Posted on 09/05/2019 3:36:44 PM PDT by atc23
I don’t know if this has anything to do with it, but propane is heavier than air, and if there was a propane leak the gas would settle somewhere down in the boat rather than escape into the air.
That would be a setup for a terrific explosion.
“I have heard from radio interviews that the bunk room was very crowded and had a single narrow stairway up to the deck.”
Which seems to me why fire safety and other considerations related to this configuration should have been the top priority.
Propane is heavier than air, would sink into the bilges. The tanks themselves are a risk. All propane tanks have a pressure relief valve for venting if they become over pressurized. If there were a vessel fire, the tanks would become bombs. Storage of tanks on the vessel would also be an issue. Electric cooking appliances are safer. Unlike home construction, vessels are required to use stranded wire instead of solid core, like Romex. Stranded wire prevents vibrational failure of the whole conductor.
For private boats most of them already have an issue, since they are gasoline powered.
For the tow boat industry, their standard used to be diesel fired cooking.
Gunner
Nothing about anyone yelling a warning, nothing about grabbing for a fire extinguisher - the crew bailed and got out of there as fast as they could.
I’ve commented here on FR re this Conception fire before. And, based upon my experience with 14 boats over 51 years of boating, I think this latest lithium theory is just bs.
I’ve been in this situation before (re lots of people on board overnight and anchored). We always, always, always have somebody awake all night long...…...ALWAYS. This is where the dive company is likely to get their clock cleaned.
Aside from that point, I just do not understand how this fire spread from one end of this 75 foot boat to the other quick enough to trap 34 people and kill them. When fire hits your skin, you scream. Did all 34 people get burned up at exactly the same time? Was there no ventilation for trapped smoke? Did they die of asphyxiation? Was one or more persons on board a target?
There are many, many questions to answer on this one.
I lost my shop building to lithium batteries (cordless drill) two summers ago.
Drop dime on it
That is why you have a roaming deck watch at all times
Uhhh, no fire/smoke alarm? Something isn’t right here.
I think it’s a single hull bow craft which becomes a twin hull craft aft
I assume the sleeping quarters were the two bottom hulls and escape was blocked by flames
Truly horrible
Wood hull fiberglass laid or chopper gun
A nice 12 gauge with buck coulda saved them with a fire axe
A tall order I realize
“Then he and four crew members jumped from the wheelhouse and climbed into a dinghy to get help from the Grape Escape, a fishing boat anchored nearby off Santa Cruz Island.”
Really????
What’s a fire extinguisher going to do for a Lithium fire? Make it worse unless it’s PKP or another Class D extinguisher. The firefighting hoses were on fire. They would make a Class D fire worse anyway
How did you make it to safety? You were obviously there, right? I mean, you must have been there if you can make that statement.
What propane tank?
I read the story. You might try doing that, as well.
By the time the crew abandoned ship, the passengers were likely already deceased. Smoke inhalation. Heat.
But you would have jumped into the flames to save them all.
“Bad lithium battery catching fire?”
That’s the guess of the boat’s designer:
“Roy Hauser, who designed the Conception and commissioned its construction in 1981, suggested another. He said he thinks, based in part on footage he viewed of the wood-hulled boat being ravaged by fire, that the blaze started in the bunk area and spread so rapidly that the 34 people there could not get out.
“This had to have been, in my estimation, one of those lithium battery chargers,” Hauser told the Los Angeles Times. “This happened in the belly of the boat. Those people did not have a chance to get out: From stem to stern, that boat was burning.”
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