This Simple Design Error Was Deadly

After the Estonia sank, all role on role off ferries in Europe and America were fitted with an air tight safety door behind the visor.

On ferries and passenger vessels the commercial interests are given more concerns than safety. With the large open decks it does not take much water for the free surface effect to capsize the vessel. This is what happened to Estonia and to Herol of Free Enterprise. An other issue with Estonia was that they were doing an insane speed for those bad sea conditions. When the sea is high you slow down and if necessary only ride the waves at minimum steering speed. This counts for vessels without bow visir.😊😊😊

Hood's not really a Battlecruiser, the British system of vessel classification didn't have a classification for Fast Battleships yet when she was built, she was as well armored as the QEs as she was designed off the back of that class. Classing her loss as the same type of loss as the loss of the QEs is somewhat inaccurate.

HMS 'Dreadnought' has to be one of the absolute most awesome sounding name ever. That name just demands respect.

seems like the main problem with "ro-ro" ferries is heavy seas. I've only taken them short distances on the Great Lakes, so..

why don't you do a video on the design of modern ro-ro fary loading doors?

Its a change to see you covering a ferry, its nice though especially given how much I like them (the pfp might be a giveaway)

Please do a full video on M/S Estonia!!!

The achilles heel of Estonia was not the visor itself but the fact that the bow ramp behind it was built in such a way inside the visor that when the visor failed it pulled the bow ramp open. Already at the time Estonia sank ro-ro ferries were built with butterfly bow doors that open to the side and not upwards like old visors. In rough seas these doors are actually pressed more into the hull and not upwards like visors.

Enough RORO ferries have failed that I refuse to get on one.

Another thing that was fatal about Estonia was that the bridge was positioned in such a way that u couldn’t see the visor

I think I am up to 20 videos over the two days💯👍

could not some kind of loading bridge be used to put cars into the ship? or is that not possible? thanks

"There's something wrong with our bloody ships today." Characteristic British understatement!

can you make a more indepth video about the estonia incident? ✨ I would love to watch it, also i have wondered if the people left inside the ship stayed alive after sinking in some sort of airpockets, since it is only about 80 meters deep in the ocean 🤔

I saw an interview from captain of Georg Ots another ferry with this type of doors he said no storm or wave could brake all internal or external locks of the door so the must have been something breaking door out from inside (possibly bomb) and only then the waves could break the door

When it came to the Battle Jutland, the fact that Beaty allowed cordite to be stored in the turrets without regard to safety played a major role in the loss of three British battle cruisers during the course of that battle. Beaty’s incompetence was further compounded by the fact that he also ordered the flash tight doors, which were vital for preventing flash fires from reaching the magazines, disabled in order to increase the rate of fire of his squadron.

Estonia was what we call a cruise-ferry in Denmark, since it's a long distance ship that's a mix between a ferry and a cruise liner. Because of the Estonia disaster, the regulations for ships with nose gates was made stricter. This means that ferries must have an inner gate that can be closed completely waterproof, and the outer gate must be made in such a way, that if water presses on it, it will close even tighter and thus prevent water from entering the ship. The locking mechanisms must also be made so that the outer gate can only be closed once the inner gate is completely closed, locked, and sealed. This ensures that no water will enter the ship while the gate is closing.

Many of the ferries that have sailed in Scandinavia since the 1960s already had doors to split the car decks into water compartments by the outer gates, but these extra doors were only lowered when the sea was rough.

British battlecruisers also had 1 other difference in them.
The bags of cordite would form crystals on their surface, which, when handled cast allot of dust.

The crews had been told and the cordite had been tested as a much safer propellant, which at least some believe led to a lapse in the fastidiousness of the cleaning regime.
A buildup of ropellant dust, in the case of recieving an impact such as a 15in shell, will disperse into the air and instantly become a fuel air bomb just waiting for another shock or flame to set it off.
So an AP shell crashing into 7" of steel launches the dust into the air and the shell detonation ignites it.
It may not have even required penetration of the barbett as the crystals that formed were found to be much more volatile than the fresh produced cordite that they tested.

I live on an Island that heavily relies on 3 different ferry services to travel to the mainland US that have a total of 10 car loading ferry vessels, some of which are so old they served in WW2 on D-Day and the most modern vessel was built in the late 90's. I've taken trips on these ferries at least over 100 times and never thought of anything of it and now after seeing this video I'm kinda scared. Next time I go on one I might sit on the upper deck as close as I can get to the life vest and life boats/rafts

Estonia capsized after the bowe visor snaps

Ok- #1. If you name a ship "Invincible," it's literally like tempting fate. #2. "Indafatigable" Seriously? Who is naming some of those ships? #3. Mad props Mike, for not calling them "Roll on & Roll over" ships! 😂

My Grandfather served on HMS Lion and i have a hand drawn chart that is around 50cm long of the ships in the battle. I did ask if the Imperial War Museum in London wanted it for display because of its rarity, but they were not interested.

"Fault by design" = spending $30 million to build a ship and insuring it for $100 million.

This guy could portray a great Professor James Moriarty.

Ro-ro?! lol. "Drive-on Ferry"

You show a picture of the SS Badger. About 20 years ago I crossed Lake Michigan on the SS Badger. A very memorable and pleasant June day. The biggest impression I had was the smell of coal smoke. This ship is still in operation today.

just found this channel, as a 2nd office cruise vessel, sometimes i think about how many things we have today is due to many disasters...

I'd love to see you look at great lakes car ferries, especially the SS Milwaukee disaster.

Result of poor quality seamanship...🙄

It's crazy that battleships are now obsolete but battlecruisers are still around, particularly in the Russian navy as nuclear powered guided missile battlecruisers. They still have some thin armor which is useless against gun-armed ships, but most anti-ship missiles, with a few semi-AP and shaped charge exceptions, use a simple HE fragmentation warhead which even relatively thin armor can protect against the worst effects of. They were meant to destroy modern warships which pretty much did away with armor entirely, an anti-ship missile fired at a WW2 battleship would probably do next to nothing except superficial damage to fragile parts outside the armor.

Just looking at the thumb nail my guess is the fatal flaw is that bow opening up instead of down.

stranrar not stranrare.

It has always been a STUPID design.

The sea is not such a special thing. It covers roughly two thirds of our planet, and the rest is there so that ships can be moored temporarily. Ships themselves are build of such light iron that they float and usually they sail the sharp end first. It is so good to be sharp!

2 things you missed about M/S Estonia were that 1. Estonia was built for shorter calmer routes though not restricted to it. 2. while there were huge flaws they werent really fatal, They knew about the storm coming and decided to depart anyways ignoring all signs of disaster. the waves on that fateful night were higher than its safe ceiling, even though they knew it was close to or even over the limit they knew that theres always a bit of a gap between the written safe limit and the actually safe limit of waves.

I would like to see a proper MS Estonia deep dive.

Estonia disaster 30 years today

I think those battle cruisers were becoming obsolete around WW1.
Although they weren’t intended to go against battleships, they should have bloody well known they’d come within firing range regardless, which was a terrible oversight.

Estoina was sunked. There are big holes on starboard side. Sweden was smuggling military equipment from Soviet and was sunked bye the Soviet.

ps.There was noy a force 10.

Planners to the engineers: "Okay so we have this idea, right? All we need you to do is to figure out how we can have a giant hole in the hull of the ship." 😅

Navy Amphibious Assault ships have double rear doors. A steep ramp goes to where the hovercraft are. Non have sank in heavy seas.

Lost 2 great uncles at Jutland one in Invincible the other in the other in queen Mary both brothers still lie in the rent belly’s of the battle cruisers. Beaty’s handling of his ships was slovenly and reckless!! History has seen Jellico vindicated for his caution! Although he was up against Hipper whose handling of his fleet was second to none!

From what I heard from Drachinifel, one of the big issues with the British fleet was powder handling failures not from deliberately circumventing safety regulations, but from a failure to understand the nature of the newfangled propellants that were being issued, and the dangers caused by the dust from drilling with and handling them. There's been suspicions raised that several of those flash fires were caused and propagated because of that dust.

The first Ro-Ro ferries were converted surplus LSTs that some bright entrepreneur slapped a new coat of paint on and some less spartan passenger accommodations. They were cheap, available, meant to handle vehicles far larger and heavier than any passenger car, shallow draft, maneuverable, and tough as nails, because they were meant to beach themselves at low tide and might occasionally take a shell or three on the way in, and they had nose doors. The first purpose built ferries may have had tail doors, but that's just sensible if you can make it happen, because then you don't have to build a door that can withstand the ocean trying to beat it in as much.