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Comment by barbegal | Hacker News Reader

The main problem is various vents along the side of the hull. Typically these are placed closer to the centreline of the vessel such that they can't be flooded at extreme heel angles. On luxury vessels they are placed out of sight of guests and in this case along the hull. Hatches into the water tight compartments were close to the centreline but in this case flooding would have occurred rapidly through the various ventilation systems instead.

The boat builder will blame the crew for not closing these but I doubt there was any procedure to actually close them. The engine needs to run to generate power and the engine needs fresh air and an exhaust.

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I’m baffled (boom boom) as to why the vents aren’t designed such that they don’t allow water ingress - surely this would just be a matter of a manifold with a float in it, or a Tesla valve or similar. Fails safe, no power required.

They probably will, Im sure luxury boat manufacturers learned something from this

Thankfully, international shipping safety standards aren’t left up to individual manufacturers. Having worked on ships worldwide for several years, I’ve seen how each major incident drives tighter, more effective regulations.

The International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), established in 1974, is continually updated based on lessons from past accidents, mandating strict requirements for all ships over a certain size. Parts of SOLAS even apply universally to all ships on any voyage, regardless of size. https://www.imo.org/en/About/Conventions/Pages/International...

Was there any regulation limiting the placement of external vents beyond a certain threshold? Or was it just a gentleman’s agreement between designers?

I don't work in the maritime industry so I might easily be wrong, but my understanding is that these rules are generally enforced not via national laws directly but via insurance. You can build any kind of ship you like, but then you have these classification societies that verify whether a ship has been built to standards, and if not they won't certify it and you'll have a very hard time getting insurance for your vessel. And in the end national laws tend to say things like your ship needs to be insured etc., not directly how it must be constructed.

So a gentleman’s agreement between certain insurance adjusters and actuaries?

Insurance is by contract and either side can take claims to court if the contract is not upheld. I wouldn’t call that a gentleman’s agreement.

The maritime system is complex. But it wasn’t just made up by a few people. It’s evolved continuously, internationally, for generations.

The issue with maritime insurance, is that ocean going vessels spend a great deal of time in other countries from where the owner registers the ship, and also time in international waters, which are not governed by the laws of any country.

So you average insurance company is not interested in providing insurance.

If you want to read more about the history of martime insurance, you could start with the history of Lloyds of London.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd%27s_of_London

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