When 'Run silent, Run deep' is sometimes 'Too Silent and Not Deep Enough'.

Twenty six years ago, Estonian flag ferry ESTONIA capsized and sank in the Baltic off the coast of Finland on a night crossing from Tallinn to Stockholm. It was a foul night and a miracle that 137 souls survived, but 852 perished in icy cold waters in the second-deadliest peacetime sinking of a European ship after the Titanic. The investigation concluded that the ship's bow door locks had failed in heavy weather. Many questions were left unanswered, but the official conclusion hung the classification society out to dry, they having approved the design of the visor and securing arrangements. This was a game changer for class societies and sent shock waves throughout the maritime industry. Now, it seems there may be another explanation after a recent underwater investigation revealed a hole in the hull, which would have no bearing or relationship with a failing bow visor. This will be a matter of lengthy investigation, but there is already wide speculation of a submarine collision. Many submarines operate in the Baltic, of course. 

Nearer home, and more recently, the UK's Marine Accident Investigation Board has recently issued a report on a near miss, which would energise the most bored risk modellers. A nuclear submarine in a near miss with a ferry. 

This investigation must have been a bitch for the Chief Inspector of Marine Accidents. Despite unmatched statutory powers to push doors open, seize ships and unravel some of the complexities of ownership, questioning a military agency is a political battle anyway but tackling a nation's nuclear weapons carrier is almost too futile to consider. In a job well done, the MAIB did get access to the operation of the submarine, undoubtedly limited, but enough to understand the root cause.

 In the early afternoon of 6th November 2018, whilst on passage from Belfast to Cairnryan making 21 knots with almost 300 souls on board, Stena Line's STENA SUPERFAST VII's bridge lookout reported to the Officer of the Watch that a periscope was closing on the port bow. The officer immediately took avoiding action. The submarine's periscope passed an estimated 50 metres from the ferry. The submarine's command team had actually detected and tracked the ferry using visual, sonar and automatic information system data, far more than the Officer aboard the ferry had, or at that moment, needed. Whatever cake and arse party was taking place aboard the submarine, two pairs of Mark One Eyeballs and a prompt helm order aboard the merchantman saved the day.

Appropriately, no recommendations or negative observations were directed at the ferry by the MAIB. The Collision Regulations do not and cannot place any responsibility for anyone but the submariner to avoid a close quarters situation. The Royal Navy will of course, conduct an extensive drain-up investigation and this will undoubtedly end careers. We probably won't learn any more.

 A nuclear submarine Commander once told me that he lived in fear of surfacing in the path of a loaded tanker under way. Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of crude oil with an engine a third of a mile behind it, provides the almost perfect sound barrier.

 "We just don't know you are there until we are at periscope depth, Old Boy" 

Whatever the outcome of any further investigation into the loss of ESTONIA reveals, the problem still remains. The submariner's wartime mantra 'run silent, run deep' is sometimes 'too silent and not deep enough'.