sweeping the area in formation,
following likely drift patterns that had been calculated from data about the weather and currents.
When they spotted anything in the water, ships radioed the helicopters to investigate closer.
By early evening, search and rescue operations ceased and most commercial vessels were stood down.
governmental vessels then took over for the recovery operation.
Sadly, out of 989 people on board, only 138 were rescued alive. :(
34 by ships and 134 by helicopter.
Echoing the Titanic disaster, numerous changes were made after the Estonia tragedy.
her EPIRB's [Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon] had been found and later tested and proved to work
yet they were never activated because they were manual and she sank too fast.
nowadays, EPIRBs all have automatic activation.
The emergency response by the crew was criticized which led to new requirements in crisis management and crowd management training
VDR regulations were also subsequently updated to improve post accident
investigations and things like rescuing from listing ships and improved damage stability requirements were all modernized as well.
Today, the wreck of the Estonia still lays in international waters in the spot where she came to rest that night.
the entire site falls under the protection of an international treaty, The Estonia Agreement, which was signed into force in 1995.
It expressly forbids contracting countries from disturbing the site
giving due respect to all those that perished that night.
And that brings us to the end of today's video. If you enjoy content like this,
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Until next time, thank you for watching and goodbye!