Vathy port police warning

[grafozz]

I think it worth letting sailors in the Ionian the risks around Vathy Ithaca .
a sail boat was motoring past Ithaca when a pp boat came alongside and boarded it .
A thorough inspection was carried out on all safety equipment and crew interviewed on the likelyhood of it being chartered , it was not ,
everything was in order / they could not find anything , until ...
a fire extinguisher , which was actually from a car and not one of the boats 3 extinguishers , was found to be just out of date .
A fine was issued of 60 Euros ! Such was the determination of the pp to find something to lay a fine to .
So make sure your kit is up to date ,
this happened way out of the harbour , at sea .
Beware .

 

[RichardS]

Do you actually have to have any, or a specific number of fire extinguishers under Greek rules?

Was this a Greek registered boat or a foreign flag?

Richard

 

[grafozz]

I guess it means you have a fire extinguisher it must be in date ,
and this was a Greek reg / flagged charter boat but on pre season delivery , from a yard not on charter

 

[RichardS]

I guess it means you have a fire extinguisher it must be in date ,
and this was a Greek reg / flagged charter boat but on pre season delivery , from a yard not on charter

Interesting. My boat is in Croatia but is UK flagged and I've been told that if a boat is Croatian flagged then it has to have a certain number of extinguishers and they have to be in date, and some other safety stuff as well .... but if the boat is not Croatian flagged then these safety rules don't apply.

I've actually no idea whether this is correct or whether the same situation might apply in Greece .... but we have 3 extinguishers and they are all out of date but are all still well within the green zone on the pressure dial so I don't intend to replace them if I don't have to. :ambivalence:

Richard

 

[sailaboutvic]

some years back the same problem arise in Portugal until in the end the RYA step in and the Portuguese backed off .
but it turn out if boat under other EU flag if they stay in Portugal longer then 6 month they had to apply to Portuguese safety rules.
as for the boat in Greece , you say its under Greece flag, plus it a charter yacht, so need to apply Greek law

 

[RupertW]

Interesting. My boat is in Croatia but is UK flagged and I've been told that if a boat is Croatian flagged then it has to have a certain number of extinguishers and they have to be in date, and some other safety stuff as well .... but if the boat is not Croatian flagged then these safety rules don't apply.

I've actually no idea whether this is correct or whether the same situation might apply in Greece .... but we have 3 extinguishers and they are all out of date but are all still well within the green zone on the pressure dial so I don't intend to replace them if I don't have to. :ambivalence:

Richard

The UK/Croatian rules are my understanding too. We found this out practically when we reflagged the boat Croatian for their 2 percent (or whatever it was) VAT reduction on accession to the EU. So in theory it was a very small price to be fully EU VAT paid, but in practice adding in the survey, the recommendations (all the safety equipment needed including 12 survival suits plus liferaft servicing, new fire extinguishers etc etc etc) all added up to a fair cost but almost all of it was stuff that made sense to us - if not the many survival suits which basically were made to meet regs so would rip open as easily as a cheapo free supermarket bag.

We were almost Croatian when the VAT paid cert came through from them, so as recommended we aborted the process and remained under SSR.

 

[Davy_S]

The Greek PP have been tightening up on unlicensed charter boats in the area between Sami, Fiskardo and around Ithaka, not bareboat but people taking paying guests when not licensed to do so, some of this came to light about three years ago when holiday company reps gained commission by placing paying tourists on certain boats for daytrips, to be fair most of the reps did not know, but the ones that checked soon stopped!
The PP check all the small tourist mobos before the start of the season, they are extremely strict, most of the safety gear has to be carried on all Greek registered hire boats, most of it Should be carried as a matter of safety, even though it is Greek on Greek, they do not mess around! never known them to have a go at a Brit flagged yacht though unless they suspected something.

 

[grafozz]

I know of one Brit boat that has bee
n seized for that very reason , by ... guess who ?


Vathy pp

 

[Davy_S]

I know of one Brit boat that has bee
n seized for that very reason , by ... guess who ?


Vathy pp

Yup, one boat I know of legged it very quickly from Agia Efimia when he realised that they were onto him, although he had got away with it for a few years, left the ionian now, two hulls, say no more

 

[Seven Spades]

Interestingly the last set of fire-extinguishers I bought for my boat were undated. They had pressure valves but no expirey dates.

 

[maxi77]

Interestingly the last set of fire-extinguishers I bought for my boat were undated. They had pressure valves but no expirey dates.

I believe the ones with gauges are good as long as the pointer is in the green

 

[grafozz]

but are they acceptable to the VPP !

 

[Seven Spades]

I believe the ones with gauges are good as long as the pointer is in the green

That is what I was told.

 

[t21]

One solution to this kinda thing is to be your own inspector! A mate and I re-lifed various things with a date punch. I think i might try get some self-adhesive stickers too. Does anyone know where i can gettem on the interweb? Yerknow, with a date last inspected and time before that. Like the Mctoilets which have the date and time when last cleaned, which is in fact only a gurantee of the date and time someone last update the "checked" list. And where i always think hm obviously don't borrow a pen from anyone here...

Hey and if you think it's a bit iffy "ispecting" your own fire extinguishers - if you get someone "real" to "inspect"the powder ones they can't do more than weigh them. An inspection of a powder fire ext is no g'tee they work - I tried one a week after inspected with nice dial well in the green bit and er, it didn't do anything at all except small pheep fizzing noise for a while. Which isn't very good really. Go on - try one yerself ? I had five all under 3 years old and two didn't work. I set one off to show the kids what a fire extinguiher does - very soon became an exercise in omg I thought these did something and they don't ...

And ... sorry to say but the original post and responses (if I dare say) sorta kinda yerknow proves that loadsa folks don't too much think fire extinguishers much of an issue, but heh... they sort-of are really if you think about it? - a flammable boat plus usually some handy petrol for the dink outboard and an engine and lots of electrical stuff plus some flaky gas bottles and plenty of fabric around as kindling ... all kinda piled into a space about the size of a domestic kitchen or less and everyone crammed in as well, often sloshed or asleep, and the whole lot often parked right next to loads of others in the same or worse position ... or other times taken out to sea where the fire brigade have a special "don't bother calling us" policy , and all this done on especially the sunniest/hotttest of summer days. What i am saying here is Duh, a bit?

So hum... actually, fire extingusher wise ... altho you can play games with expiry date as above, or grumble, it's no joke, really? A french cop inspected my boat once and said look, whatevr else happens, if there's a fire then you and only you have gotta do something right now to get people out and/or attack the fire esp if at sea even just anchored offa beach let alone mid-ocean... and the thing to have is the biggest CO2 job you can find, not some "just within regulations" 1 kilo thing which is a bit crap innit, honestly? AND the same applies if next door boat in the marina catches fire too, see? Cos likely they will have just-legal handbag size extinguisher and harumph I'm not flippin replacing them if the dial is in the green ... and they all rush off their boat oh phew we're safe ... leaving theirs burning and you saying er Oi!

So altho i am total anti-regulation anarchist with lots of stuff, i have a monster 10kilo CO2 (cos it's useable and re-useable) extinguisher on board. I'm not agreeing with the fine in OP of course - and the French cop just said oh for crissakes just get a decent firext willya, don't you gettit? (in French) and i said okay yeah ... and he didn't fine me, which weirdly worked on me, and ever since i have had a decent fire extinguisher (or two) and bollox to the "regulation" pocket-sized things supplied with boat, total rubbish reallyif you think about it... Still need the crappy small ones to have inspections, or (better) chuckem if way out of date and as i sed, get a rambo-esque CO2 thing anyway, about 200euros or less...

also ... for more exotic and even UK sailing the CO2 extinguishers are also a handy weapon for all of us who don;t believe in having weapons on board and/or cos that would be illegal - you can drive off all sorts of unwelcome visitors with very satisfying WHOOSH and not get nicked as you might (or would) with a gun/knife/baseball bat. Although yeah mainly they are for putting out fires, not blasting at stray cats sneaking on board in Greece, which i definitely didn't do. Well, okay, I did, but only once.

 

[Chris_Robb]

One solution to this kinda thing is to be your own inspector! A mate and I re-lifed various things with a date punch. I think i might try get some self-adhesive stickers too. Does anyone know where i can gettem on the interweb? Yerknow, with a date last inspected and time before that. Like the Mctoilets which have the date and time when last cleaned, which is in fact only a gurantee of the date and time someone last update the "checked" list. And where i always think hm obviously don't borrow a pen from anyone here...

Hey and if you think it's a bit iffy "ispecting" your own fire extinguishers - if you get someone "real" to "inspect"the powder ones they can't do more than weigh them. An inspection of a powder fire ext is no g'tee they work - I tried one a week after inspected with nice dial well in the green bit and er, it didn't do anything at all except small pheep fizzing noise for a while. Which isn't very good really. Go on - try one yerself ? I had five all under 3 years old and two didn't work. I set one off to show the kids what a fire extinguiher does - very soon became an exercise in omg I thought these did something and they don't ...

And ... sorry to say but the original post and responses (if I dare say) sorta kinda yerknow proves that loadsa folks don't too much think fire extinguishers much of an issue, but heh... they sort-of are really if you think about it? - a flammable boat plus usually some handy petrol for the dink outboard and an engine and lots of electrical stuff plus some flaky gas bottles and plenty of fabric around as kindling ... all kinda piled into a space about the size of a domestic kitchen or less and everyone crammed in as well, often sloshed or asleep, and the whole lot often parked right next to loads of others in the same or worse position ... or other times taken out to sea where the fire brigade have a special "don't bother calling us" policy , and all this done on especially the sunniest/hotttest of summer days. What i am saying here is Duh, a bit?

So hum... actually, fire extingusher wise ... altho you can play games with expiry date as above, or grumble, it's no joke, really? A french cop inspected my boat once and said look, whatevr else happens, if there's a fire then you and only you have gotta do something right now to get people out and/or attack the fire esp if at sea even just anchored offa beach let alone mid-ocean... and the thing to have is the biggest CO2 job you can find, not some "just within regulations" 1 kilo thing which is a bit crap innit, honestly? AND the same applies if next door boat in the marina catches fire too, see? Cos likely they will have just-legal handbag size extinguisher and harumph I'm not flippin replacing them if the dial is in the green ... and they all rush off their boat oh phew we're safe ... leaving theirs burning and you saying er Oi!

So altho i am total anti-regulation anarchist with lots of stuff, i have a monster 10kilo CO2 (cos it's useable and re-useable) extinguisher on board. I'm not agreeing with the fine in OP of course - and the French cop just said oh for crissakes just get a decent firext willya, don't you gettit? (in French) and i said okay yeah ... and he didn't fine me, which weirdly worked on me, and ever since i have had a decent fire extinguisher (or two) and bollox to the "regulation" pocket-sized things supplied with boat, total rubbish reallyif you think about it... Still need the crappy small ones to have inspections, or (better) chuckem if way out of date and as i sed, get a rambo-esque CO2 thing anyway, about 200euros or less...

also ... for more exotic and even UK sailing the CO2 extinguishers are also a handy weapon for all of us who don;t believe in having weapons on board and/or cos that would be illegal - you can drive off all sorts of unwelcome visitors with very satisfying WHOOSH and not get nicked as you might (or would) with a gun/knife/baseball bat. Although yeah mainly they are for putting out fires, not blasting at stray cats sneaking on board in Greece, which i definitely didn't do. Well, okay, I did, but only once.

I take it you are aware of the dangers of inhaling air with 5% or more CO2 - pretty instantly fatal!

I would not have a CO2 extinguisher on board for all the tea in China - its just far too dangerous

 

[Davy_S]

Methinks Mats back under another name

 

[Tintin]

Fairly certain you can be fined in France of you are carrying out of date flares too, even if you have a full complement of in date flares.

Of course there is a presumed risk that out of date flares are a danger item.

 

[RichardS]

I take it you are aware of the dangers of inhaling air with 5% or more CO2 - pretty instantly fatal!

I would not have a CO2 extinguisher on board for all the tea in China - its just far too dangerous

Dr. Peter Harper of Health and Safety Executive has determined that exposure to lower levels, starting at 84,000 ppm for 60 minutes or more, will also result in fatality.

84,000 ppm is 8.4% I reckon.

Richard

 

[t21]

Dr. Peter Harper of Health and Safety Executive has determined that exposure to lower levels, starting at 84,000 ppm for 60 minutes or more, will also result in fatality.

84,000 ppm is 8.4% I reckon.
Richard

Yeah that sound more like it. The cat didn't die btw, so it's not that bad. You blip the CO2, not hold it down for ages. Yeah it's not touchy feely super safe but then neither is a fire. Idea is you can whack it at open fires, or blip it in restricted spaces. Powder by contrast once opened has to be run off continuously so you quickly run out of "ammo". Powder extinguisher also might work and might not - it can't be actually tested. Oh and mrs Google tells me there is usually about 2bn dollars worth of tea in China...

 

[Sandy]

I take it you are aware of the dangers of inhaling air with 5% or more CO2 - pretty instantly fatal!

I would not have a CO2 extinguisher on board for all the tea in China - its just far too dangerous

It is amazing the human race has survived this long as the air we exhale has 4% CO2. How artificial resuscitation works must be a miracle.

CO2 extinguishers have their place. Halon gas are the ones to avoid.