Maritime News

The 47m charter superyacht ‘Navis One’ caught fire on the evening on Oct 9^th whilst at anchor near the small Greek island of Ano Koufonisi. She was built by Gentech Yachts Ltd. in Slovenia was launched in 2013, previously named ‘Queen Anne’.

The crew of 12 and all 10 passengers were either already ashore or were evacuated and nobody was hurt, however the vessel burnt to the waterline before sinking. Eye witness accounts suggest the fire was seen to have started towards the stern of the vessel and several large piece of debris were noted in the surrounding water, possibly indicative of an explosion. As with any maritime fire, the investigation into the cause and what lessons can be learned will be well worth reading.

Boat Chat Focus - Fire Safety On Boats

As the boaty internet’s sunshine filled reports from the various northern latitude boat shows starts drawing to a close it means, inexorably, that winter must be coming! At this time of year many of us will be starting to think about hauling our boats out for winter storage and starting to write our To Do Lists for those winter jobs.

To Do Lists are a common theme in boating and every boat is different and every Owner uses their boat in their own unique ways. There are however some themes that run across all boats in one way or another. Performance, safety, comfort and budget are the usual boundaries within which most vessels have to operate. As a result, every To Do List is unique and whilst some jobs are universal and annual, some are vessel specific and may only require doing every 2-5 years.

One of the essential annual tasks for any boat owner is to carry out a check of all fire safety equipment on board. Fire on any boat is a very serious incident which puts the vessel and crew in real danger. Good fire safety on boats requires a lot more than just having a couple of cheap little 1kg ABC dry powder extinguishers sulking in the corner.

Most boats carry several types of fuel or flammable materials ranging from diesel and petrol, LPG, paints and solvents. The quantity, composition and volume of these materials all have an influence on fire safety planning. The first step in developing a fire safety plan it to know what materials pose what risk and to what degree. From then you can start to consider how well equipped your boat is to prevent fire from starting, how to detect it when it does and what can then be done about it to save both crew and vessel.

5 Essential Habits For Fire Safety On Boats

These 5 Essential Habits should greatly improve the fire safety on your boat and should be a part of any annual fire safety planning.

Essential Habit 1 - Keep Gas Lockers For Gas Cylinders Only

The first of the 5 essential habits I recommend to you is to keep gas lockers for gas cylinders only. All too often gas lockers are packed full of fuel canisters, oil cans and other cleaning agents alongside the gas cylinders. All combining to create a huge quantity of combustible and flammable materials to help a fire to really get going when something catches fire.

Any locker for gas or other fuels must be self-draining to allow any escaped gas or fuel to drain away overboard. Older boats often have no such drains and allow gas and fuel vapours to drain into the bilge as they are heavier than air. Here they can slowly build up to dangerous quantities until ignited by a spark. On narrowboats check for corrosion in the gas locker floor. Test your gas locker by tipping a bucket of warm soapy water into it and watch where it goes.

Essential Habit 2 - Fit A Bilge Gas Alarm And A Gas Leakage Tester

The second of the 5 essential habits I recommend is to fit a bilge gas alarm to detect any gas build up in the bilge. To go with this I would always add a gas leakage tester or bubble tester installed by the gas bottle.

These are both relatively inexpensive items but which add a huge capability to your boat. Being able to detect gas in the bilge or a leak in the system every time you come on board and switch on the gas brings real peace of mind. Having a bilge gas alarm will make sure that the gas doesn’t build up to dangerous quantities. If it alarms you can clear the bilge by pumping the manual bilge pump until it runs dry and then for another 50 pumps to suck up the heavier than air gas until the gas alarm stops beeping.

Essential Habit 3 - Turn Off Gas And Fuel Taps When You Leave The Boat

The third of my 5 essential habits to avoid fire is to get into the habit of turning the gas off at the cylinder when you have finished cooking rather than at the cooker as this allows any gas in the pipework to burn off, rather than run the risk that it escapes into the bilge. I talked in my 5 Essential Habits To Prevent Your Boat Sinking video below about the importance of having a closing up list and closing gas and fuel taps is a key item that should be on this list whenever you leave your boat.

Essential Habit 4 - Fit Quality Carbon Monoxide And Smoke Detectors

The risk to life when a fire starts on a boat is really high, especially if you are at sea. So my fourth essential habit is to install quality carbon monoxide and smoke detectors. Every year in the UK people die from carbon monoxide poisoning, frequently on boats, and these detectors can alert you and others to this odourless, tasteless poisonous gas.

Again, these are low cost items which will detect carbon monoxide at really low concentrations, allowing you to stay safely on board and escape quickly before the serious effects kick in. They will also alert you and others to the presence of smoke before a fire really gets going. This can also be really useful when you leave your boat in the marina and give nearby boat owners or the marina staff early warning of a fire.

Essential Habit 5 - Have A Fire Blanket And Good Quality Fire Extinguishers On Board

If a fire does break out when you are on board it really does help to have some firefighting capability giving you options to fight the fire as a first response. My fifth essential habit is to have an approved fire blanket (the bigger the better) mounted in a ‘readily accessible’ location in case of fire in the galley or if someone’s clothing catches fire. You can also use it to smother burning objects or to pick them up to throw them overboard. Again, fire blankets are low cost insurance policies but which give you a much greater chance of you and your boat surviving a fire.

Finally, carry at least two good quality approved fire extinguishers; more if your boat is over 36 foot. I always advise against those cheap little 1kg ABC dry powder extinguishers as they don’t last long, create a massive cloud which will inhibit your breathing and even if they do put out the fire, they leave a huge mess to clean up.

Modern extinguishers use a really fine water mist, often with a fire-suppressant additive, and are much more effective at tackling fires and leave very little mess afterwards.

You might also want to think about carrying one or two specialist extinguishers depending on the need you identified in your Fire Safety Plan.

Installing an automatic clean agent fire extinguisher in the engine and fuel tank spaces is always a positive upgrade. These are heat activated units filled with FE-36 or FM-200 or some other clean extinguishing agent. They are really effective at dealing with fires in enclosed spaces. In bigger engine rooms I advise having two installed with one on a command wire to give you a ‘second shot’ at putting out an engine room fire.

Lithium-ion battery fires pose a special challenge to firefighters. To meet this challenge there is a new type of AVD (Aqueous Vermiculite Dispersion) fire extinguisher. These spray a 5:1 liquid solution of water and vermiculite with the colour and consistency of a runny chocolate sauce, which is really effective against lithium-ion battery fires. The solution both rapidly cools the battery through evaporation whilst the vermiculite forms a film around the battery, greatly reducing the availability of oxygen and effectively smothering it. This is a patented technology available through AVD Fire Ltd in Stoke-On-Trent.

There is a YouTube video showing an AVD extinguisher in action in Further Reading.

These 5 essential habits should help you keep your vessel in good order and safe from burning when you aren’t on your boat and give you a decent chance of fighting and surviving a fire should it break out when you are.

Surveyor’s Top Tips

It’s a truism to state that every survey is different because every vessel is different. Knowing what fire safety equipment a vessel should have requires an understanding of the vessel’s design, layout and equipment as well as any mandatory standards to which the vessel need comply. Commercially coded vessels follow strict guidelines and to a lesser extent so do inland waterways vessels in the UK with the Boat Safety Scheme. However private vessels in use on the coast need comply with no mandatory requirements for safety or firefighting equipment.

Given that for some vessels there is no mandated equipment a logical approach is to recommend the purchase and carriage of equipment proportionate to the perceived risk involved in a specific vessel. For example, every vessel fitted with an internal combustion engine, generator, LPG gas system or paraffin fuelled lamps really should have a carbon monoxide detector fitted. If a vessel has a fixed LPG system at the very least it should be fitted with a gas leakage tester for Owner tests or a gas test point for a Gas Safe Register technician to test for leaks. A fire blanket is a low cost, low maintenance insurance policy as are fire extinguishers which cost more in the medium term. Optical smoke alarms are very effective on boats and are far more sensitive than the human nose, giving the earliest possible warning that something is getting too hot.

Regulatory standards such as The Boat Safety Scheme recommend that fire extinguishers are carried by quantity and combined fire rating according to the length of the vessel. However, these are all too often the cheap little 1kg ABC dry powder units. Far better would be to carry a larger water mist extinguisher and perhaps a Lith-Ex extinguisher given the prevalence of lithium-ion battery powered devices on a typical family sized yacht.

🎄Christmas Is Coming 🎄

More Great Kit Ideas

With the nights drawing in and winter soon to arrive, it is (as he holds breath for collective howls) time to start thinking about Christmas presents for the boat owners or marine surveyors in your life or as a treat for yourself. I have put together several collections on Kit.Co which are all personally recommended items and most of which I own.

From boat safety equipment to books about sailing and the tools and books a marine surveyor needs; there really is something for everyone!

Boaty Terminology

Fire Watch – An individual or team tasked to observe the effects of any hot work, typically welding, on a vessel. They monitor hot work sites alongside the welder to ensure their safety and that of others in the vicinity. When welding is external, a watch is placed inside the vessel to ensure that combustible materials which cannot be removed, protected or shielded do not catch fire. 

Links To Further Reading

This is a great video showing an AVD extinguisher being used on a lithium-ion battery pack in thermal runaway.

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