# Cross Channel ferry Eurovoyager 'regularly left doors open at sea' - MAIB report



## shamrock (May 16, 2009)

> The Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) has called for shipping safety regulations to be tightened, after it identified a number of problems with the doors of a ferry sailing between Ostend in Belgium and Ramsgate in Kent.
> 
> The criticisms come more than two decades after 193 people died when the Herald of Free Enterprise sank in the English Channel in 1987. An inquiry found that the ship capsized because its watertight doors had been left open. ...cont../..


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...l-ferry-regularly-left-doors-open-at-sea.html

http://www.lloydslist.com/ll/news/e...promised-watertight-integrity/20017672393.htm


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## eddyw (Nov 6, 2007)

Some confusion in the report? I don't think there is any suggestion that the ship sailed with vehicle deck doors open. Loss of the Herald of Free Enterprise was due to the bow doors being left open and as the ship's speed built up the bow wave flooded the car deck. In the Estonia case the cause of loss seems to have been mechanical failure of the bow doors in heavy weather. The doors referred to here are the watertight doors between compartments below the car deck.


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