M/S Herald of Free Enterprise

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Career
MS Herald of Free Enterprise

Nationality	British
Owner:	Compania Naviera S.A
Operated By:	Townsend Thoresen
Ordered:
Laid down:
Floated:	1980
Named:
Maiden Voyage:
Status:	Capsized 6 March 1987
Fate	Raised and scrapped in 1988
General Characteristics
Tonnage:
Displacement:
Length:	131.91 m
Beam:	23.19 m
Draft:	5.72 m
Height:
Power:
Propulsion:
Speed:	22 knots
Passenger Capacity:	1,300
Cost:

M/S Herald of Free Enterprise was a roll-on roll-off (RORO) car and passenger ferry that capsized on March 6, 1987, killing 193 passengers. The ferry was built by Schichau-Unterweser AG in Bremerhaven, Germany in 1980 and owned by Townsend Thoresen, and had two sister ships: Pride of Free Enterprise and Spirit of Free Enterprise. She worked the English Channel ferry routes between Dover and Calais, and Dover and Zeebrugge.

1 The Disaster
2 The Inquiry
3 The Aftermath
4 Gallantry awards
5 Footnotes
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] The Disaster

Being a RORO, the Herald had doors at both the bow and stern. In the early evening of March 6, 1987 she capsized shortly after leaving the Belgian port of Zeebrugge en route to Dover, England. The ship sailed at 6:05pm British time with a crew of 80 and carrying 459 passengers, 81 cars, 3 buses, and 47 trucks ^{[citation needed]}.

The ship would never reach Dover. Due to negligence her bow doors had not been closed before leaving the harbour. When the ferry reached 18.9 knots (33 km/h) 90 seconds after leaving the harbour, water began to enter the car deck in large quantities. This destroyed her stability. Within seconds, at 6:28pm, the ship began to list 30 degrees to port. The ship briefly righted herself before listing to port once more, this time capsizing. The entire event took place in less than a minute. The water quickly reached the ship's electrical systems, destroying both main and emergency power and leaving the ship in darkness ^{[citation needed]}.

The ship ended on her side half-submerged in shallow water just 100 yards (90 m) from the shore. Only a fortuitous turn to starboard in her last moments, and then capsizing onto a sandbar, prevented the ship from sinking entirely in much deeper water ^{[citation needed]}.

A nearby dredger noticed the Herald's lights disappear, and notified the port authorities. A rescue helicopter arrived within half an hour, shortly followed by assistance from the Belgian Navy who were undertaking an exercise within the area ^{[citation needed]}.

The disaster resulted in the death of 193 people. Many of those on board had taken advantage of a promotion in The Sun newspaper for cheap trips to the continent. Most of the victims were trapped inside the ship and succumbed to hypothermia because of the frigid (3 °C) water. It was not until the end of April 1987 that the ferry was refloated. The disaster brought the highest death toll of any British vessel in peacetime since the sinking of the Iolaire in 1919 ^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] The Inquiry

After a public inquiry into the sinking in July 1987, Britain's Lord Justice Sheen published a report that castigated Townsend Thoresen, the ship's owners as part of the P&O Group, and identified a "disease of sloppiness" and negligence at every level of the corporation's hierarchy. It was confirmed that the ferry left port with her bow doors open.

It was apparent from the testimony of crew members that the member responsible for shutting the doors was Mark Stanley, but when he finished cleaning the car deck after the arrival in Zeebrugge he had had a short break. It was also found that Stanley was not on the car deck before the ship set sail. When he was questioned, investigators found that at the time when he should have closed the doors, he was still asleep during his break. There was confusion as to why no one else closed the doors. The other crew members expected Stanley to close them because he was scheduled to close them. Before the ship dropped moorings the First Officer should have stayed on the car deck to make sure the doors were closed, but trying to stay on schedule he left the car deck and went to the bridge before the doors were closed. This was normal practice, and the final factor was that from his position on the bridge the captain was not able to see the bow doors clearly, leading him to assume that they were closed ^{[citation needed]}.

However, even allowing for the bow doors being open, the mystery was not solved. A few years earlier, one of the Herald's sister ships sailed from Dover to Zeebrugge with the bow doors open, but she made it to the destination without incident ^{[citation needed]}. It was therefore believed that leaving the bow doors open alone should not have caused the ship to capsize.

After looking at possible reasons for reduced clearance between the doors and water line, investigators found that there was a problem during the loading of the car decks. The loading ramp at Zeebrugge was too low to reach the upper car deck at high tide. To clear the gap, the captain put sea water into the ballast tanks to lower the ship, but forgot to remove it afterwards. The clearance between bow doors and water line was 2.5 metres. The problem arose due to the fact that Dover-Zeebrugge was not her regular route. Had the Herald survived she was to have been modified to avoid this procedure ^[1].

There was one more factor: when a ship is under way, the movement under it creates low pressure, which sucks the bow downwards. In deep water the effect is small. However, in shallow water it is greater, because as the water passes underneath it would move faster and cause the bow to be dragged further down. This reduced the clearance between the bow doors and water line to 1.5 metres. Although the bow doors were open and they were 1.5 metres above the water, it was still not enough to cause the ship to capsize, so the investigators looked at the bow waves and the amount of water they produce ^{[citation needed]}.

After extensive tests, the investigators found that when the ship travelled at a speed of 18 knots, the wave was enough to engulf the bow doors. This caused a 'step change': if the ship was below 18 knots and not in shallow water, people on the car deck would probably have had time to notice the bow doors were open and closed them, but even this did not cause the final capsizing.

Almost all ships are divided into watertight compartments below the water line so that in the event of flooding, the water would only be confined to one compartment thus keeping the ship afloat. The Herald's design had an open car deck with no dividers, allowing vehicles to drive in and out easily, but this allowed water to flood the whole of the car deck, putting the ship in danger.

In October 1987, a coroner's inquest jury into the capsizing returned verdicts of unlawful killing. Many of the individuals involved at the company were prosecuted for manslaughter, as was the operating company, P&O Ferries (Dover) Ltd (for a discussion of the legal issues, see corporate manslaughter). The disaster was one of a number that influenced thinking leading to the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 ^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] The Aftermath

A few scenes of the disaster videotaped live by the media were used by film director Krzysztof Kieślowski as part of the conclusion of his film Three Colours: Red that bound together the Three Colors trilogy.

In Britain, a group named Ferry Aid released a charity record.

Following the sinking, the Herald was raised and renamed "Flushing Range" for a final one-way trip to Alang, India, where she was broken up in 1988. Her two sister ships are still operational, though the ex-Spirit of Free Enterprise was extended to increase her cargo capacity during her time under the P&O flag in a process commonly described as jumboisation. The Pride of Free Enterprise is still more or less as built ^[2].

The Right Hon Nicholas Ridley MP, a government minister at the time, was criticised a few days later for alluding to the accident (while speaking on another subject). He was quoted as saying that in pursuing a particular policy he would, however, not be "sailing with his bow doors open". He later apologised for the remark ^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] Gallantry awards

The following British awards for gallantry on the night of the sinking were gazetted on 31 December 1987.^[3]

Herald of Free Enterprise crew
- Michael Ian Skippen, Head Waiter, George Medal (posthumous)
- Leigh Cornelius, Seaman, Queen's Gallantry Medal
- Stephen Robert Homewood, Assistant Purser, Queen's Gallantry Medal
- William Sean Walker, Seaman, Queen's Gallantry Medal
- Thomas Hume Wilson, Quartermaster, Queen's Gallantry Medal
Herald of Free Enterprise passenger
- Andrew Clifford Parker, Assistant Bank Manager, Nippon Credit International, George Medal
Belgian Navy
- Luitenant-Ter-Zee 1ste Klas Guido A. Couwenbergh, Queen's Gallantry Medal
- Luitenant-Ter-Zee 1ste Klas Alfons M. A. C. Daems, Queen's Gallantry Medal
Royal Navy
- Lieutenant Simon Nicholas Bound, Queen's Gallantry Medal
- Able Seaman Eamon Christopher McKinley Fullen, Queen's Gallantry Medal
- Chief Petty Officer Edward Gene Kerr, Queen's Commendation for Brave Conduct
- Chief Petty Officer Peter Frank Still, Queen's Commendation for Brave Conduct
Tijdelijke Vereniging Bergingswerken
- Piet Lagast, Diver, Queen's Gallantry Medal
- Dirk van Mullem, Diver, Queen's Gallantry Medal