 This is the aftermath of a fatal error. A ship has capsized. Just a few minutes earlier, cars and lorries were driving onto a roll-on roll-off ferry in the port of Zabruk, Belgium. As the passengers made themselves comfortable aboard the ship prior to departure, little did they know that they would be victims in one of the worst peacetime British maritime tragedies in living history. The disaster would kill just short of 200 people and cast a worrying light on the design of row-row ferries. Today we're looking at the MS held a free enterprise disaster. My name is John and welcome to Plainly Difficult, Three Spirit Class Ferries. We start our story today eight years before the tragic night in Belgium with the ferry company European Ferries PLC ordering three new ferries for its Dover to Calais route. The shipbuilders Schaikau Unterwesser AG in Germany were commissioned to design and construct the new vessels. The company required their ships to be fast and be quick to load and unload, an essential part of the highly competitive Dover to Calais route in a pre-channel tunnel world. The company's predecessor Townsend Car Ferries had pioneered the use of roll-on roll-off ferries and this tradition of using such vessels would carry on to the three new ferries being commissioned in 1979. The three vessels would later be named the Spirit Class of Ferries after the name of the first in the class, the MS Spirit of Free Enterprise. All three would be very similar, be branded as Townsend Forson Ferries and be registered in the Port of Dover United Kingdom. But this is where we will say goodbye to two of the ships in our story and instead I'll focus in on one of them, the MS Hero of Free Enterprise. She began paying passenger service in May 1980. The ship was of all welded steel construction, comprising of eight decks numbered A to H from top to bottom. A deck was crew accommodation and a radio room. There was a half deck between A and B decks which housed the wheelhouse also known as the bridge. B deck, passenger areas, crew accommodation and the galley were found there. C deck also had passenger areas and a galley. D deck was a suspended vehicle deck within E deck and E deck was the upper vehicle deck. F deck was crew accommodation at the port end and starboard end and G deck was the main vehicle deck and finally H deck which housed the engine room, stores and passenger accommodation at the forward end and G deck was the level that housed the ship's bound stern watertight doors that allowed the fast loading and unloading of vehicles. The doors were kept watertight when closed by tubular neoprene seals. At Dover and Calley the ship was loaded via the use of double link spans. Basically a bridge like structure that allows cars and lorries to drive onto the vessel. This allowed the loading of G deck and E deck at the same time. The latter had weathertight doors at the bound stern. She weighed a total of 7951 gross tons and had a length of 131.91 meters or 432 feet 9 inches and she accommodated a total of 1400 people. Now probably goes without saying that the ship's bound stern doors need to be closed before setting sail as you know water plus hole in a ship equals ship no longer floating. In order to ensure the ship's doors were correctly closed and locked the MS held a free enterprise relies solely on a person physically verifying the door status by well looking at the door and the local control panel. i.e the person in charge of the door has to do their job properly with little oversight. The bridge had no way of knowing if the doors were closed apart from getting the word from the crew member operating the doors and the way that the ship was arranged you couldn't physically see the doors from the wheelhouse or the bridge. The issue with this arrangement would be highlighted in October 1983 when another spirit class ship the pride of free enterprise sailed from Dover to Zabruk with the bow doors open. The person in charge had fallen asleep. Another similar incident would also happen later on in the same year once again on the pride. Although the ship didn't sink it did open up some comments within European ferries group plc and some of the company's captains suggesting some safety modifications including a door indicator light on the bridge. I would say a pretty sensible suggestion from the people who operate the ships day to day and have seen the incidents that can unfold. Some comments were passed up to management this was their reply bearing in mind this is in response to some reasonable suggestions. The deputy chief superintendent replied do they need an indicator to tell them whether the deck storekeeper is awake and sober my goodness and another from another manager nice but don't we already pay someone assume the guy who shuts the door tells the bridge if there is a problem and another manager just said nice. The issue was brought up again in 1986 and yet again a rubbish reply came back from the company. I cannot see the purpose or need for the stern door to be monitored on the bridge as the seaman in charge of closing the doors is standing by the control panel watching them close. Needless to say the indicator lights weren't installed. So the bail doors open incident happened on a dover to Zibrug run. Remember when I said the ships were built for dover to Calais? Well their operations had expanded but Zibrug offered a slightly unique challenge. The berth that Zibrug couldn't properly accommodate two deck loading this was due to there only being one link span and to add insult to injury a high waters that same link span couldn't be raised up enough to reach the upper car deck E. To allow for this the ship had to be trimmed by filling her ballast tanks to load a vessel in the water and this would be the same story that would unfold on the 6th of March 1987. The Disaster. It is the evening of the 6th of March 1987 and the MS Herald of Three Enterprise is in berth 12 at Zibrug harbour. Captain David Lurie tonight is in charge tonight her voyage to Dover will carry a crew of 80 hands and 81 cars 47 freight vehicles and three other vehicles and this amounted to roughly 459 passengers. Usually the doors were closed before the moorings were dropped but today it is slightly different. The task of closing the doors was down to assistant boatswain Mark Stanley but after clearing up the deck he went back to his quarters to take a break. There he fell asleep and missed the harbour station's call. Leslie Sable a first officer in lieu of Stanley was meant to wait at the bow doors. However he left G deck when as he claimed to have seen Stanley approaching this would later be thought to be incorrect. It is likely Sable left thinking that Stanley would be around after he heard the station's call. Boatswain Terrence Ailing was also on G deck but didn't go to close the doors even though no one knew where Stanley was. He would later explain that it wasn't his duty. Captain Lurie from his position on the bridge couldn't see the bow doors and assuming they were closed began to depart Zibrug. The ship hadn't been retrimmed after filling her ballast to dock at Zibrug. This was at roughly 1905 or 705 in the evening. By 724 she passed the outer mole. Water had begun to enter the ferry via the open bow doors. At 726 she started to list 30 degree support. The ship briefly levelled off before listing again to port until she was fully on her side half submerged in the shallow water just 1km from the shore. The water entered the engine room and electrical systems knocking out both her main and back up electricity plunging the ship into darkness. The capsizing was witnessed by nearby dredger ship. They quickly reported the sinking to port authorities. Helicopters and vessels from the Belgium Navy were dispatched at around 737. Many were trapped inside the ship and although she had capsized in shallow water and thus had half of her ship still above the water, the trapped would eventually succumb to hypothermia. Divers helped remove bodies and assist in helping survivors. Some were still stuck inside hours after the disaster and they were still alive. But in a cruel turn of fate the tide rose, killing anyone still within. 194 people would die in the sinking. Aftermath. The held would be required to be removed as such an impressively quick salvage operation would be kicked off. Dutch company, smith, tac, towage and salvage would be tasked with the job and cracked on just a few days after the disaster. The ship was rited and refloated using the parbuckle salvage method. Once refloated the final bodies were recovered. Initially it was thought that she could be repaired and sold off but no buyer wanted her and as such she was sent to Taiwan to be scrapped. A formal investigation was held by Mr. Justice Sheen. It would find that Captain David Lowery, the master, Mr. Leslie Sable and Mr. Mark Victor Stanley were negligent in their duties. Lowery for departing without checking the doors were shut, Sable for leaving the doors open with no one to close them and Stanley for not being at his post. The investigation would find the company was an environment ripe for disaster. Communication between crew aboard towns and forest and ships was abysmal and to add further fuel to the fire relations between the ship's crews and the company was toxic. I mean we saw that when the idea of door indicator lights was brought up. The actual mechanics of the capsizing involved a thing called the squat effect. This is a reduction in pressure that causes the ship to increase its draft and thus be drawn closer to the seabed. This phenomenon is more prevalent in shallow water. As the herald accelerated she squatted bringing water line above the opening caused by the enclosed doors. The water flowed across her car deck and as it sloshed around the deck the free surface effect came into play, reducing the stability of the ship causing her to turn over. Townsend Forson would be rebranded pretty quickly after the disaster to Piano Ferries and their fleet would be very quickly repainted and renamed. Roro's ship design would be improved because of the disaster but this is probably not much of a consolation for those who died just outside the brook. This is a plain difficult video. All videos on the channel are creative commons attribution share light licensed. Plain difficult videos are produced by me John in the currently very wet and windy corner of southern London UK. I'd like to thank my patrons and youtube members for your financial support and the rest of you for tuning in every week to watch my videos and listen to me talk. I have Instagram, Twitter and a second youtube channel so check them out if you want to see, watch and listen more of stuff I do behind the scenes. And all I have to say is thank you for watching and Mr Music, play us out please.