Fire on dive boat Conception in CA

[Akimbo]

All I'm saying is that instead of having three bunks under the hatch, just have one ladder bolted to the wall, with emergency lighting. No change to the hatch.

Do you believe that bunks are a real problem? Almost every small boat in the harbor has the forward deck hatch next to or above bunks. Is it any harder to climb on a bunk than a vertical ladder? Of course the answer is "sometimes yes and sometimes no". This is an important discussion, if for no other reason than to make people think about it before selecting a boat.

It would be interesting to see how people's selection decisions would change if everyone had to perform an emergency evacuation drill through all points of egress before casting off. I have seen some large divers that couldn't get through typical emergency hatches. Same with some elderly and injured divers. Better lighting might be a good thing but not if it is just window dressing. A full system approach is required. Again, just discussing and NOT arguing.

 

[Scuba-74]

I had the (incorrect?) impression that although Blackbeard's has bunks in a dormitory-style room, the boat isn't as crowded, and the room isn't below the main deck. So I haven't thought of Blackbeard's as being in quite the same category. But my impression could be totally mistaken--I haven't seen the deck plans.

Blackbeard's has four bunk rooms - one for crew and three for passengers, each with it's own staircase leading directly to the main deck. Also, Blackbeard's takes on only about 25 passengers (don't remember the exact number) while being only 7 or so feet shorter than the Conception,

 

[rjack321]

The Blackbeards boats that operate in the Bahamas have dormitories and bunks and I think that may also be true of some LOBs that operate in the Great Lakes but @Marie13 can answer that.

The MV Discovery operating on Lake Superior has 4 single bunks forwards with a hatch in the middle of them (no ladder), main access is through the salon
2 temporary bunks set up in the salon when its full (6 passengers)
2 crew bunks in the wheelhouse
https://isleroyalecharters.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/6EB62DD1-D3AC-48B6-B636-583B5068307C.jpeg

In addition to the hatch above the single bunks there are 5 or 6 spiral stairs leading from the salon to the wheelhouse. 2 doors port and starboard exiting the wheelhouse. A door exiting the salon aft. There's a lot of exits which = a lot of ways for water to get in as well. None of those doors nor the hatch are watertight and it would be pretty impractical to make them watertight.

I was just out with Ryan in July. He runs a fabulous ship.

 

[rjack321]

Blackbeard's has four bunk rooms - one for crew and three for passengers, each with it's own staircase leading directly to the main deck. Also, Blackbeard's takes on only about 25 passengers (don't remember the exact number) while being only 7 or so feet shorter than the Conception,

Its also a moto-sailer and a whole lot narrower

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

It took me several hours to read these 987 posts. I have concluded that if everyone had read the posts before posting like seagulls this thread would have a LOT less posts.

How many posted that the 100% oxygen stored on the boat contributed to the fire? Only to discover that there was none on the boat.

 

[Wookie]

I'm not sure you understand what I am suggesting. I'm not saying anything about the hatch itself. I agree that changing that would be expensive and possibly cause other problems like those that you mentioned.

All I'm saying is that instead of having three bunks under the hatch, just have one ladder bolted to the wall, with emergency lighting. No change to the hatch. No change to the structural integrity of the boat.

To answer your question about this boat in particular as well as jog your memory of the Spree, if the escape hatch were placed between 10U and 27U, and the pictures I've seen those bunks had ladders to get in the bunks, you could have had a big hatch that spanned the entire passagway so that the ladders used to get in the bunks could be used as escape ladders.

On Spree, the ladder to escape was in the downstairs passageway all the way forward between the forward "cabins", and you popped up through the hatch dead center in the salon between the forward dining benches, where you could choose to exit through the wheelhouse (2 doors, one blocked by the litterbox) or out the galley door, which was wide, and big.

 

[Louisville Diver]

Blackbeard's has four bunk rooms - one for crew and three for passengers, each with it's own staircase leading directly to the main deck. Also, Blackbeard's takes on only about 25 passengers (don't remember the exact number) while being only 7 or so feet shorter than the Conception,

Yeah, nowhere near as crowded. Plus, it is actually cheaper than a SoCal boat on a per diem basis, albeit with a longer trip.

For me, the crowding is a major thing.

 

[roakey]

OK, not sure I understand. From the photo I saw, it looked like the hatch straddled two top bunks. But it can be accessed from either side, right? So why would you need to pull six bunks to free up one stretch of wall where you could bolt a ladder? Couldn't that just be placed in the space currently occupied by a stack of three bunks and provide the same access that there is now from either top bunk?

If you were to pull three and replace it with a ladder, the ladder would come up to the middle of the hatch. Better configuration than now exists, but still difficult to use the exit.

So we're getting waaaay ahead of ourselves here, but if someone made me king, I'd tear out 7U, 8M, 9L, 24U, 25M and 26L and put ladders up the wall that go through emergency hatches and continue up the wall in the solon to allow people to keep climbing until they can step out onto the salon floor and exit. This assumes the rear bunk wall (forward engine room bulkhead) aligns with the rear salon wall - which I don't know if it does or not.

This would allow both corridors to exit without any kind of contention/synchronization. Heck, if you left the existing exit in place, you'd have three ways of getting out.

But I believe that even with this configuration, the outcome would have been exactly the same.

Roak

 

[johndiver999]

I'm not sure you understand what I am suggesting. I'm not saying anything about the hatch itself. I agree that changing that would be expensive and possibly cause other problems like those that you mentioned.

All I'm saying is that instead of having three bunks under the hatch, just have one ladder bolted to the wall, with emergency lighting. No change to the hatch. No change to the structural integrity of the boat.

I agree, seems like there could have been a more unrestricted access to the hatch, even though in this particular case, it probably would not have helped, since it lead to the same area as the steps and probably was similarly blocked with fire. Doesn’t mean it is not a good idea though.

 

[Louisville Diver]

It took me several hours to read these 987 posts. I have concluded that if everyone had read the posts before posting like seagulls this thread would have a LOT less posts.

How many posted that the 100% oxygen stored on the boat contributed to the fire? Only to discover that there was none on the boat.

My assumption always was that the only possible pure O2 was in pony bottles in first aid kits, and had no impact on the conflagration.