Though many couples and a few groups were aboard, collectively it was a ship full of strangers, with little time to make new friends or, as people do on longer passages, to fall even temporarily in love. Inside the Estonia, the public spaces had the look of a coastal casino designed around a nautical theme-completely serviceable but over-decorated in red, a bit worn, a bit out of date. The vessel's motion was at first barely noticeable to the passengers. That night the ship knifed ahead at its full 19 knots, with all four main engines fully throttled up to their combined output of 23,500 horsepower, driving the hull across the gently accumulating seas. The main worry was to arrive in Stockholm on time.
Surviving crew members later claimed that a special effort had been made on the car deck to lash the trucks down securely-exemplary behavior that, if it occurred, probably had more to do with concern about vehicle-damage claims than about the safety of the ship. Such conditions were rare for the area, occurring only a few times every fall and winter, but for ferries of this size they were not considered to be severe. There were various forecasts, and they tended to agree: an intense low-pressure system near Oslo was moving quickly to the east, and was expected to drag rain and strong winds across the route, stirring up waves occasionally as high as twenty feet. Gentle swells rolled in from the west, indicating the sea's unease-with significance probably only to the crew, which had received storm warnings for the open water ahead but had not spread the news. Passengers hardy enough to withstand the wind and cold on deck would have seen gray forested islands creeping by to the north, and to the south the long industrial shoreline of Estonia giving way to a low coast darkening until it faded into the night. For the first several hours, as dusk turned to night, it moved through sheltered coastal waters. It departed from its home port, Tallinn, at around 7:15 P.M., and proceeded on its regular run, 258 miles and fifteen hours west across open waters to the Swedish archipelago and Stockholm. On the night of its demise the Estonia had 989 people aboard. In this case, however, it did not-and indeed it caused the ship to capsize and sink when it came open in the storm and then fell entirely off. At sea that bow was supposed to remain closed and locked. In port the car deck was accessed through a special openable bow that could be raised to allow vehicles to drive in and out. It also had a car deck that stretched from bow to stern through the hull's insides. It had labyrinths of cabins, a swimming pool and sauna, a duty-free shop, a cinema, a casino, a video arcade, a conference center, three restaurants, and three bars. It was a massive steel vessel, 510 feet long and nine decks high, with accommodations for up to 2,000 people. The ship was the pride of the newly independent Estonian nation, recently arisen from the Soviet ruins.
Read the Bible verses below for the story of Jesus calming the storm and learn more about how Jesus can calm the storms in your life today! Also find related articles, videos, and audio sermons to help guide you in understanding this Bible story.A fter midnight, in the first hours of September 28, 1994, the ferry Estonia foundered in the waves of a Baltic storm. Christ's rebuke of the storm is also an illustration of His calming the tempests in the human soul. God both permits storms and delivers us through them so that we can see His protection more clearly. The image of Christ and His disciples in a boat is traditionally used to illustrate the Church. In His incarnation, He assumed all the natural actions of the flesh, of which sleep is one. Jesus was asleep because as man, He needed rest. Commands to the sea and waves can only be issued by God ( Job 38:8-11, Psalm 65:5-6). The Lord's mastery over creation is another sign that He is the Messiah and is divine. And the men marveled, saying, "What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?" ( Matthew 8:23-27) Meaning of Jesus Calming the Storm And they went and woke him, saying, "Save us, Lord we are perishing." And he said to them, "Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?" Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves but he was asleep. And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him.
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