Talk:MS Herald of Free Enterprise

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Shipwreck-related priority open tasks: To Do Shipwrecks Clean up typos Improve grammar Add any additions if needed Discuss desired additions Cattewater Wreck Needs expansion Done Shipwrecks Re-wrote the first paragraph Cleaned up Types of Shipwrecks it felt a bit jumbled Cattewater Wreck Started the article

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Can somebody give a source for the recently added comment about the stern doors? PatGallacher 08:44, 2005 May 7 (UTC)

Contents 1 Sleeping crew member 2 Comparison to "The Poseidon Adventure" 3 Attempt to tidy up page 4 References 5 Article needs image 6 New work 7 References 8 Death Toll 9 Page move

[edit] Sleeping crew member

A mention might be made of the crew member responsible for the doors was asleep on duty.

True that the man whose job it was to supervise closing the doors slept through his shift, however really it is more complex than that. Through the entire process of loading vehicles, etc, none of the other crew, nor the man's supervisor, realised he wasn't at his post. When the bell went for the ship to leave port, the various crew members left the car deck for their post to be taken for leaving port, leaving the unattended doors open, with the sleeping man's absense not noted by anyone. The captain left port unable to check if the doors were closed. Normally the ship could have sailed with the doors open, one of the sister ships accidentally crossed the channel in this mode before, but this time the extra ballast caused the capsize. Asa01 01:33, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

The things you mentioned are compounding factors, not complications, it is true that the bosun responsible was asleep G0ggy 12:06, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

The problem with the captain not being able to check was that the standing orders suggested that he could assume that the ship was ready for sea unless he was told otherwise. JohnGray 16:25, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comparison to "The Poseidon Adventure"

I seem to remember at the time (and I'm showing my age here) that the papers compared this tragedy to the movie The Poseidon Adventure, not only because it involved a passenger ship capsizing but because heroic stories surfaced of survivors helping each other to escape (apparently one man turned himself into a "human bridge" so others could climb to safety). Should we put this in, or would it be too lurid? I don't unfortunately have a source for this (other than my memory of the time). Dave-ros 11:03, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Apparently the man's name was Andrew Parker and he got an award in the Queen's Honours: article by a novelist writing about the subject of maritime disasters Dave-ros 17:48, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Attempt to tidy up page

I've attempted to tidy the page into more readable sections - previously it was a large block of text which didn't make it easy to read. Feel free to alter it if you feel improvements can be made - just thought it was better than nothing! Matt

[edit] References

Just reading through the article, there's good information here but I think some references are needed, especially now that there's a named individual listed as responsible for the doors being left open. Can someone dig up a copy of the offical report into the disaster to support this? We also seem to have a lot of duplication of the same facts though that's not a problem.

I have a few useful sources in the form of books from Ferry Publications, so I'm willing to have a go at re-writing the section about the ship (her design, launch date, etc) unless anyone has any objections? The Pride class ships were pretty revolutionary in ferry terms so we shouldn't just be covering the disaster. WelshMatt 17:27, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

The official investigation reports can be found at http://www.maib.gov.uk/publications/investigation_reports/herald_of_free_enterprise/herald_of_free_enterprise_report.cfm 80.126.241.196 16:43, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, and some of the current text rather oversimplifies or omits factors that are quite carefully described in the report. I will endeavour to correct some of these. Of particular interest is that the ferries were overloaded on several occasions - this meant that the stability rules that were supposed to apply were not being adherted to. JohnGray 16:28, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article needs image

This article lacks imagery, for such an important event in modern peacetime maritime history there should be at minimum an image of the Herald of Free Enterprise in the state where she lay on her side in the English Channel, would also be good to have one where she is upright sailing prior to the disaster so that people can see what this vessel and the rest of its class looks like. I have been unable to find anything that fits within wikipedias image uploading guidelines, so if anybody knows of something that would be cool. JonEastham 23:18, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New work

Pleased to see someone bringing this under the Ships and Shipwreck categories - I'm contemplating some copyediting unless anyone has major objections? As I said before, we seem to have some duplication. If I model a section on the ship on the Wikiproject Ships template then the disaster on the Wikiproject Shipwrecks template would that be generally acceptable?

I might also have a go at writing an article on the "Spirit of Free Enterprise" - this was the lead ship of the three so a lot of the technical data could go there. WelshMatt 13:32, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm from the Shipwrecks Project, and I'm sure I speak for the whole project when I say that, from our point of view, and probably WikiProject Ships too, that really would be brilliant. I'm unsure if we have an oficial article template posted - in fact I'm pretty sure we don't - but you can follow the general style used on R.P. Resor (ship) and intended to be used on Globe Star (ship) for guidance if you wish. If you can think of a better way, then please, please, please use it here and let us know on the project talk page! I'll post a quick heads up on our talk page to let the project know of the work you intend to cary out on this article. Blood red sandman 18:52, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I've now had a go. Please be aware that this is my first article, so if I've removed anything important (that isn't elsewhere in the article) feel free to replace it. I've tried to organise the data in a more logical way, with a brief introduction, followed by the events leading up to the sinking, followed by the inquiry and its conclusions. I've also tried to rationalise the duplicated sections - the part about ballast water was in both the disaster and the inquiry sections for example.

Now, I know we need something here on the free surface effect, and it might be good to have a bit in the introduction about the social impact - as I understand it this was one of the first accidents to lead to calls for a corporate manslaughter law. Unfortunately I have a limited understanding of these parts so some assistance would be needed there WelshMatt 13:55, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References

Just to explain the numbers in brackets that I've sprinkled around the article, these are where I feel references are needed. I've found two so far but would welcome anyone managing to find more - in fact it would be a big help if anyone else could help fill in the gaps and tidy up the referencing. WelshMatt 13:50, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Why not just put a {{fact}} tag in each position? Looks better. -- Necrothesp 15:09, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Ah - was wondering how those worked! Will change it now. Thanks for the help! WelshMatt 17:16, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Death Toll

This article states 193 people lost their lives, but the official investigation report states that 188 people (150 passengers and 38 crew) died. Can we clarify which figure is correct? G0ggy 13:12, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Page move

As it stands right now, this page is subordinated to M, because of the backslash in the title. I'm going to remove it to fix this problem. Just posting here to let anyone who watches this page know why. Parsecboy (talk) 18:18, 14 February 2008 (UTC)