Over the past months since the sinking of the El Faro questions have been raised as to the integrity off the ship, the captain’s and owners decision to sail that disastrous course and the age of the ship. I have yet to see anyone really question the redesign of this ship by its owners. First I would like to point out that the designed the cargo / container deck t extends out pass the hull line Which in 50-60 seas is going to get damaged… To the best of my knowledge the containers all sat above deck. Could this have made the ship top heavy, throwing the balance out?. The second question I would like to address is the holes/loading ramps that were cut into the ships hull for roll on cargo… It appears in all pictures they did not have doors to protect the cargo from the sea and the sea from getting onto that deck. Could the rough sea have flooded that deck and added to the sinking ? I feel that there are a lot more questions to answer then just about the route and age of the shiu
the containers did not help stability and I wonder if permanent ballast was not put into the double bottoms at the conversion to counter the resultant rise in the loaded ship KG?
the second deck where the loading doors are located is the uppermost continuous watertight deck and has many freeing ports to allow shipped water to drain away and not be trapped however that is a vehicle deck so water shipped into that deck does endanger the cargo stowed there. Put 200tons of seawater against the side of a trailer down there with the ship already heeled and you had better have some damned heavy chains holding that. If that deck did not have so many openings to the sea and one way freeing ports then it certainly would have helped the ship plus the water that did start to downflood might have been more limited although I do not believe the downflooding doomed the EL FARO but loose cargo.
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