	experts had expressed fears over ro ro safety as a british government investigation got under way into the sinking of the car ferry herald of free enterprise with heavy loss of life experts said doubts had already been expressed about the roll on roll off type of  ping minister lord brabazon said a preliminary investigation had started into why the tonne ferry capsized and sank in little over a minute as it manoeuvred to leave zeebrugge on a routine four hour crossing to dover initial reports spoke of water flooding the car decks through the bow doors but a spokesman for the owners townsend thoresen said it was also possible the ferry had been holed townsend thoresen operate two other s identical to the herald of free enterprise but brabazon said it was not planned to pull them out of service at present our investigator is there already we shall have to wait and see but it is too early to say what happened he told bbc radio as the work of retrieving bodies from the half submerged hulk continued maritime safety experts in london said doubts had already been expressed about the design of so called roro ferries such as the herald of free enterprise in the inter governmental international maritime consultative committee issued a report saying more roll on roll off vessels were lost in accidents than s with deck areas divided by bulkheads townsend thoresen say the  built at the west german yard of bremerhaven in was built to the highest safety standards but salvage expert william cooper said passengers would have had problems getting off this type of  because of its design former townsend thoresen navigating officer clive langley said the roro type of vessels were similar in some respects to a barge as any sailor knows it only takes two or three inches out of line and you can turn a barge over an ordinary  is compartmentalised and you have more stability he said cooper said cross channel ferries were normally perfectly stable but had huge wide deck areas above the water level if you do get water into that area then you can get very severe effects on the stability of the  he added reuter 
