Herald of Free Enterprise

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The Herald of Free Enterprise, like her sister ships Pride of Free Enterprise and Spirit of Free Enterprise, was a modern ro-ro passenger/vehicle ferry designed for use on the high-volume short Dover-Calais ferry route. She could accelerate rapidly to her service speed of 22 knots. She was certificated to carry a maximum of 1,400 persons.

At 433 feet long and 7,950 gross tons, the Herald was of record size at her launching in 1980 and was one of the prides of the 22-ship Townsend Thoresen fleet. She had two main vehicle decks and at Dover and Calais double–deck ramps connected to the ferry, allowing simultaneous vehicle access to both decks. At Zeebrugge there was only a single-level access ramp which did not allow simultaneous deck loading. Ferry turnaround time was longer at this port. This single ramp could not quite reach the upper vehicle deck and so water ballast was pumped into tanks in the bow of the Herald to facilitate loading.

(Source: Colin Boyd, Case Studies in Corporate Social Policy in Post, Frederick, Lawrence & Weber, Business and Society, New York, 1996)

Accidents and the lessons learned
Many of her 500 plus passengers were in the restaurant or buying duty-free goods when the Herald of Free Enterprise suddenly began to list [definition] to port [definition] as she left Zeebrugge, Belgium, on the evening of 6th March 1987.
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update
BALTIMORE, Maryland (CNN) -- Recovery teams worked Sunday to locate three people presumed to have been killed in a water-taxi tragedy in Baltimore's Inner Harbor