Bow doors main suspect in ferry capsizing

Press, 9 March 1987, Page 10

Bow doors main suspect in ferry capsizing

NAPA-Reuter Zeebrugge The gaping bow doors of a capsized British car ferry offered the main clue yesterday to what made the vessel keel over minutes after leaving the Belgian port of Zeebrugge, with the loss of an estimated 135 lives. Officials abandoned

hope yesterday of finding anyone else alive aboard the 7951-ton Herald of Free Enterprise. Ninetyfour bodies are still missing. The roll-on, roll-off ferry, carrying 543 mainly British passengers and crew, bound for Dover, flooded and tipped on to its side on a sandbank on Friday night.

An international rescue team, including N.A.T.O. troops, saved 408 of those on board.

It was Britain’s worst peacetime maritime disaster since the sinking of the liner Titanic in 1912.

Mr Peter Ford, chairman of the owners, Townsend Thoresen, said yesterday the disaster appeared to have been caused by water pouring in through the front of the

vessel. “We do not know how. There are no holes in the body of the ship,” he said.

An earlier theory that the ferry, built in 1980, struck a stone pier as it was leaving Zeebrugge harbour has been discounted by experts. Aerial photographs showed the 132-metre long ferry lying on its side within view of the shore with the huge bow doors, used to load cars and lorries, wide open.

Three separate investigations — one Belgian, one British and one by the ship’s owners — were under way yesterday.

The sea was calm and the weather good for the time of year.

Passengers said that as the ship passed through the entrance to the port and headed into open sea, its bow began rising out of the water. The vessel then lurched to one side as if turning sharply, but continued to keel over until it had capsized.

Icy water rushed in until the ferry sank on to the sand bank.

Survivors said there was no time for lifejackets to be seized, lifeboats lowered or distress signals to be sent.

British newspapers yesterday quoted survivors as saying water had surged through the bow doors, pushing the ferry on to its side. Britain’s National Union of Seamen called on international maritime organisations to review the design of roll-on, roll off ferries.

A report by the International Maritime Organisation in 1984 said more ferries of this type were lost in accidents than ships with deck areas divided by vertical bulkheads. “This means that a relatively minor accident, such as a truck toppling over as a result of defective lashing, can escalate rapidly to something much more serious. Such shifts can cause severe stability problems for the ship,” the report said.

Townsend Thoresen, said yesterday that its vessels were safe and there was nothing wrong with their design.