Pride and joy up in smoke

maby said:
Oh dear! Very sad...
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Be positive
If it was adequately insured it might have done him a favour.
Selling second hand boats is not always easy these days.:encouragement:
Mind you, being negative-- what rotten luck.:ambivalence:
Even if the crew got off there is a fair chance a few burns were encountered first which is definitely NOT funny.
 
He was on board, he tried to put the fire out with buckets of water. He said he didn't know what caused it which baffles me. A small motorboat in front of us took him off at the bow of the boat. As the motorboat took him away I heard a bang which I took to be the gas cylinder, but no one would take a chance that I was wrong so they let it burn as they didn't want to approach it. Hamble point offered to send a boat with a pump but were told to stay away.
 
You can get another boat but getting over the experience of being on a yacht on fire won't be easy to get over.
Hopefully those involved have the support of good mates.

Thankfully a rare event, but a timely reminder to take care and check things over.
 
"By God sir, I've had my boat burnt out from under me"

"By God sir, so you have."

With apologies to the Earl of Uxbridge and the Duke of Wellington.
 
lw395 said:
You can get another boat but getting over the experience of being on a yacht on fire won't be easy to get over.
Hopefully those involved have the support of good mates.

Thankfully a rare event, but a timely reminder to take care and check things over.
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I think what lw395 probably meant was being on a boat while it was on fire and being witness to that likely scary event which yes I’m sure won’t be traumatising for life but would still get your heart racing!
 
Old Bumbulum said:
Bloody hell, it's only a boat!

- are you seriously suggesting the owner's going to have hard-to-get-over psychological trouble from this - and will need the support of mates??
What kind of wet flower is he for God"s sake? Do you know him? Is he such a complete pussy or is this some sort of daft modern angst-ridden assumption in the aftermath of a rather bad day?

Thank Christ I didn't think like that when my entire household - everything I posessed bar what I had in a suitcase burned down in storage.
I'd have been a complete asylum case!
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After that post one might be inclined to wonder :nonchalance::nonchalance::nonchalance:
This is the age of the "snowflake" I will have you know
 
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Daydream believer said:
Be positive
If it was adequately insured it might have done him a favour.
Selling second hand boats is not always easy these days.:encouragement:
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This. Right at the end of the season too. Just as likely to be good news as bad. My sympathies, if it's the latter.
 
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Seven Spades said:
He was on board, he tried to put the fire out with buckets of water. He said he didn't know what caused it which baffles me. A small motorboat in front of us took him off at the bow of the boat. As the motorboat took him away I heard a bang which I took to be the gas cylinder, but no one would take a chance that I was wrong so they let it burn as they didn't want to approach it. Hamble point offered to send a boat with a pump but were told to stay away.
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If it was the gas cylinder then I suspect the damage would be far greater, think small bomb.

i watched, from a safe distance six firefighters move a hot cylinder to a pond to cool it, the look of relief on their faces was clear to see when they completed that task.
 
Sandy said:
If it was the gas cylinder then I suspect the damage would be far greater, think small bomb.

i watched, from a safe distance six firefighters move a hot cylinder to a pond to cool it, the look of relief on their faces was clear to see when they completed that task.
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Possibly but the owner said it was a small cylinder and given the size of the boat I would not be surprised if it was a ½ 907 or smaller. Then it may not have been full. Then if the bang I heard was not the cylinder why didn't it subsequently go off when the boat because an inferno?

I am sure I heard the gas go bang, but it may have been something else on board.
 
Seven Spades said:
Then it may not have been full. Then if the bang I heard was not the cylinder why didn't it subsequently go off when the boat because an inferno?
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I think, and I am open to correction, that propane bottle burst because of a combination of over-pressure and heat-softened metal. You get a blast of gas out of it which will probably catch fire as it comes out and give you a fireball, but no explosion.

Acetylene, on the other hand, will detonate inside the intact cylinder, which gives a remarkably powerful bomb and is why fire services are very, very, very cautious about fires in garages and the like.
 
JumbleDuck said:
I think, and I am open to correction, that propane bottle burst because of a combination of over-pressure and heat-softened metal. You get a blast of gas out of it which will probably catch fire as it comes out and give you a fireball, but no explosion.

Acetylene, on the other hand, will detonate inside the intact cylinder, which gives a remarkably powerful bomb and is why fire services are very, very, very cautious about fires in garages and the like.
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So propane deflagrates but acetylene detonates?
 
JumbleDuck said:
I think, and I am open to correction, that propane bottle burst because of a combination of over-pressure and heat-softened metal. You get a blast of gas out of it which will probably catch fire as it comes out and give you a fireball, but no explosion.

Acetylene, on the other hand, will detonate inside the intact cylinder, which gives a remarkably powerful bomb and is why fire services are very, very, very cautious about fires in garages and the like.
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Welding acetylene is dissolved in acetone. The acetone can explode if heated.
Not sure of the chemistry, but the reaction doesn't need external oxygen.
A camping gaz cylinder is designed to fail if heated. Not exactly fail safe, but jets of gas which won't have enough oxygen to properly explode.
Acetylene cylinders are also normally paired with an oxygen cylinder, which is not your best friend in a fire if there's anything flammable left (i.e. you!).

But even something like a can of WD40 can make an impressive bang in a fire. You really don't want to be sharing a boat with any of that going on.
 
AntarcticPilot said:
So propane deflagrates but acetylene detonates?
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Yes, I think so. Acetylene cylinders will go bang at 2 bar, given a suitable thermal or shock initiation - hence storing it in solution rather than as compressed gas, as lw395 says. No oxygen necessary, so propagation is presumably by shock wave.

https://www.boconline.co.uk/en/images/Facts-about-acetylene_tcm410-262700.pdf

A blast of pure propane will deflagrate, I think, but a suitable propane-air mixture might detonate. Dunno. There is also the possibility of a BLEVE (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_liquid_expanding_vapor_explosion) without any chemical explosion at all.
 
Having seen the detonation (and high velocity fragments) when a bloody fool decided to dispose of an out of date flare in a garden bonfire I wouldn't discount that/those a a source of a 'pop'.
 
JumbleDuck said:
Yes, I think so. Acetylene cylinders will go bang at 2 bar, given a suitable thermal or shock initiation - hence storing it in solution rather than as compressed gas, as lw395 says. No oxygen necessary, so propagation is presumably by shock wave.

https://www.boconline.co.uk/en/images/Facts-about-acetylene_tcm410-262700.pdf

A blast of pure propane will deflagrate, I think, but a suitable propane-air mixture might detonate. Dunno. There is also the possibility of a BLEVE (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_liquid_expanding_vapor_explosion) without any chemical explosion at all.
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Acetylene may decompose in a self-sustaining reaction after only moderate heating or shock, hence the 24 hour cooling in a dam (or pond) after any thermal exposure. By comparison, an LPG bottle popping is very tame.

http://www.hse.gov.uk/fireandexplosion/acetylene.htm
 
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