Fire on dive boat Conception in CA

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This appears to be inherent to how the US Coast Guard regulates boats, as they don't allow exits that pass through watertight bulkheads.
Every time someone reposts about the CG regulation of no exits through bulkheads, I wonder how long this regulation will stand.

Way back in the thread Wookie posted about some senior CG rule maker who didn’t like exits through bulkheads and preferred hatches, and that’s how the regulation came to be (paraphrased).

Maybe some tests can be done at the CG level to determine if exits through hatches are the safest/quickest for emergency. If hatches are not the safest/quickest, perhaps the regulation needs review and updating.
 
The CG has a reason for their worry, which is that the door will leak. Boats (and most ships) are only required to stay floating with one compartment flooded. If that door leaks when one compartment floods then the boat sinks.

I think SOLAS passenger vessels (which I think is defined as something carrying more then 12 passengers internationally - in this case including large yachts) are required to have 2 compartment stability, so the boat/ship has to remain floating with the worst possible 2 compartments flooding. This seems very hard to do without a much larger boat than 75 feet.

Anyhow, undamaged watertight bulkheads have a very good record of not leaking and flooding the next compartment. However horizontal evacuation can't be done this way, and sometimes horizontal evac seems like a good idea.

Don't know myself, hopefully the very experienced CG inspectors and accident investigators will re-evaluate this policy to determine if it still makes sense. There are certainly other things that could be done more inexpensively, like supervised fire alarms or possibly even smoke barriers into and out of the berthing spaces.
 
There appears to be a pathway from the dive deck to the bow on the port side. But no ladder to the upper deck or an entrance to the salon, so I can imagine they jumped to that deck to try to gain access to the salon.

I had not taken that walkway (no idea of the nautical term) into account, although given the windows there, I would expect fire there, too. Could be they jumped there, and possiblty from there into the water.
 
Every time someone reposts about the CG regulation of no exits through bulkheads, I wonder how long this regulation will stand.

Way back in the thread Wookie posted about some senior CG rule maker who didn’t like exits through bulkheads and preferred hatches, and that’s how the regulation came to be (paraphrased).

Maybe some tests can be done at the CG level to determine if exits through hatches are the safest/quickest for emergency. If hatches are not the safest/quickest, perhaps the regulation needs review and updating.

I bring his up only to illustrate how wrapped up in tradition and SOP naval types can be. Without going into a lot of detail. Electric Boat designers had an idea to eliminate thousands piping joints which on a sub is the weak link, that is piping and piping joints, by simply turning the maneuvering room 180 degrees so it faced forward in the boat. This was initially approved however on tour a navy admiral noticed the position of the room and went ballistic! Every US sub ever built had the maneuvering room facing aft and this class wasn't going to be any different! Don't know who the admiral was, Rickover was already passed, it wasn't him he probably would have had liked to have shot the admiral. Rickover was one of the few that wasn't bound by tradition. This guy had the pull however, he made such a noise that the navy demanded it changed.

So it took months to redesign, millions of dollars to remove all the hardware and turn the room around, but it was made "right" it damn it!!

Don't expect changes in water tight bulkheads anytime soon. IMO/experience
 
The problem is that a solution for issue A may cause other issues elsewhere. While a door in a watertight bulkhead may facilitate escape in one disaster scenario, it may in another worsen the outcome. Think the watertight door not being closed properly when a passenger tried the escape route. Also, being able to open such a door to escape may not always be preferable(!), in the lose a life, but save the ship sort of scenario.
 
Most Marine and Air safety regulations are written in blood. Starting largely with the Titanic disaster, which resulted in the SOLAS convention

While its easy to write a regulation that prohibits. Thou shalt not.

Others are not so easy to write, because they must take into account the broad scope of different designs and applications.

They may have minimum standards for each application (minimum size of door of hatch) They will generally have the catch all phrase of "As Reasonably Practicable"

The sh1t show starts after an event when people (lawyers/ investigators et al) seek to define if the Reasonably Practicable caveat was met

From an aerospace perspective:

When we find a failure during testing the solution is heavily subjected to risk/reward analysis which (simplified) are

Impact to cost, maintenance, operations & performance vs impact and likelihood of failure over total fleet flying hrs, passengers carried, and potential number of lifetime victims inc compensation monies. Which returns the reasonably practicable solution.

Unfortunately these are numbers on a page and far removed for the real impact on actual victims of the decisions made.

And yes every time an aircraft I've had design influence in goes down, I hope its not because of a choice or decision I made a number of years back.
 
The article is behind a paywall, so could you enlighten me about how they came to that conclusion.


Thanks

Bob


This is the main quote

----
A preliminary investigation into the Conception boat fire has suggested serious safety deficiencies aboard the vessel, including the lack of a “roaming night watchman” who is required to be awake and alert passengers in the event of a fire or other dangers, according to several law enforcement sources familiar with the inquiry.

—----
 
THIS IS NOT FROM CONCEPTION

This is my charging station ready for a trip, 18 outlets wired from 10 gage wire on 4 20 amp circuits.
41516FA6-A7B3-4569-8259-C3047304B864.jpeg


And this is the same place after boarding. Remember, each galley table also had an outlet or 2, but we wouldn’t let folks use their laptops during dinner.
465CE6C2-51E6-4767-B16D-D0A409372A91.jpeg
 
Frank had a law, which is stronger than a rule, about NO CHARGING below decks. Outlets were hidden and he showed me the one so I could run my CPAP. However, I wasn't allowed to charge squat with it. I really liked his rules. That charging station was a few feet away from the Captain's chair at that.
 
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