Ro-ro to capsize every five years

A BRITISH roll-on roll-off passenger ferry will capsize at least once every five years, according to a confidential Department of Transport report.

Disclosure of the report, submitted to a technical committee of the UN International Maritime Organisation four years ago, will add to the growing worldwide doubts about the basic safety of the ro-ro design in the wake of last week's Estonia disaster in the Baltic, which claimed more than 900 lives.

The Government's predictions, drawn on risk assessment by LLoyds Register Of Shipping, are hidden deep inside a 1990 submission to the IMO entitled 'Research into Enhancing the Stability and Survivability Standards of Ro-Ro Passenger Ferries'.

Yesterday Finnish salvage teams, working at sea level, captured a sonar image of the Estonia lying on the seabed, which, they said, showed that the bow doors had been sheared off. Bad weather postponed a full search of the wreck by undersea robots.

The DoT report said that 'for a UK fleet of around 75 ships, the current trend is for one collision per year and that on every fifth year the collision would have the appropriate ingredients for a major loss of stability . . . which could lead to rapid capsize'.

Besides collision, ferries face grave dangers when destabilised by relatively small volumes of sea water flooding into their open-plan cargo bays. This is what happened to the Estonia. The 1990 DOT report reviewed and dismissed as too costly proposals that retractable bulkheads should be installed in the car decks of ro-ro ferries to prevent water swirling around.

Last night the British survivor of the Estonia, 35-year-old landscape architect Paul Barney, arrived back at Heathrow airport from Finland and criticised the ship's safety procedures.

Comparing it with the 1912 sinking of the Titanic, he said: 'How come the Titanic, that was supposed to be unsinkable, went down in four hours, and how come a boat in 1994 went down in less than an hour?'

Mr Barney, of Pangbourne, Berks, looked tired as he answered questions from journalists. He described how yoga techniques helped keep him alive during his time afloat in the raft.

'I just tried to keep my heart rate down. As soon as I hit the water for the first time my stress levels were immense,' he said.

Vanishing captain, page 15

(Photograph omitted)

Leading article, page 22