Ferry accident highlights danger of sea travel

Traveling island to island in Indonesia means using a selection of old ferry boats. The recent sinking of a ferry in W. Timor, was followed by a sinking of an Egyptian ferry. The kind of ferry that sank in the Red Sea was a Ro-Ro (roll on roll off) kind that are popular is Europe, I used to go to France once a week from Dover on one of these. In 1994 the Estonia sank in the Baltic killing many people, it was a ro ro also and the crew forget to shut the door after the cars drove on.

In September 2003 the Bali-Lombok ferry sank, it too was a Ro-Ro type. These boats look okay when you get on them, they seem like a proper ship, but reading the Yahoo article its obvious Ro-Ro boats have a major stability problem. Many of the islands in Indonesia are served by older looking ferries where the passengers are sold tickets to sit on top of the cargo. As I said before, the safest place is on the rear deck, allowing you to abandon ship if you need to in a hurry.