toby1234abc:
How many missed the Herald free enterprise by two minutes ?
I was on the last one of the roro ferries to have the refit in a force 10 across the Irish Sea on football tour one of the boys was left asleep in the minibus in the hold and when he woke up he said that there was a foot of water sloshing around and they were welding the doors up. It took less that a foot to take down the Herald. All the vehicles had to reverse off at Rosslare.
On the same ferry was Keith Floyd getting ■■■■■■ at the bar whilst us hardened youngsters were puking and swaying around the place 
Bit more than a foot I think.
As the speed of the Herald increased the bow wave built up allowing more water to flood the car deck thus eventually creating the negative stability, as the faster a ship moves thru the water the deeper she gets by the stern and if in relatively shallow water as she was even more deeper by the stern (called squat) and when the ‘driver’ altered course the water all rushed to one side taking the vehicles with it which finally caused her to capsize.
No I wasn’t on her but I was on one of the ships in the vicinity who was asked to stand by but was released shortly after, and some of the things I heard over the VHF by a commander of a British warship nearby who was enough to help make me hope to God we never get attacked by another foreign naval group as we would stand no chance !
I was just making conversation with a supervisor at our depot saying that when we have tricky reversing to do in the dark that it would be helpful if the lorries had a light on the back of the lorry that could be turned on in the cab so you could see better in the dark. fairly simple thing i thought. His response. No we cant do that but i can get you a head torch. WTF !!!