Lesson of Pamir disaster has still to be learned

back at an almost parallel tragedy which cost the lives of a ship's crew

of teenage boys.

THE four-masted barque Pamir had sailed the world's oceans for more

than half-a-century, weathered many storms, and always fetched safely

home to port. But just before midday on September 21, 1957, on passage

from Buenos Aires to Hamburg with a cargo of grain, the Pamir heeled

right over on her port side, her masts in the water and half the

lifeboats crushed.

Her teenage crew literally slid into the icy waters of the Atlantic

down the perpendicular wall that had, moments before, been the ship's

deck. In all, 86 were on board -- only six survived. Forty-six of those

who drowned were teenagers, cadets training in sail for a lifetime in

the merchant service.

Lessons learned from the tragedy -- about the need to make it

impossible for cargo to shift, about breaching sea water running

unhindered across lower decks -- are likely to get a fresh airing when a

board of inquiry sits to determine just why an apparently well-found

vessel, the pride of Estonia's national fleet, should suddenly have

turned on her side and gone down with such tragic loss of life. Already

there is talk of an unrealistically relaxed attitude on the part of ship

operators and the travelling public towards safety.

The ferry Estonia sank in bad weather: the Pamir foundered in the

winds of hurricane Carrie. But both ships had dealt with similar

conditions before and come through unscathed. Attention is being

directed at the integrity of the Estonia's bow doors and whether they

may have let in thousands of tonnes of sea water which then gave the

ship its fatal list. After the loss of the Pamir the focus was on the

cargo of loose grain which, with exactly the same effect as sea water,

turned the steel-hulled barque on its side.

For more than a century Britain's Merchant Shipping Act has required

that grain be carried in sacks and that ''shifting'' or baffle boards be

used. But as everyone who has driven their car through the open maw of a

roll-on roll-off ferry knows, there is no equivalent to the baffle

boards demanded on grain carriers. If sea water enters the ferry in any

quantity it may go where it wills and a list, once at 30 degrees, will

be exacerbated by trucks breaking loose from their shackles and plunging

down the sloping deck to frustrate any possibility of the ship's

recovery.

The Pamir was not a British ship. Registered in Lubeck in Germany, her

master, crew and cadets were German. Just six years before her loss, her

owners had spent #200,000 rebuilding and re-equipping the vessel which,

grim irony, in its early years had its home waters where the Estonia

sank.

The board of inquiry into the loss of the Pamir, in force-9 winds, 600

miles south-west of the Azores, blamed her master for the disaster. He

was not among the survivors. The inquiry found that the 4000-tonne cargo

of loose grain had shifted. Evidence to this was that even when all 12

sails still set had been cut free and carried away by the hurricane the

ship still did not come upright. So acute was the list that sea water

entered the hull and the Pamir then lay over to such an extent that her

masts were in the water.

The crew, the youngest of whom was just 16, were unable to hold on to

the top rail and either fell down the wall-like deck and into the sea or

were caught in the rigging and went down with the ship. The disaster,

said the inquiry report, need not have happened, and added that in the

circumstances a milder storm could have capsized the Pamir. In an

11-point list of ''lessons to be learned'' from the loss the need was

emphasised for more bulkheads to be fitted to ships to prevent cargo

shifting.

Bad ballasting -- 400 tonnes of grain were used instead of water which

would have added a further 300 tonnes to the ship's stability -- and the

''very unsatisfactory'' weight of canvas carried, said the Lubeck

inquiry, caused the ship's centre of gravity to be high and to shift

dangerously when the Pamir heeled over. If water ballast had been

carried in the lower tanks the Pamir's list would not have been more

than 20 degrees and the ship would have survived.

Almost 40 years on and multi-decked ro-ro ferries have, inherently, a

centre of gravity higher than conventional vessels, with the weight of

cars and trucks carried on decks generally above the water line --

access to these decks at little more than sea level. Prior to sailing on

her ill-fated voyage, an examination of the Estonia is said to have

found faulty seals on the forward loading doors.

Notwithstanding that, and in foul weather, the Estonia sailed. Now she

lies 30 fathoms deep. Was there no premonition of disaster? The boys of

the Pamir had to trim the cargo of loose grain that was poured into the

hold of their ship -- all 3780 tonnes of it. They did it with shovels

but without masks and the dust rose. One lad, after long hours working

the grain that was to cost him his life, wrote to his parents to

describe his day, stepped ashore for the last time and posted his

letter. It had been, he wrote, ''murderous work''.