Fire on safari boat Suzana in Egypt (Red Sea Aggressor)

[KevinNM]

Who is going to pay for all of these upgrades? Will you pay hundreds more a week for an extra crewmember, modern fire detection and extinguishing technology and the formal crew training that goes with it, and the physical changes to the vessel to implement all of this new safety gear?

Most folks won’t pay $100 a week for unlimited nitrox, and that’s the biggest safety bang for the buck on a liveaboard.

That’s part of why I worry it will not be commercially viable. A simple and easy answer is to say they have to be a SOLAS passenger vessel to hold more than 12 passengers overnight. And even without the radio etc requirements, I don’t think that would be viable. It would certainly require new, larger vessels, and it gets worse from there.

So I hope it is a carefully thought out change.

 

[KevinNM]

I like the less expensive back up smoke detector idea and frequently testing the units with real smokes rather than pressing buttons.

Admin directives are close to the least preferred solution in the hierarchy of safety controls.

 

[scubaozy]

I think general battery charging ban between 24 and 06 will improve safety and it is cheap and easy to implement.

 

[John Bantin]

It's a natural human tendency, as we try to make sense of things and understand, to create scenarios where if only something that DIDN'T happen HAD happened, then the thing that DID happen WOULDN'T have happened.

I have seen too many posts now state with certainty that if only there had been a night watchman patrolling the entire boat, then both the Conception and RS1 fires would never have happened or would have at least been discovered in time and everyone would be alive. It's a nice thought and maybe gives you comfort and helps you make sense of things as well as gives you someone (the boat owners) to blame and to direct your anger that this situation occurred. But relying on that scenario as savior requires you to not fully explore the options and ignore these possible scenarios:

1. Night watchman is on rounds on the lower deck when the fire breaks out and quickly spreads, and is trapped below along with everyone else, he is unable to sound an alarm, and the end result is still the same.
2. Night watchman is on rounds on main deck right next to charging station when the fire breaks out and quickly spreads, the explosion of the batteries kills him instantly, he is unable to sound an alarm, and the end result is still the same.
3. Night watchman is on rounds on the upper/wheelhouse deck when the fire breaks out and spreads quickly but he is unaware of said fire because he's up in the wheelhouse, doesn't sound an alarm because nothing seems amiss until it's too late, and the end result is still the same.

There is no perfect system. There is no perfect solution. And there's no way to take the human factor out of this which means no matter how many redundancies you build in, human fallacy can thwart the quest for perfection.

To me - and I can't emphasize this strongly enough - the key question isn't about the watch or lack thereof (no question that's a problem) or even the source/cause of the fire (also important) but: WHY DID IT SPREAD SO QUICKLY? TWICE!!!

These are supposedly built with materials and to standards that have some measure of fire retardency in them so that IF a fire breaks out, people have time to get off the burning ship. Obviously they didn't have time to get off in the case of the Conception and they barely had time to get off - and one did not get off at all - in the case of the RS1. How is it that this horrible thing that's not supposed to happen and which has stolen the lives of our friends has not only happened . . . BUT HAPPENED TWICE!!!

The answer to THAT question is what's going to save lives.

Boats, like Californian houses, burn fast. Neither can be built from non-combustible materials. (Ask the crew of HMS Antelope) When I worked on the liveaboard Lady Jenny V (for 6 months) in the Red Sea, I or other crew members were on watch all night. Constant patrolling is the only answer. We had plenty of disasters. Nobody died. Worse things happen at sea. A responsible crew keeps on top of it.

 

[Diving Dubai]

Neither can be built from non-combustible materials.

While technically correct, they can be built from fire retardant materials, able to withstand heat and not transport flame for a specific time.

Off shore platforms have this, closer to home (in UK) materials in Care homes must meet a specific standard for being flame retardant. Cast yoru mind back further and you'll remember that soft furnishings in domestic properties were subject to change in standard (in the 70's?) in order to prevent fires from cigarettes, paraffin heaters and naked flames.

Commercial fire doors (and even one's in new build properties) must withstand fire for a specific minimum.

Granted, once a fire takes hold there is little you can do. The trick is therefore to slow the rate of spread down to buy as much time as possible, in order to be able to extinguish [a smaller fire] or to gain time to evacuate properly.

Unfortunately counter tops and work surfaces built from GP grade wooden materials, and then helpfully painted in a polyurethane yacht varnish with potentially combustible items on is a long way from being suitable

 

[Wookie]

Boats, like Californian houses, burn fast. Neither can be built from non-combustible materials. (Ask the crew of HMS Antelope) When I worked on the liveaboard Lady Jenny V (for 6 months) in the Red Sea, I or other crew members were on watch all night. Constant patrolling is the only answer. We had plenty of disasters. Nobody died. Worse things happen at sea. A responsible crew keeps on top of it.

Boats can certainly be built from non-combustible materials, as can California houses. Fire retardant, 4 hour flame walls are standard on cruise ships and other SOLAS passenger vessels, giving the crew time to evacuate the passengers, and fight the fire.

Had you said “fire rated doors, walls, and furnishings are not cost effective in a break even industry that uses hulls not suited for the purpose” I would heartily agree.

 

[CWK]

I was on the FP Master a couple of months ago and it had steel fire doors that close automatically when smoke detectors activate. Fire doors on LOBs are possible.

 

[Wookie]

I was on the FP Master a couple of months ago and it had steel fire doors that close automatically when smoke detectors activate. Fire doors on LOBs are possible.

Most metal vessels built for passenger or commercial service have metal fire doors. Not all are self closing, that’s a good thing. I agree, fire doors on liveaboards are possible.

Compare the master liveaboards with the siren fleet. Same owner, completely different outcomes.

Fires happen on boats, as well as flooding, collisions/allisions, groundings, and other bad things. Preventing bad things is important, what you do about them when they occur is as well. Re-purposing or building a vessel of wood or fiberglass over wood is IMO a risky move. Not for the owner, who probably isn’t there, but for their passengers and crew.

 

[Mike Walker]

This looks a lot like wood....

Red Sea Aggressor - Aggressor Adventures
https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-9CXPXL3/0/X3/i-9CXPXL3-X3.jpg

And yes, building a charging area that is reasonably fire resistant while still being affordable (and salt water friendly) is quite possible. Keep in mind that it doesn't have to fully contain the fire for hours - it just needs to keep a small number of batteries from igniting something else for long enough for them to burn out (say 15-30 minutes?). Steel shelves or cubbies with a steel back would likely be more than adequate - perhaps a curtain for the front made from a fire blanket or similar resistant material to keep things contained. Intumescent paints/pads are readily available and regularly used in modern buildings if you really want to be thorough, but I suspect an 1/8" steel plate will outlast a typical 18650/camera battery fire.

Fire protection is not about making everything fire proof - it's about making it burn slow enough that the fire eventually runs out of things to burn nearby and gives up. Lithium is dangerous in that it has a lot of energy to give before reaching that state - but it also tends to disperse it rather quickly.

As for extinguishment or actively eliminating the threat - a properly rated canister extinguisher, welding gloves and some long BBQ tongs would probably do the trick. Though, my inclination that keeping it isolated in a metal cubby and letting it burn itself out would be the most effective and least prone to error.

Any automated system requires regular maintenance and testing. This is expensive, can require specialty knowledge and - if it is not done - can be more dangerous than having nothing at all. The solution does not need to be complicated and since a 'watch' is required a human can be used to bridge features rather than automation. Ideally, even if no one does anything it should 'fail safe' and I suspect simply having metal compartments with curtain covered fronts would get most of the way there.

I think the most complicated reasonable system would be as follows:
- Charging areas made of metal, shelves good, cubbies better (for containment). Outside but sheltered.
- Fire resistant curtain easily slid over the front (i.e. welding blanket).
- smoke and heat detector immediately adjacent and linked to bridge
- IP camera monitoring with feed to bridge (also good for security)
- Large, properly typed fire extinguishers nearby but not adjacent (don't put the fire extinguisher in the thing that will be on fire!!).
- Proper robust wiring for modern charger needs (100W per passenger simultaneous use); sockets in good state of repair.
- Optional: E-stop style power cutout with location adjacent and on bridge (Really, once the fire has started this is pretty irrelevent...)

Any solution 'banning' charger use won't last. Someone will ignore it, then several people will ignore it, then we'll all forget it exists until the next boat burns.
Really, there aren't huge spates of house fires from multiple devices charging every night in every house in the developed world.
A viable solution needs to react well to the 1:1,000,000 event, not be a knee-jerk response and 'BAN EVERYTHING' nor make day-to-day use inconvenient.
More can be done by designing boats with sleeping quarters to have reasonable redundant exit paths and making sure what measures are already in place are operating well.

And looping back to RSA1 - pretty sure no one has identified the problem as Lithium batteries as of yet.... just a lot of assumptions minus supporting evidence?

 

[Dive Writer]

Thanks Schwob! Absolutely, it is 'our' cause and I'm on a mission!!

Hi, Ivy. I sent you a DM but wanted to follow up here as well. I cover diving issue for OUTSIDE magazine and am working on a story about the fire on the Aggressor. I'd really like to include your account and your concerns if you are comfortable with that. And I'd welcome the thoughts of others here as well.