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Editor: Rod Sullivan
Profession: Maritime Attorney

Category: Safety at Sea

The Egyptian Ferry Al-Salam Boccaccio 98 sank in the early morning hours of Friday, February 3, 2006. To understand what happened, we need to have some answers. Here are some possible explanations:

Where does the water come from and more importantly, where does it go?

Failing to de-water ships during fire fighting is the most common reason for ships on fire to sink. In this case, the fire started either in the engine room, or in a truck on one of the vehicle decks. Fire pumps were started, hoses were strung, and the crew pour tons and tons of seawater onto whatever was burning.

The problem is that fire pumps and their related piping have a huge capacity. Bilge pumps and bilge piping, by comparison, have a capacity which is usually less than half the capacity of the fire pumps. Consequently, even if the engineers line up all the valves correctly, and pump as fast as the pumps will go, the firefighting crews are adding tons of water to the deck every minute. Where is that water going?

The water is collecting on deck, or it is draining to the lower decks. If one deck produces a certain "free surface effect", then two decks awash creates twice as much.

What is "the free surface effect"?

Water is heavy and water is dense. When water collects on the vehicle deck of a ro-ro ship it shifts back and forth, piling up against each side of the ship, causing it to roll further and further to each side. One time, the water piles up too high and the ship just rolls over. This shifting of water back and forth is called "free surface effect."

If you've even seen the novelty item called "The Wave" you know what it is. "The Wave" is a clear Lucite channel filled with a heavy blue liquid and a lighter clear liquid. The channel is rocked back and forth and the blue liquid creates a wave inside. Imagine you are looking at a cross section of a ship and you can see water the free surface effect can do.

Were there adequate lifeboats and life rafts?

Yes, there were. The ship had ten large lifeboats, each of which can hold about 100 people, and 88 life rafts, each of which can hold 25 people. That is a lifesaving capacity for 3200 people. There were only 1400 people on board.

Why didn't the passengers get off?

The weather was bad. It was dark. The ship continued to move through the water to Safaga, their destination. It was only 3 hours away.

Most of the passengers didn't realize what grave danger they were in. The ship was rolling gently because it was "tender" and the danger of it rolling over probably wasn't apparent, even to the ship's Captain.

The lifeboats can't be launched with the ship underway at full speed. Unless the ship slowed down, there was no way to get the lifeboats into the water.

The lifeboats can't be lowered when the ship is listing to one side. Lifeboats are designed to be launched with a maximum 15 degree list. If the ship was listing more than 15 degrees to port (the left side of the ship), the lifeboats on the port side would be launched too far away to be accessed from the decks. The passengers would have no way to get in. The lifeboats on the starboard side (right) would be sliding down the side of the ship and may have too much friction and resistance to make it to the water.

The life rafts can be thrown over the side, but what chance, in high winds, does a passenger have of throwing a life raft over the side of a moving vessel, jumping over the side in the dark, and then catching up with the life raft? None. The winds will simply blow the inflated life raft away before anyone can board.

If the ship was stopped, the likelihood of getting it safely to a port and a shipyard is small. It will most likely burn in place, then sink. The Captain made a choice-he tried to save the ship, but he did it at the expense of the passengers. If he had save both the ship and the passengers, he would have been a hero. Instead, he lost both.

Why are ro-ro ships inherently unstable?

There are two reasons. First, as cars and trucks drive on and off they raise the center of gravity of the ship. This makes ro-ro ships more "tender"---- meaning that they roll more slowly, gently, but also farther over. Ships with lower centers of gravity are said to be "stiff." They roll more quickly in shorter, snappier rolls-but they also don't roll as far.

Ignorance is bliss. If a ship is gently rolling from side to side, it is hard to believe that you are in danger of rolling over.

Secondly, roll-on, roll-off ships need a long central corridor. This is so that cars and trucks can drive from the entrance point to all points on the ship. This long, wide, open space creates some problems. The first is the free surface effect.

What was wrong with this particular ro-ro ship?

This ship was designed to carry ro-ro cargo (i.e. cargo containers on flat bed trucks). In 1990 it was modified to become a passenger ferry. Two passenger decks were add on top of the hull. The beam was increased by just two meters. The addition of heavy steel passenger compartments high on the ship raised its center of gravity and made it more likely to tip over.

The Al Salam 95, a sister ship of the ferry which sunk last week, sank in the Red Sea in October after a collision. Most of the passengers were saved from that sinking.

Copyright, Rod Sullivan, February 6, 2006