Fire on board - 16 years on

oceanfroggie

oceanfroggie

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16 Years on I still get the hee-bee-geebies whenever I remember this fire. All's well that end's well, but boy we were fortunate. Looking back so many things could have gone wrong, were we lucky, foolish, impetuous, fortunate to have a guardian angle on our side?

Clicky: Fire on Board

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To this day anybody on board our boat is not is ever allowed up in the cockpit when we are at sea with bringing their PFD up with them, they can carry it or wear it, they're just not allowed to leave it below. No matter how nice a day, no matter how glass flat the sea state, smoke is smoke, and leaving a PDF below could cost a life either by attempting to retrieve it or when abandoning. Fortunately this crew were wearing theirs so they had no need to attempt to reenter their smoke filled boat cabin. Thank God the children weren't below playing monopoly or cards.

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Certainly my worse nightmare if cruising alone with no signs of nearby traffic, Life raft always at hand!

They had the great fortune to have you close OF.

Not something you would forget for sure.
 
I’ve had 2 small and containable fires aboard.

I posted about one at home a few months back. Despite many training courses I was scared as the f word. I managed to put it out but at least I could have just walked into the street if I had too.

My constant bitching about the lack of drills or poor quality training ultimately cost me my last job.

W.
 
Can't understand why that boat burnt so well, unless it had petrol onboard. Did the owner or crew say what had caught fire ??
 
PilotWolf said:
GRP burns very well.

W
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As do most synthetic finishes, man-made fibres and foam rubber, all of which are near-ubiquitous in boat interiors. Paradoxically wood doesn't burn nearly as well, although once things are at the stage of the 2nd picture the temps inside mean most things are consumed, even aluminium. Did they ever work out the source of the fire?
 
TNLI said:
Can't understand why that boat burnt so well, unless it had petrol onboard. Did the owner or crew say what had caught fire ??
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No petrol on board. That particular model of old perkins engine had a high pressure oil line that if it leaked oil did so over the hot turbos which would have been the source of ignition, after that there's plenty of wood and grp to combust as well as cabin materials, etc. Diesel stayed in the two diesel tanks which broke free after the hull sank and floated back up to the surface perfectly in fact and full of unburnt fuel. It was seemed a slow burner initially in the engine room beneath the saloon floor with limited oxygen supply until it broke through the floors and windows. Even before this happened we used to have regular fire evac drills with out children when they were kids, had it drummed into them keep PDF in their cabin in case they had to evacuate through hatch and abandon (ie never go looking for us), just get off on to jetty or raft or dinghy or worst case inflate PDFs and slide into the water. Smoke alarms obviously a must on board, but can be a prob when cooking in galley, even toaster can cause ours to go off.
 
Greg2 said:
I remember that - scary stuff!

If memory serves the owners bought a replacement Ocean 37 from Norfolk Yacht Agency.
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Yes and then a large dutch steel cruiser, then a Broom 37, and then an italian sedan cruiser. They love cruising on the vast River Shannon navigation.
 
Almost an identical event happened to me on a Broom Continental three years ago. I got a few snide comments here about the quality of maintenance of my boat as I had previously asked about replacing the fuel hoses. The engines had been thoroughly inspected, serviced and all fuel hoses replaced.
I know of at least 5 similar incidents where Perkins 6354’s have gone up in flames. They are not all HT engines lying on their side. There was a Moonraker 35 on the River Ouse that burnt to the waterline and a Powles 37 had a serious fire on Lough Derg this year. They both have upright 6354’s.
I was told that the turbo high pressure oil cooling pipe and the turbo boost pressure pipe are the culprits.
River Ouse fire Abandon ship! Terrifying moment pleasure boat bursts into flames and sinks within seconds after elderly couple escaped
 
Dino said:
Almost an identical event happened to me on a Broom Continental three years ago. I got a few snide comments here about the quality of maintenance of my boat as I had previously asked about replacing the fuel hoses. The engines had been thoroughly inspected, serviced and all fuel hoses replaced.
I know of at least 5 similar incidents where Perkins 6354’s have gone up in flames. They are not all HT engines lying on their side. There was a Moonraker 35 on the River Ouse that burnt to the waterline and a Powles 37 had a serious fire on Lough Derg this year. They both have upright 6354’s.
I was told that the turbo high pressure oil cooling pipe and the turbo boost pressure pipe are the culprits.
River Ouse fire Abandon ship! Terrifying moment pleasure boat bursts into flames and sinks within seconds after elderly couple escaped
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Thanks for the link, and that was a real bad fire. I'm not a fan of turbo diesels for small boats, and one of the reasons is fire risk. I always fit a pair of automatic burst bottles in the engine bay, in addition to a smoke detector. In fire fighting terms, a deck wash pump with an adjustable nozzel that will allow for a fine mist spray is more useful than a small dry powder extinguisher.
 
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