Fire on dive boat Conception in CA

[IT.]

Drilling holes in ships are actually a very involved regulatory compliance and inspection process as well...

What about following existing wires?

 

[cerich]

What about following existing wires?

Still

 

[Wookie]

What about following existing wires?

Every wire has a complex regulatory process. Basically, you cannot penetrate a watertight bulkhead without a watertight fitting installed, so you have to drill a hole, insert a watertight gland, and run your wire. Through every bulkhead.

 

[IT.]

Ok got it

 

[Blasto]

Maybe... to some degree. I have dove off everything from WWII inflatable surplus life rafts to advanced DSVs (Diving Support Vessels) in the North Sea. They all have very different risks associated with them. There were 46 total commercial cargo ship losses around the world in 2018 with 2,698 reported incidents.

Yes. That's why I referred to the best-achieved level of safety as just "tolerable", nothing better.

The sea is inherently dangerous, more so than even the air. Limitations on portholes and openings below the freeboard deck greatly reduce sinking incidents that plague smaller boats, but these limitations also make it much harder to escape any fires. Metal construction and A60 fire insulation make most fires survivable, but at considerable cost. Active fire suppression can be retrofitted, but it's expensive.

Diving adds another dimension - if regulations add $1,000 per trip, so it's harder to afford trimix, or the taken up space results in a new liveaboard sailing without a chamber, does that add or reduce safety overall? So the cost of technical solutions is especially a concern in diving. In aviation, the attempt to make new small planes approach the safety of commercial ones has backfired by forcing 50+ year lifecycles for old airframes instead of their replacement.

Human solutions, such as greatly increased attention on part of the crew, would be the way to go, but it's even more difficult to change people than it is to change the technology. Still, hopefully some combination of compromises across the board might make things slightly better.

 

[Diver2019]

"4 bodies were found floating shortly after the sinking"

I couldn't find any source saying they were floating.... Only saw "recovered 4 bodies from the water near the boat.......

 

[KevinNM]

Drilling holes in ships are actually a very involved regulatory compliance and inspection process as well...

Well, through the hull into the water and in water tight bulkheads sure. But not so much when done intelligently and with proper procedure in the part that isn’t under water unless the vessel has sunk. Fire stopping is a really well developed technology, even if we keep finding contractors who don’t do it right.

 

[Texas Torpedo]

Preliminary Report: Marine DCA19MM047

"Initial interviews of three crewmembers revealed that no mechanical or electrical issues were reported. At the time of the fire, five crewmembers were asleep in berths behind the wheelhouse, and one crewmember was asleep in the bunkroom"

 

[outofofficebrb]

Preliminary Report: Marine DCA19MM047

" At the time of the fire, five crewmembers were asleep in berths behind the wheelhouse, and one crewmember was asleep in the bunkroom."

...So, no nightwatch.

 

[Texas Torpedo]

...So, no nightwatch.

Apparently not. Hearkens back to previous discussion in this thread regarding to a crew member waking up hearing a pop like someone falling.