Who has ever heard of an ECR inside a watertight compartment outside the engine room?
A standard ferry normally has maximum five or six watertight doors between engine spaces – there are only two or three on smaller ferries. The ‘Estonia’ (ex ‘Viking Sally’) was an extreme, totally illegal exception approved by the Finnish administration – albeit for coastal trading. That the Swedish National Maritime Administration had never complained 1980-1994 is a mystery. The ‘Estonia’ had totally twenty-two (!) off watertight doors: three between store rooms aft, eight in the engine spaces, two between engine and passenger spaces and seven in the public spaces forward. The bulkheads in the engine rooms – frames no. 66, A and L – had two doors each – not acceptable by the SOLAS. The bulkhead at frame L had in fact three doors fitted, one extra door to the passenger spaces. Bulkheads at frames 80, 91 and 101 had also two watertight doors each, where none should have been fitted (the ‘Estonia’ was a lengthened version of the Swedish flag ‘Diana II’ – an extra section had been fitted
