I don’t quarrel with that. Look for horses, not zebras.
Though I know that the folks who fast-charge battery packs for use in RC aircraft and the like tend to do so in fireproof containers and have for some time. I forget what the charging rates are but they’re very high – possibly 100 x C?
I was just reading the other day that there have been about 250 incidents of battery fires from consumer electronics carried in aircraft. And the last time I flew I had to carry pretty much all my batteries with me in the cabin, as they didn’t want them in the hold.
Those are excellent points. I have no idea how the investigators will distinguish between thermal runaway as an ignition source and lithium as an accelerant for a fire that started from an electrical failure, but I’m sure we’ll learn in time. Here’s some light reading on lithium ion safety:
I’m sure you’re right to expect this as standard practice, what with the proud precedence and all. I’m equally certain that given half a chance, I’d direct any practitioners of such foul standards to shove this moral decrepitude up their white star lined asses and take a berth with no safe egress.
Sure, there’s a constructive discussion somewhere in this sorry mess, about personal versus corporate liability and all that, but the way it’s playing out is just offensive.
If anything is distracting from the salient points at hand, it’s the growing focus on the source of the fire. @Kennebec_Captain beat me to it…
…but I’ll drive it home anyway: It’s not so much about what led to the fire as what the fire led to. The rate of fires in li-ion batteries is variously reported to be one in a million units or so. I have no clue about the failure rate of high performance diving lights with the possibility of salt water ingress, but it’s going to be higher. So what if it was the charge station or some fancy new coffee maker that caught fire? Would the latter make this the manufacturer’s responsibility? Not at all.
The source of the fire will likely never be known, although I’m sure we will be presented with a number of possibilities, but the source of the disaster is looking increasingly clear: The boat was designed so that a developed superstructure fire would kill everyone on the lower deck, and it was operated so that a fire was allowed to develop before the alarm was raised.
There’s supposed to be some more official information released locally in an hour or so. On the local morning news today, a new factor was mentioned. Apparently they had just finished a night dive ‘not too long before’ the incident started.
Either way, lets assume the dive ops were over 0100…last deckhand done cleaning up around 0230. Fire breaks out around 0330? This is suggesting that no one was at a watch keeping status for an hour.
Someone should have still been up doing rounds no matter what. With a 6 man crew, assuming there was only one cook, that should be plenty of man power to work out a watch schedule. Hopefully this question mark about was there a watch at all times gets answered soon because for whatever reason everyone is side stepping it and putting it off for the time being.
This incident didn’t happen on a boat, it occurred right outside my house. My wife saw it happen. HVAC installer had the battery for his ecig in his pocket. Battery was about the size of two rolls of dimes together end on end. He had loose change with it. When the change met the contacts on the battery, it looked like he had a sparkler in his pants. He reached in to remove it from the pocket and resulting damge caused him to have the tip of finger that made contact get amputated due to damage. Whether he had skin grafts to his thigh I do not know. I found some blackened coins. His pant leg got blown open.
So I don’t have to use much imagination to see a charging station with maybe a battery or two rolling around. Boats move at rest especially in a swell. And then add some salt water laden gloves hanging above, one falls and the scenario of battery and thermal insulation plus conductive liquid is present. Go figure. Point is: be aware with what you do with tools like that because of this catastrophe. It is prudent.
Ctony, you are absolutely right on watchstanding, one guy I tried to fire was at risk for his job because he fell asleep on watch. We were only 4 crew, we were surrounded by a production oilfield though. When I worked Tboats with passengers for overnight carriage, passengers on board or not, it was a given we’d get fired if we were caught asleep on watch. So we stayed awake and did our job. That boat was wood on frame, no epoxy, traditional pine tar and all.
The 50 m liveaboard dive boat Argonaut Explorer at anchor in the Virgin Islands. It accommodates 40 passengers in 20 cabins. There is no comparison to the spartan Conception class of liveaboards with for the passengers a primitive bunkhouse accommodation that became their coffin as it turned out. Totally different ballpark altogether.
The cause of the fire will likely be discovered. My question is this. Were there smoke and CO detectors in the space where these people were sleeping and were they loud enough to wake even one of them up?
Years ago at a fire training class a retired district fire chief told us he had seen a lot of dead bodies from smoke inhalation but never once had he seen one where there was a functioning audible $20 smoke alarm in the room. I suppose if you are carrying people on a boat you could spring for one of the $40 CO detectors.
How do you figure? They can tell a lot from soot patterns on still standing walls, and even some from heat damage patterns on concrete foundations, but from the ash heap left after a yacht burns to the water line? I’d be surprised.
Smoke detectors in living quarters is a really good idea. However, these people didn’t die from inhaling smoke in their sleep. They died because there was no way out when they discovered their predicament, and that’s why this accident is doubly horrifying. What you need above all is some form of fire detection throughout the ship, preferably linked to a cattle siren somewhere, but in my limited experience a run-of-the-mill grocery store smoke alarm will snap me right awake even if it’s far away. IMHO, the galley is the first place you want to put one (not counting ER systems of course).
Perhaps the cause will never be discovered but in my past experience the NTSB was pretty good at their job. Sadly they do not have regulatory authority but they used to be fine investigators. Now? Who knows? If these people died because they could not get out is a question I do not have an answer to though it is plausible. We will wait a year or so for the report. Meanwhile if I owned a T boat I’d rush out to Walmart or contact Amazon and order some CO and smoke detectors to put in the berthing area. Might set you back $200 to stick them up everywhere but it won’t hurt and all you have to do is replace a 9v battery every 6 months or so. Even though they may not be required by regulation it just seems prudent.
The crew should have been separated immediately when the CG arrived, to eliminate any possibility of any corroborating. Also wondering if underwear would be considered proper PPE?
After the NTSB releases there preliminary report, and in the future as the investigation concludes with the final report there will not be only one root cause.
California dive boat owner asks the judge to limit payouts to victims’ families.
I cannot understand the vitriol being directed at the vessel’s owners. The owners would have liability insurance and would have been directed by their attorney to take the action they took to maintain their cover.
As to causes I will wait for the investigation to run its course. Fires have been caused onboard ship where a generic charger has been used instead of the manufacturer’s equipment and P & I clubs have drawn attention to this. Not that on this occasion the operator would have been aware of this.
In small vessels carrying passengers propane is routinely used for the gas hob in the galley. Access to the galley is from a weather deck and food is passed through to the eating area through a serving hatch. Should there be a leak there is little possibility of the gas entering the vessel.
