MS Estonia Voyage Tips and guide

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In the early hours of 28 September 1994, Europe's deadliest peacetime shipwreck took place when the passenger ferry MS Estonia sunk in the northern Baltic Sea on a journey from Tallinn to Stockholm. Out of the 989 people on board, 852 perished and 137 survived. A kind of a modern-day Titanic, it has spun of documentaries, memorials, conspiracy theories as well as much shock and sorrow for the people involved, friends and family and the general public in the Nordic and Baltic countries.

Unlike the Titanic the ship carried lifeboats and rafts that could fit twice the amount of passengers that were on board that night, MS Estonia wasn't on its maiden voyage but had a track record of 14 years of sailing in the northern Baltic, both nearest land and other ships were much closer, and modern communication and radar technology was available. However, the events unfolded much quicker and in much worse weather conditions, and as such the odds of survival were worse for the passengers onboard the Estonia.

As Northern Europe is split into parts by the Baltic Sea, ships, boats and ferries have been a natural way of moving people and goods since the Viking Age and beyond. Over the centuries shipping developed from sailships, to steamships and diesel powered motorships.

In the 1960s, roll on/roll off ships – first used to and from Britain and Ireland – emerged on lines between Finland and Sweden. Previously cars were lifted on and off the ships by cranes like other cargo, but now cars and trucks could drive on and off the ships along ramps in both ends of the ship, making loading and offloading much quicker. Besides the advantage for freight logistics, this was useful as car ownership and international travel grew year by year. Since then, practically all ferries carrying cars and passengers in the Baltic Sea and the rest of Europe are of this type. This design however also enables water to enter the ship quickly if it sails with the ramps open, as proved by the MS Herald of Free Enterprise disaster on 6 March 1987. That ship left the berth at Zeebruges with the front wide open, and within minutes it had scooped up enough water to capsize half a nautical mile into its journey, in shallow water. 193 of the 459 passengers died.

After WWII, Estonia was part of the Soviet Union, and travelling there and back wasn't as easy as today, not to speak of the opportunities for the average Estonian to travel abroad at all (especially to the west). When independence was restored in 1991, travel west exploded. The Soviet-owned Estonian Shipping Company (ESCO) had operated a ferry line between Tallinn and Helsinki already since 1967; in 1990, ESCO and the Swedish shipping company Nordström & Thulin established a joint company named Estline to start traffic between Tallinn and Stockholm, first with a ferry named MS Nord Estonia, acquired from the Danish DFDS shipping company. Because of the growing demand, the company eventually had to start looking for a ship with a larger passenger capacity.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Meyer Werft shipyard in Papenburg, West Germany, built several car and passenger ferries for operators between Finland and Sweden. One of them was MS Viking Sally, finished in 1980, who sailed for the shipping company Viking Line between Turku or Naantali and Stockholm or Kapellskär via the Åland Islands until early 1990, and for Viking Line's competitor Silja Line as MS Silja Star for a few months during the same year. Silja Line then renamed the ship MS Wasa King and used it on its lines in the Gulf of Bothnia, from Vaasa to Umeå and Sundsvall.

During the ship's service between Finland and Sweden, it ran aground a couple of times and the damages had to be repaired. Now that is something that happens to some cruiseferry every few years in the shallow waters of the northern Baltic. However, more unusual was the two murders that took place onboard Viking Sally in 1986 and 1987, the latter of which remains unsolved.

Having operated a couple of years out of Vaasa, Wasa King was sold to Estline in early 1993 and renamed MS Estonia. This was a larger and newer ferry than Northern Estonia, which it replaced – MS Estonia could carry 2,000 passengers and 460 cars. The ship was the largest ship in the Estonian ship registry (eventhough technically Estline was based on Cyprus) and a point of pride for the recently independent country. MS Estonia connected Tallinn with Stockholm for a year and a half without problems.

On the evening of 27 September 1994 at 19:15 MS Estonia left Tallinn for an overnight sailing to Stockholm, with 803 passengers and 186 crew members on board – about half the capacity of the ship. Winds were moderate and there was some rain showers. However, conditions deteriorated as the ship sailed west. Around midnight the wind reached a speed of up to 25 m/s, the waves a height of up to 6 m and the ship was swinging back and forth making some passengers seasick.

Just before 01:00 at night a bang was heard from the bow when it was hit by a wave, but when a seaman went to check out the situation on the car deck, everything seemed normal. Ten minutes later, more banging sounds were heard. The seaman was sent to check the car deck again, but before he made it there, at around 01:15, the bow visor (outer gate) had dropped off the ferry and also ripped open the loading ramp – the earlier bangs were from the visor being wiggled loose from the locks and hinges one by one as it was hit by the waves. As the visor wasn't visible from the bridge, and the indicator lamps showed that the visor would be locked in place, the crew had until then no idea what was going on.

Tons of water flowed through the gap with each wave hitting the ferry, and then moved around on the car deck, amplifying the power of the waves, probably making cargo move around as well. Sure, already the Titanic had those 16 watertight compartments, four of which could be filled with water and that ship would still stay afloat, but those would have been helpful only for leaks below the waterline. When the point of no return was reached, MS Estonia quickly tipped over to starboard.

An alarm was given, though the passengers who had been thrown around the ship now obviously were aware that something was very wrong. At 01:22 the ship sent out Mayday messages, picked up by surrounding ships and the Turku maritime rescue centre. But the waves and the quickly increasing listing caused the ship to be immersed in water within a matter of minutes and most passengers never made it out of their cabins. Apparently around 300 people managed to climb through the corridors and stairways, which had become shafts, to make it to the outer decks. The list prevented launching lifeboats and there seems to have been no organised evacuation. The flooding also caused a blackout, making it difficult for the bridge to communicate their location. Around 01:30 MS Estonia lay on its starboard side with a list of 90°, and about 20 minutes later it disappeared from radars. The ship sank in international waters, about 22 nautical miles (41 km) from the island of Utö.

Within an hour after the sinking, the closest cruiseferries MS Mariella (operated by Viking Line) and MS Silja Europa arrived on scene, and the first helicopter from Turku at 03:05, followed by more ships and helicopters. Due to the conditions, the rescue efforts went slowly. Several ships – cruiseferries and freight ships – would arrive on site but there was little they could do, as launching lifeboats or MOB (man overboard) boats was deemed too risky. MS Mariella and MS Isabella caught rafts by positioning themselves in their way and then helped victims to get on board. Otherwise the ships helped in finding people to rescue and tried to give shelter, even that risky, as laying broadside to the waves caused heavy rolling.

In practice, most survivors were saved by rescue swimmers of the helicopters, especially by the ones of the first helicopter, one of two that mostly landed on the cruiseferry helipads instead of taking victims to the shore. This was not a trivial feat, as the ferries rolled in the heavy seas – neither was getting a rescue swimmer safely into the water in the 4–5-m waves. Some rescue swimmers had to be rescued themselves after winch malfunctions and other problems. Helicopters with less daring pilots had to fly to different locations in Finland or to Stockholm, as had all of them for refuelling and for getting victims to hospital. Luckily, the nearest island, Utö, had a military base with fuel available.

The rescuers managed to get 138 people ashore, one of them however died later in a hospital. In total about one out of seven people survived the shipwreck, compared to one out of three onboard the Titanic. Not everyone who made it to the liferafts survived; many died of hypothermia while waiting for help – people were wet, many half-naked, many didn't get into the rafts but sat atop of them, and the air temperature was some 10 °C (50 °F), with severe wind chill.

The bow visor was found a few miles from the ship and lifted some time later, and the investigation commission came to the conclusion that its locking mechanism was inadequate for the conditions on the sea that night – the needed strength had been calculated according to static loads (which was the only way to do it back then), the shipyard had made some shortcuts and she was planned for the more sheltered Turku–Stockholm route. They also criticized the staff for sailing too fast, not alerting the passengers in time and not sending out emergency calls to other ships earlier.

First there were plans to raise the wreck, however in December the Estonian, Finnish and Swedish governments decided that the wreck should be covered by rocks and officially turned into a grave and diving to be banned. This, together with reports that Soviet military equipment had been smuggled to the West for examination onboard the ship, led to several theories that this was a coverup of an onboard explosion, torpedo strike, mine or the like.

Like any major accident, it led to many improvements in safety on the sea. Passenger records became mandatory for passenger ships calling at ports in Sweden and Finland, movable walls were built on car decks to divide them into several compartments and the gates to car decks were redesigned.

Map of MS Estonia

All countries are part of the EU and Schengen area, so administratively, if you've entered one of the countries you can visit all of them. However, your travel documents may be checked in the ports.

If you want to visit all of the above points, the most efficient way would be driving your own car, as many of the places are a bit off the beaten track, with infrequent public transportation.

Papenburg is next to the Autobahn network. From there it is about a two day drive (more if you want to do sightseeing along the way) to the destinations around the Northern Baltic, with or without a ferry; there are may route options. If going by plane, the nearest major airports are in Bremen and Hamburg.

From there, Estonia is reachable by train and coach or by driving via Hamburg, Berlin, Warsaw and then along Via Baltica. For less driving, you can take a ferry from northern Germany or Sweden to one of the Baltic States.

The Stockholm region where the Swedish destinations are, is likewise reachable by driving via Denmark (across the Great Belt and Öresund bridges), by train or by ferry from Germany to southern Sweden and then up the E4.

Getting to Finland entails a ferry from Tallinn, Travemünde or Stockholm; of course, if you are determined not to set foot on a ship, a very long drive through almost the length of Sweden and back south through most of Finland would also be possible. Would the borders with Russia not be closed, it would be a shorter drive (albeit with some bureaucracy). Some of the places are on islands, requiring a ferry trip (or a private plane) anyhow.

53.09797.36151 Meyer Werft in Papenburg was founded in 1795 and is one of the world's largest shipyards. This is where the ship was built as Viking Sally in 1979–1980. Today the shipyard mainly builds cruise ships for companies operating in the Caribbean. There is a visitor centre where you can drop in just like that, but to see the actual shipbuilding, book a guided tour.

There are several memorials to the shipwreck in Estonia. One is outside the Catherina Church in Võru in south-eastern Estonia. Sitting next to the central square it is a 57.8483326.995142 black rock with names of victims inscribed. It is tilted like a leaning tower (likely a reference to the ship tilted over) and a hand reaching out from the rock for help.

The 58.38224.48383 memorial in Pärnu (Estonia laeva huku mälesmärk) is near the shore. It is a metal construction over a black gravestone, stating the ship's name, date and coordinates of the sinking.

Wikimedia Commons showcases a memorial in Põltsamaa, in central Estonia (on the Tallinn–Tartu highway), though it is more of a gravestone erected to specific victims. There are likely several such minor memorials or graves around the country.

Tallinn, the home port of MS Estonia, is where the ferry headed out for its last journey, from 59.444224.76234 Terminal B. Just outside the old town wall you can find the 59.4425924.750535 broken line memorial (Katketanud liin) symbolizing the last sailing to Stockholm that was never completed. The Estonian Maritime museum also has an exhibition on the ship, in the 59.444224.76236 Lennusadam branch, including a scale model of the ship and a lifeboat. Next to the Broken line memorial, the old town branch of the museum displays older maritime history of Estonia.

Following the Estonian coastline westwards, there's a 59.439924.50247 memorial at the Rannamõisa cemetery west of Tallinn. Heading to the islands there are a memorial both on the northernmost point of Hiiumaa and in the northern part of Saaremaa.

On your way between Tallinn and the islands, you can make a sidetrip to the town of Paldiski, which was a major Soviet Navy base and handed over to Estonians only in August 1994 (three years after Estonian independence and a few weeks before the shipwreck), and its former nuclear facilities stayed in Russian hands for one more year.

In Tagaranna, Saaremaa (Parvlaev Estonia mälestusmärk) there's a 58.545922.20428 memorial in the form of a gravestone on the coast. The text reads roughly: "May the dawn be your candlelight, the dusk your guidelight. May the silent murmur of the sea be your eternal lullaby. In memory of those who perished in the Estonia disaster on 28.09.1994."

In Hiiumaa near the Tahkuna lighthouse is a 59.091922.58429 memorial to the children who died in the disaster – this amounts to almost all of the children that were onboard as only a couple of them were among the survivors. There is a bell that you can ring, and it apparently rings by itself when there is a storm. This is likely the closest Estonian soil to the shipwreck.

59.38333321.6833331 The shipwreck happened in international waters, but in the exclusive economical zone of Finland, which is the closest country. As such, rescue efforts were coordinated from here, and many survivors and bodies were brought on shore to Finland; to the nearest town of Hanko, to Turku where the nearest major hospital is, and to the island of 59.7821.372410 Utö which is 22 nautical miles (40 km or 25 imperial miles) from the place of the sinking. As mentioned before, don't expect to be able to dive the wreck. For citizens of states around the Baltic (which have signed the treaty banning diving) it's a crime and you may face jailtime.

Perhaps surprisingly there's no memorial to the disaster on Utö, though locals who lived here in 1994 certainly have memories of the day. This isn't the only shipwreck that has taken place in the waters around this island. One of them, the wreck of American SS Park Victory, who sank outside Utö in 1947, can be dived, however you have to make your own arrangements as there are no local diving clubs. At the southern peninsula of the island, there's a memorial to Draken which ran aground and sank outside Utö in 1929. And during WWII, the Finnish Navy's flagship Ilmarinen hit a mine and sank about 20 nm west of where Estonia would sink. Overall, there are around 200 wrecks in the waters around Utö, according to a documentary shot shortly after the sinking.

The ferry to Utö goes from Nagu, itself a ferry ride from the mainland. In Nagu there is likewise a 60.1620421.7048711 memorial, near the harbour of Pärnäs, where the ferry to Utö leaves. This is a simple engraved stone plaque with the name of the ship and date of the disaster, sitting next to a larger rock.

MS Estonia was supposed to arrive in Stockholm, at Värtahamnen, the next morning at 09:30 Swedish time (10:30 Estonian). By that time, the survivors had been brought to land or onboard the ships that had come to rescue, and helicopters just recovered bodies from the sea. Some of the victims had actually been brought to hospitals in Stockholm. Across the strait, on Lidingö, there's a 59.3518.137812 memorial outside Bodal church. From there, there's a view to many of the ferries connecting Stockholm to Finland, Åland and the Baltics (the rest call at Stadsgårdshamnen).

The island of Djurgården has possibly Stockholm's largest concentration of museums, including 59.326318.095213 Vrak, which is all about (ship)wrecks, as its Swedish name reveals. It has a section on MS Estonia. According to the website of Vrak, the salvaged bow visor of the ship would be part of the collections of the 59.3323918.115914 Swedish Maritime Museum (Sjöhistoriska Museet) a bit north, in Östermalm. That visor has been on display in several places before, in Södertälje, Älvsnabbe and Muskö. The Maritime Museum presents Swedish maritime history in general.

Back on Djurgården, near Vrak, there's a museum dedicated to another famous Swedish shipwreck, the Vasa museum. Here you can see the salvaged battleship Vasa which sunk in Stockholm less than a nautical mile into its maiden voyage in 1628. Halfway between these museums there's possibly the most famous 59.327718.093615 Estonia memorial in Sweden, at Galärvarvskyrkogården (Galley shipyard cemetery).

Further south, in the old town there's the 59.323618.07516 former Nordström & Thulin headquarters at Skeppsbron 34. The shipping company that owned Estline jointly with the Estonian state was established in 1850, but after the disaster it left passenger traffic entirely, and in 2000 the company folded. You can see the company logo on the façade.

Still further south, in Södermalm, not far away from the port that Viking Sally used when sailing between Sweden and Finland, you can see a 59.3168718.0913917 memorial in the form of a cross at the premises of Ersta Church. Finally, there's a 59.429817.794118 memorial at Görvälns griftegård in the district of Stäket in north-western Stockholm.

While most of the crew were Estonian, most of the passengers were Swedish, in many cases groups returning from an event in the Baltic states or on a cruise. As such there was much grief in individual communities in Sweden. Indeed this was the deadliest disaster to strike Swedish people in modern time, only matched by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

Overall cruiseferries are a safe mode of travel, thousands of people travel on them every day in the northern Baltic Sea throughout the year. The Estonia disaster brought some improvement to safety, with compartments on car decks and passenger records, and it also highlighted the importance of following safety and maintenance procedures which were already in place at that time.

While this disaster isn't the topic of nearly as many books and movies as the Titanic, there are some movies and series featuring the shipwreck, several more documentaries and interviews of different kinds, many of which can be seen on YouTube, as well as books and reports. Here are some examples:

• Baltic storm — a 2003 fictional movie about the shipwreck. The main character is the German journalist Julia Reuter trying to uncover the real reasons about the sinking which would be a bomb planted by Russians to stop the smuggling of Soviet military technology to the west. It's based on the book Die Estonia. Tragödie eines Schiffsuntergangs by Jutta Rabe.
• "...det ser illa ut": Estoniakatastrofen 28 september 1994 — a 2022 book by survivor Sara Hedrenius, 20 years at the time.
• Estonia — a 2023 Finnish drama series about the disaster
• Estonia (in Swedish with the subtitle fyndet som ändrar allt) — a Norwegian 2020 documentary series about the disaster, including footage from unauthorized dives that showed a hole in the wreck. These series led to further investigations by Estonian and Swedish authorities, however these didn't find anything new. The hole was explained by Estonia hitting rocks of the seabed.
• The Days the Flowers Bloom (De dagar som blommorna blommar) — a Swedish miniseries following three friends growing up in the 1970s Stockholm. One of them explores his family history in the newly independent Estonia, and ends up in the shipwreck.

• Baltic Sea ferries
• RMS Titanic