IMAGINE a 140-ft high, 520-ft-long Butlins camp on a hull. But as well as the eight restaurants, the drink and the fun and games, there is also a whole floor of articulated lorries, room for 60 buses, tax-free shopping malls, saunas and 2,500 beds. Imagine, then, that this city of a boat falls on to its side just as you hit the dance-floor at midnight. Lasse and Weine, sewage engineers from the southern Swedish town of Finspang, were stepping on to the dance floor of the Silja Scandinavia at midnight on Thursday, 48 hours exactly after the equally huge Estonia sank in the same waters.

Their home town, coincidentally, is only 15 miles from Norrkoping, which lost 56 of its senior citizens on board the Estonia. 'One shouldn't stop living because of it,' said Weine His friend adds: 'We booked this weeks ago When I first heard yesterday morning I was numb. By the afternoon when I was packing, I realised this was going to be less fun. But then I thought that the guys who closed the doors of the ferry deck are probably feeling the handles extra carefully after the disaster. Now I'm fine - the whole thing passed for me in one day.'There were hardly any pensioners among the 24-hour cruisers on the Silja Scandinavia on Thursday night The end of the week attracts a younger crowd. Most of them never leave the ship between the inward and outward journeys, electing to spend their time losing their inhibitions courtesy of duty-free drink.There is a dogged determination to have fun among these citizens who only really let go when they leave their own shores. The young drink beer with the popular chaser of the moment: Turkish Pepper.