[leeter]

What amazed me reading the report was just how vulnerable the ship was to sinking if it had a list during a storm. While an 18 degree list is extreme it's not unforeseeable in a serious emergency. The problem was this put ventilation openings at a height where they were directly subject to green water infiltration. To make it worse only the intakes were 'watertight' the exhausts were only 'weathertight' meaning that this would have resulted in flooding that would have made the problem worse.

[089723645897236]

The real story here is that the ship was past it's retirement age AND poorly maintained. Any of the series of small events that happened due to the maintenance issues like the scuttle popping open, or the oil sumps not being filled all the way up (these guys were really macho idiots, how expensive is a sump top off really!). The engineers at the NTSB determined that they hit the sweet spot of their engines not working because of the extreme weather and list and unfilled sumps and broken anemometer so they couldn't tell the weather like sailors have been relying on for years. Basically tech is useless if you don't maintain it or replace it or you treat human beings like disposable parts to run your depreciating hulks. The whole world shipping community is running ridiculously old and poorly maintained wrecks sailed by the worlds poorest people for the world's richest assholes. How's that for a class struggle?

[Shivetya]

well there is a big gulf between storm and hurricane. if they had encountered a normal squall it is doubtful they would have been in trouble but they ran straight into a CAT3 hurricane which if you have experienced on land you know its not even remotely sane to be out in it.

[leeter]

True, but if you read the report even under non-insane circumstances the design of the ventilation system would have put the ship at risk in any gale or full gale situation. The main issue was the intakes were on the tween deck instead of the main deck and were outboard. Thus if the ship listed at all to the point where the tween deck was even partially submerged it risked serious flooding. This seems counter to the design of the ship where the tween deck was supposed to be open to the sea, but not awash certainly, but still in theory all fittings an openings on that deck should be able to be watertight. Indeed if you look at the report, the rest of the deck was.