And so it begins. Panic in the California dive boat industry

[MaxBottomtime]

I was on a Big Sur trip aboard the Vision when the crew recovered a DPV that had been lost two years prior. It still ran when they brought it aboard.

 

[BRT]

If the timeline is correct, it went from not detectable by a crewman to fully engulfed in thirty to forty five minutes, so a roving watch only gains some time if rounds are less than a half hour. Regardless of how the fire started.



Although the NTSB is impressive, it's going to be hard to impossible to determine a cause. No cause and batteries will remain a suspect, and restricted. Minimalist divers like me will not be inconviensed, but others that have high tech gear and cameras, will.


Bob

75' boat. Probably should be able to get over it every half hour?

 

[BRT]

And motorcycles

And everything else.

 

[BRT]

Seriously. You guys need to grow up and move over to 230V. Your kettles would boil faster and you’dsave A fortune in copper

How many watts are your kettles? What size wire do you run on your house circuits? What is your voltage to ground?

 

[Wookie]

This does seem to be a knee jerk reaction?

Having recently flown overnight on a large airplane, there where zero restrictions on battery charging (although lots of rules about which bag your spare batteries can go in...). In the near future I will be boarding a small cruise ship. Again no restrictions on battery charging. the hotel I am staying in has no restrictions.

What is so different about a smallish boat that restrictions are considered sane / required?

Structural fire walls and building materials. Cruise ships and airplanes are built to not burn. Small passenger vessels are built of “fire retardant materials”.

 

[Popgun Pete]

Do you think hotels and store buildings and buses are not "grandfathered"?

What has that got to do with it? These boats will be out of service or heavily modified if regulations play catch up to the modern reality of what divers use.

 

[The Ruttmeister]

How many watts are your kettles? What size wire do you run on your house circuits? What is your voltage to ground?

1: 2.5Kw (vs US being less than 1.5Kw)
2: Typical domestic ring main would be 2.5mm2. With a 32A MCB (or RCD)
3. 230V.

Bonus points, 2 phase only exists in countries with 110/120V. Its not needed in the rest of the world (and is a strange thing that us furriners find confusing).

But as a Brit, American standards of electrical safety scare me. Much of what is considered standard practice was banned long ago in the UK. The multi-power strip chain being one of the reasons that all UK plugs have a fuse. You never know what some numpty is going to plug into the power strip and the 'surge protector' is a cheap piece of junk that will often fail to trip in time.

 

[JackD342]

For a (highly amusing) explanation of electrical safety features in GB:

 

[The Ruttmeister]

This does seem to be a knee jerk reaction?

Having recently flown overnight on a large airplane, there where zero restrictions on battery charging (although lots of rules about which bag your spare batteries can go in...). In the near future I will be boarding a small cruise ship. Again no restrictions on battery charging. the hotel I am staying in has no restrictions.

What is so different about a smallish boat that restrictions are considered sane / required?

As other people have pointed out, there are restrictions on Lithium batteries on flights. Specifically, as you mention, they can't be in checked luggage. They have to be somewhere people can see them if they do catch fire. You are also limited to 100Wh MAX.
There are also trained crew observing the cabin at all times.

Structural fire walls and building materials. Cruise ships and airplanes are built to not burn. Small passenger vessels are built of “fire retardant materials”.

To expand on this. Hotels have fire doors designed to withstand 1 hour or more of fire. They have sprinklers. They have a Fire Service than can drive to the hotel in a reasonable amount of time.

The Cruise ship comparison needs even more expansion.

Cruise ships have a fire fighting team on board, with hoses and BA gear and they train regularly. They have fire doors, they have a huge crew trained to evacuate the passengers. They have an excess of lifeboats and rafts and people to launch them.
And Cruise lines are scared stiff of fire, they train their crews regularly and take the risk very very seriously.

 

[tursiops]

I am vaguely aware that some cannister light battery packs were too big and that some were re-engineered to meet airline requirements, but am unaware of what these are.

Easily lookupable on the FAA website.