6.5
Take-over and Change of Flag

N&T had arranged for some officers, engineers and ratings to be trained on WASA KING already since November/December 1992. Thus at least some of the Estonian crew members had some basic knowledge about the new vessel. Also some of the Swedish advisers spent some time on WASA KING, inter alia, the first nautical adviser to the Estonian captains, Anders Andersson, who had been sacked after repeated clashes with Captain Arvo Andresson already in June 1993, while his wife Marlene stayed in her capacity as hotel and restaurant manager until July 1994. Their testimonies to the public prosecutor shall be discussed in Subchapter 7.1.3.

6.5.1
In Turku

The vessel was drydocked between 4-8 January 1993 and the necessary inspections were carried out. As has already been explained in Subchapter 3.4 above at this time also some maintenance work was performed which was partly ordered by the old owners, Wasa Line, and partly by the technical managers of the new owners, N&T. The executed repair work, however, constituted only less than a fraction of what had been intended to be carried out by Wasa Line at the scheduled docking time in January 1993 had the ferry remained with them. This must be concluded from the following comparison between

• the tender specification and quotation dated 25.09.92 - Enclosure 3.4.96
• the docking specification - Enclosure 3.4.97

  and

• the repair invoice for Wasa Line - Enclosure 3.4.102
• the repair invoice for N&T - Enclosure 3.4.103.
• Accordingly only the following works were performed:
• renewal of Cedarvall stern tube seals
• measuring of rudder deflection
• repairs of 1 electric motor
• repair welding of both rudders, propeller shafts, bottom valve, leakage in way of bilge keel, fender bars at port and starboard
• repair welding of bow thruster nozzle
• grinding of 2 propeller blades

as far as the Wasa Line invoice - Enclosure 3.4.102 - is concerned and

• generals, i.e. docking, electric connection, freshwater, fire-watch, garbage removal, etc.
• change of zinc anodes, anchor with chains checked, bottom- and side-valves, etc.
• work in connection with change of name /home port
• some sandblasting.

In addition, the N&T invoice - Enclosure 3.4.103 - contains the following item:

• "pipe work according to offer yard 25.09.92"

Accordingly the "offer yard", i.e. the tender specification dated 25.09.92 - Enclosure 3.4.96 - must have been handed over to N&T since otherwise they would have been unable to understand (and accept) the meaning of the item nos. 56.26.1 to 55.26.20 on their invoice.

This means, on the other hand, that N&T in their capacity as technical managers of the ESTONIA had been aware of the intention of the previous owners of the ferry to have, among other things

• the locking devices of the bow ramp and the visor serviced and strengthened;
• the hinges of the bow ramp overhauled and possibly the bushings renewed;
• 15 m of the visor rubber packing and 10 m of the bow ramp rubber packing renewed.

It has to be assumed that these requirements of the experienced Finnish crew of WASA KING came to the knowledge of N&T during or before the time of take-over of the ferry, however, nothing at all was done by N&T to rectify the deficiencies of the locking devices, hinges and rubber packings of the visor and the bow ramp which were obviously due to wear and tear after 12 years in service.

Nevertheless, the responsible Technical Director of N&T and Board-member of Estline, Sten-Christer Forsberg, replied to the question of the reporter Erik Ridderstolpe on the Swedish Radio on 11.12.97:

Forsberg: «I admit the responsibility of N&T for the condition of the visor and the too weak locking devices had we known it, however, I saw the repair specification of the last Finnish crew for the first time in the report of the Commission.»
Ridderstolpe: «And you did not receive any type of information in this respect?»
Forsberg: «No, this was not available to us.»

It is, of course, possible that Forsberg himself was unaware of this tender specification at the time of the take-over, however, this certainly cannot be accepted for the superintendent Ulf Hobro, the technical no. 2 after Forsberg, who was representing N&T and the owners at Turku during the take-over as well as during all previous inspections of the vessel. See further in Subchapter 12.5 below.
On 15 January 1993 the vessel was formally handed over to the new owners and her name was changed to ESTONIA, the home port to Tallinn and the flag to Estonian.
The first crew list (Enclosure 6.5.1.123) contains quite a number of names of crew members who were also on board on the last voyage, only very few of whom survived. The first Estonian master was Arvo Andresson and his nautical adviser was Anders Andersson, whilst the first chief engineer was Harli Moosaar and his technical adviser was Tomas Rasmusson. These two as well as all the other "advisers" were employed by Hornet AB on behalf of N&T (see CV Tomas Rasmusson attached as Enclosure 6.5.1.124).

The handing-over procedure was attended by

Ulf Hobro - technical inspector of N&T on behalf of the buyers,
Charles Richardson - technical inspector of Wasa Line on behalf of the sellers,
Anders Wirstam - on behalf of B.V. and the Estonian Board of Navigation,
1 inspector from Sjöfartsverket to assist B.V.
1 technical surveyor of Trygg Hansa, Stockholm, the new Hull Underwriters of the vessel, who performed a condition survey also on behalf of the new P&I Club, Skuld-Stockholm.

A summary of his condition survey report is attached as Enclosure 3.4.105 and refers also to findings made subsequently during a further drydocking in March 1993. The surveyor approved the vessel for entry into the new Hull and P&I covers without any condition whatsoever. According to a statement of Ulf Hobro made before the JAIC in February 1995 visor and bow ramp as well as locking devices and indicator lights were function tested at Turku and everything was found to be in order. It is obvious that Hobro and/or Wirstam paid no attention to the items in the repair specification/quotation dated 25.09.92, which they had received from the previous owners as explained on the previous pages.

The vessel departed with problems from Turku on the evening of 15 January 1993 and sailed to Tallinn.