Exactly. This is where the professionals discuss the incidents till we’re blue in the face to make sure we’re not in a similar situation ourselves one day. The families can go hang out on Facebook for their “thoughts and prayers.” This isn’t the forum for that crap though.
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I read an interesting theory discussed on another forum im a member of…
What if someones lithium-ion battery for their phone or vape-smokeing thing exploded? If a fire got going down in the berthing area it would have lots of class A stuff to feed on and grow and would quickly fill the space up with smoke and flame. And we have all seen reports of these batteries exploding and injuring people/starting fires.
Divers has also quite powerful lights powered with lipo batteries. Overnight charging can be dangerous without proper monitoring.
And it’s almost impossible to quench if they catch fire.
My money is on propane leak
We understand that, probably more than you realize. But we are professionals and this is precisely the place to discuss these matters. When El Faro sank there was much discussion, before, during and after the hearings. And some harsh things were said about certain persons living and deceased regarding that case. I am sure some family members were hurt by what they read. But unfortunately that is the way it goes.
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I agree. I saw the spec about a built-in barbecue and that was my first thought. They had a gas leak, most likely. Add to that, all those flammable materials, wooden furnishings and trim, curtains, plastics. etc. You have an inferno in minutes.The passengers panicked, as anyone would in a fire with dense smoke blinding them. Just horrible to think about.
Batteries and vapes are another possibility I’m sure will be included in the investigation. Very reasonable to consider. They produce some wicked fires.
Catherder
Professionals work on facts established by examination and report. Speculating as to whether it was a propane leak or overheating battery on charge is anything but professional.
My only comment is confined to the evidence in photographs above together with the deck plan. A sleeping space for 30 or so people with only one entrance/exit via a galley is unsafe if a fire breaks out in the galley/escape route.
One only needs look at the Buncefield explosion where a petrol vapour leak combined with a totally still air night in mid winter combined to create the biggest peace time explosion in UK history to understand that if something can go wrong… it will.
This may be redundant given the responses to your post above but here goes anyway. You say it’s anything but professional to speculate but then you speculate that the culprit is the single point exit. I think that’s called talking out both sides of your mouth.
What started the fire, what caused it to spread so rapidly, what caused the explosions?
Of course we look forward to the experts’ findings but that takes time. It’s the duty of maritime professional to correct deficiencies that might injure or kill. If the discussion sparks a thought in someone reading the thread and thereby helps prevent an accident or indentify deficiencies before the official findings, how is that bad? If the discussion among the more experienced here can benefit new mariners, how is that bad?
Your statement that “if something can go wrong, it will” doesn’t help anything.
Get your head out of your ass.
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As of its last inspection, the Conception has been in full compliance of all certifications and safety regulations. The Conception can carry 46 people and sleep them in 13 double bunks and 20 single bunks and has life jackets for 110 passengers. At the beginning of each dive trip, a comprehensive safety briefing is conducted by the captain and all passengers aboard are required to be present. The captain shares the procedure for deploying life boats, basic emergency radio operation, the location of life jackets, and the location of two bunk room exits – a stairway towards the bow and an escape hatch near the stern of the boat. The briefing also discusses the alarms on board, underwater alarms, and location of fire extinguishers. The briefing is done within the galley at the site of the emergency escape hatch, a roughly two-feet by two-feet square plank of wood with no lock or latch on it that leads to the bunks below.
In addition to taking scuba divers on single day and overnight trips, the 23 m Conception also takes educational and research groups, family and friend getaways, and kayaking trips. Destinations include all of the offshore Islands of Southern California, with the primary destinations of Anacapa, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, San Miguel Islands. Other Islands visited are Catalina, Santa Barbara, San Clemente, San Nicolas, and Cortez Banks.
clearly not nor was the vessel
@tomahawk The tug Valour, the El Faro, Deepwater Horizon, MSC deaths, the Duckboat sinking, countless deathboat (lifeboat) drill accidents etc. Mariners on this forum discuss deaths in our industry all the time. We do it everyday, business as usual. People die at sea & we know it. But for some reason I found myself thinking about the poor souls who perished on the Conception more than I usually do for deaths at sea, more than I should. It stuck with me & I was thinking about it when I should of been thinking about other things. Maybe I’m just getting old? But I found when I talked or wrote about it I thought about it less when the conversation was over. Like I let some of the stuff that was stuck in my head out. So I figure us talking about is a part of a mental process & something additional to discussing improving the safety aspects of our jobs. I think everyone will be professional & respectfull on this thread. If you don’t want to read it or share then don’t. But don’t criticize us for being human & for doing what humans do.
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I’m not sure what that has to do with anything we’ve discussed. I could understand that comment if we were trash talking dead crew without evidence of culpability but we’re not.
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It seems stupid to route the escape hatch through the same compartment as the primary exit. If the galley catches on fire there’s no way out of the berthing.
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I does seem incredible that the CG would even consider it an escape route if it leads to the same space as the primary entry/exit.
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IMHO this won’t come down to propane as the cause. A propane explosion would have woken everyone on the boat and everyone on every other boat and pieces of dive boat would have been scattered everywhere. I think it will be flammable liquid getting loose and maybe either gasoline for the dinghy or cooking oil. I have had the red plastic dinghy tanks get UV rotted to the point they broke apart and dumped 6 gallons of gas onto my feet 
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If thats the case its certainly a design flaw. A lot of these charter vessels were cast from the same mold. The heads and galley are directly above the passenger berthing. In the berthing the aft bulkhead borders the ER and the fwd bulkhead is usually the colission bulkhead. One big difference on other charter vessels is the stairway from the main deck to the bunkroom is outside, on the aft end of the main house…often times on various vessels that come to mind off the top of my head its two seperate staircases, port and stbd.
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More to the point; when the investigation is completed and the final report issued, will any lessons be learnt and regulations changed based on it?
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@ombugge I think things will change. The charter boat lobby, if such thing exsist, doesn’t have deep enough pockets like other lobbyists to make these senseless deaths disappear.
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It’s been a somewhat dying industry, boats of this size, which is why I stopped doing it full time almost 20 years ago. This company is one of the very few in southern california that steadily runs, all year. Most of the other dive and sportfishing vessels are very seasonal, pretty much only 4 months out of the year. Its a lucrative business for few, not many.
We all know a lot of regulations happen in a reactive manner, not proactive. There will be a lot of changes regarding escape routes for berthing, firefighting capabilities, etc…and who knows whatever else will come from the findings after picking apart what the crew did or didn’t do,
their training or lack thereof.