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

[Wookie]

Exactly,
If the industry regulates itself (effectively) before these hearings then things may turn out well, but this latest incident would appear to forecast a gloomy future. If the boat owners/operators are not achieving this then maybe the insurers need to apply some pressure, before government steps in.
PS - maybe DEMA's agenda could have two new items, right at the top.
1) Bullet proof fire detection/suppression systens with multi layered defence systems (both technological and human based)
2) Fire prevention systems and fire escape systems.

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.

 

[tursiops]

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

I agree with you. When I'm running a trip I negotiate or pay for Nitrox for all and build it into the trip price if necessary, including certification if needed.

 

[Wookie]

I agree with you. When I'm running a trip I negotiate or pay for Nitrox for all and build it into the trip price if necessary, including certification if needed.

Yes!

 

[nm7sp]

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.

In the interim you may be able to get away with just one extra crewman.
A security guard (fire guard) with no duties other than to check the whole boat, except for the passenger sleeping areas, every (say) 5 minutes and report to the navigation nightwatchman and sign a sheet saying "it's 2:25 and all's well".
The navigation nightwatchman is backup for an incapacitated fire guard and the BNWAS system , and the fire guard are backup for an incapacitated nav guard.
The nav guard would have a camera feed from the sleeping quarters as backup for the smoke alarm system.
So the only extra technology needed is one camera and the only extra human involvement is one person with no training or skills needed.
If passengers are not prepared to pay for this then so be it.

 

[chillyinCanada]

How many passengers will it take? I'm assuming that they need to be alive?

 

[Dan]

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

 

[Schwob]

I am not stating where the fire started (either of the two discussed here), but I wonder if a dedicated charging table would have to be out of wood (As I recall, possibly incorrectly the RSA1's) or if i.e. could be / have:
- be out of (or clad wit a material hard to incinerate. Not sure what that should be (is 316 ss good enough?)
- have a hood / booth / backwall structure out of / clad with such a material ... (sort of like you'd expect a vommercial kitchen to be)
- have a heat sensor right above
- have a smoke detector right above
- both with additional alarm feeds to the wheelhouse AND the nearest quarters.
- both such that they also cut the power feed to the table and maybe even engage the sprinkler there ... (or a more appropriate extinguisher?)
- have a cctv to the wheelhouse, possibly with a bell going off there if the image changes in recognizable ways. It would force at least a look, even if hopefully it just means some one checked his video light they just put a batery in and not a fire blaze...
- smarter people can think or may have thought already of smarter things...
..
But as others pointed out in various places... the way we charge Li Ion batteries of various qualities with chargers of various qualities needs to be rethought, likely not just on boats...

 

[fisquid]

Certain airliners use enormous li-ion batteries to power aircraft systems as a backup in the event of a power failure. And you can't just abandon ship when you're seven miles above the North Atlantic, so a 100% fire containment success rate is required. Totally doable. They used a metal box along with a suppression system iirc.

An ordinary granite countertop on metal supports would make a very fireproof charging station. Everything within a meter or so of the ignition point should be fireproof, but that's not hard to do. Just build the charging station the same way you'd build a barbecue. You could have quite a hot fire on there in complete safety. Cheap, simple, well within the reach of even the stingiest operator.

But then, it could have been a generator fire, or a dryer fire, or an unrelated electrical fire started by the fridge or the coffeemaker, we don't know. The real way to save lives is to have the night watchman be a tad less, uh, fictional.

 

[chillyinCanada]

Boeing 787s use enormous li-ion batteries to power aircraft systems as a backup in the event of a power failure. And you can't just abandon ship, so a 100% fire containment success rate is required. Totally doable. They used a metal box along with a suppression system iirc.

An ordinary granite countertop on metal supports would make a very fireproof charging station. Everything within a meter or so of the ignition point should be fireproof, but that's not hard to do. Just build the charging station the same way you'd build a barbecue. You could have quite a hot fire on there in complete safety. Cheap, simple, well within the reach of even the stingiest operator.

But then, it could have been a generator fire, or a dryer fire, or an unrelated electrical fire started by the fridge or the coffeemaker, we don't know. The real way to save lives is to have the night watchman be a tad less, uh, fictional.

I believe that smoking was allowed on that boat too, so who knows

 

[Ken Kurtis]

The real way to save lives is to have the night watchman be a tad less, uh, fictional.

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.