Reply With QuoteSeems so much more recent
A shocking day in history.
As per title: Today (this evening) it's 35 yrs ago that the Herald of Free Enterprise capsized outside Zeebrugge. In my mind, it's like yesterday.
Detailed info on Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Her...ree_Enterprise
Menno
Last edited by thieuster; 6th March 2022 at 16:56.
Seems so much more recent
A shocking day in history.
Wow really - remember it very well - around here most people knew someone affected by it
A sad reminder of a disaster that should have never occurred.
When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks long into you.........
For me it was a 'Where were you when it learned about it' moment. I know exactly where I was and who was with me.
The weather was - like now- totally calm when it happened.
Most of blame went to the Company and the bosun - but the master of the vessel seemed happy to rely upon “I told the office!”
How much blame can you attribute to the Bosun, when they system was to ‘assume’ that the doors were closed.
BUT, as is normal - the tragedy influenced further much-needed safety regulation and systems.
But - there is something particularly tragic about people dying in situations where basically they are in an alien environment, and relying upon others to save them - where it is not survivable.
Last edited by blackal; 6th March 2022 at 21:08.
The grave near to my grandparents had a lot of names on it of all the same family on the same date, several children as well which really moved me. When I checked it was a family from that tragic event. RIP.
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Wow 35 years
I remember it as a child (6 years old) and being shocked by the event
As a child I could not understand how the boat never ‘actually sank’ but all the people died.
Awful event for all involved.
Still sends shivers down my spine as we’d been on similar Townsend Thoresen cross channel ferries - if not that one - a number of times.
Another dreadful and preventable tragedy.
DMAX has a documentary Saturday at 9
I lived in Ashford as a kid so the ferries were quite well known, people used to go on booze/fag cruises all the time, had a huge paper model of a ferry given away at the Kent County show.
I had been on the sister ship the Spirit of Free Enterprise a few weeks earlier.
The images of it on it’s side are unforgettable.
I was bought up in Folkestone so remember this all too well. My Dad was a bosun on Sealink ferries for many years so he took this disaster pretty badly. Hard to believe 35 years have passed
I can barely believe how long ago it was. I sailed into Zeebrugge before she was recovered - the booking having been made well in advance. I stayed on-deck for the whole long, miserable journey due to paranoia... It made my flesh creep knowing what was still on board, and there was something oddly-obscene about seeing a vessel in that condition, especially in such shallow water...
I was on the continent for a few months after, and due to deteriorating weather conditions decided to head for Calais and come home a day early - as it turned out I was on the last ferry to dock in Dover on October 15th... Had I not done so, I'd have been spending the night of the Great Storm sleeping in the back of a Toyota Lite Ace in a French car-park...
My niece should have been on that but arrived at the port early and got out on the one before. A sad set of circumstances for all involved.
Very tragic and definitely an unforgettable sight! I too remember seeing this on the news and asking my parents what had happened as I was quite young at the time unlike now!
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I was on it that day, and the memories of it enter my mind every day since. Truly tragic event. It's not something i often talk about and only close family and friends knew i was on it.
Haven't been on a ferry since or been back to Dover or Zeebrugge. I will go back one day to pay my respects but not at the moment.
Good grief. Well, I'm very glad you're still with us.Originally Posted by Robxxx7
Thanks ... every day has been a bonus since
It's a pretty cliché thing for me to say but it must have been a life changing experience.
I was only 21 when i was on it, but did have a few moments when i thought this is it.. but i'm quite strong mentally so shook myself out of it and thought no.. not today..
It has no doubt shaped my life going forward and i do see each day as a bonus. I have seen and been involved in many things over the last 35 years that may never have happened and for that i am truly one of the lucky ones.
I often think back to that day and can remember seeing lots of children, elderly, people in wheelchairs and plenty of people who had enjoyed a drink or two .... you just think how the hell did any of them survive. Situations like this no doubt gives you a sense of your character and how you react to things i guess. I have no regrets but do have survivor guilt at times.
But there is nothing i can do now to change things back then no matter how much i think of things.
I am sure I was probably a weird kid, but I remember being a bit bemused by all the fuss aged 11.
Despite having travelled on the cross channel ferries, I simply assumed at that age that they sank all the time and that what was happening was fairly normal.
I was a voracious reader of adventure books, pirate books, war stories etc, and all the history I was consuming around that age was full of invasion, battles and above all shipwrecks, the raising of the Mary rose, Falklands war naval losses etc.
I just assumed that all ships were inherently dangerous.
It took a while to understand it as the tragedy that it was.
I worked as crew on the HoFE after I left school and was waiting to go into the Army. I was on a rest day when this happened.
It was pretty "normal" for the stern doors to be open at sea. We used to sit on the lower car deck dangling our feet into the wash from the propellers if the weather was hot. A chilling event that didn't leave many local families untouched in one way or another.
Last edited by r1ch; 9th March 2022 at 15:57.
Impressive!
What you write is what I've heard from other people who were saved from a life-threatening situation. Both my wife's parents survived (as a child) the Japanse war camps back in Asia during WWII. When Covid hit elderly people in 2020, their response was nearly like yours: "Our lifes have been a winning raffle ticket, one life-long bonus. It should have been over for us before V-Day in 1945. But it wasn't. And we've lived to celebrate it. Covid can't scare us!"
It was crazy to think that this was a normal activity at the time, but like most things it either takes an accident or disaster to change.
I've met other people who were involved in other life threatening situations and it does seem to be a common theme. Without doubt, it is circumstances we find ourselves in that shape the way we are going forward.
Its strange but i don't regret being on that boat. Everyone has something that happens in their life, whether small or big, that makes them look at things in the future ... it just so happens that one of mine was quite early in my life.
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