Nekton boats may come back!!

[tarponchik]

If they'd been breathing nitrox, none of that would have happened.

I bet the DM did not check their comps, that's why.

 

[mitsuguy]

Don't see where I said it was. "Looks like" only suggests reasonably high possibility. But since they said the fire was in the ship's engine room, then, if not for human error (like some idiot decided to dry an oil-soaked rag on a hot surface), then the most likely reason was overheating of machinery or electric circuits. Which typically happens when machines are old and worn out.

You haven't spent much time on a boat have you?

Even with brand new equipment, there is a chance of failure...

When everything is working "properly" then yes, the most likely reason is it was worn out, but I've seen some catastrophic failures of pieces that are brand new - usually coming from a problem in the manufacture of the original part...

Even in light duty applications such as cars, pieces and parts break on brand new vehicles, that may not even be a defect in design, yet a defect in the workmanship or even the metallurgy... Ferrari just had to recall all of their 458 Italia's due to a fender liner that when exposed to high temperatures distorts, then the adhesive used on it catches fire because it gets too close to the engine. Design flaw - maybe, but it hasn't happened on any of their test mules despite thousands and thousands of miles of race track style driving and even more thousands of miles of street testing...

Ever see a scuba hose less than a year old burst, even though no signs of strain, stress or aging? I have... Now, imagine a line under pressure with fuel oil in the right spot...

The boat was just 2 years old. The machinery in those things are designed to last many times that. Could it have been lack of maintenance or human error, sure, in fact those are the two prevalent thoughts, but to condemn them so quickly sounds a little off to me... I'll wait for an accident report before I condemn them...

 

[tarponchik]

Sure, everything is possible. I did not check how old the boat was--my fault. But even a new boat or car needs certain maintaince to keep it in order. Sh#t happens both with people and devices but it happens more often with people. If you look at the aviation stats, mechanical failure caused 22% of fatal accidents but human error caused 56% Accident statistics Like, space shuttle Challenger was less than 3 years old when it blew up, and the rocket booster that failed was brand new, but it was the human error that killed it.

 

[donhealy]

So everyone stops the speculation: It was the crankcase of one the 6 diesel engines that cracked and split open. The info can be found in the San Diego Union Tribune this morning's edition.

I'm not quite sure what this has to do with the end of Nekton or Deep diver's decision but have at it.

I think we could probably kill the Nekton thread now.

Don

 

[diverdoug1]

I wanted to comment on the nitrox part of this thread. I noticed that at the beginning of the nitrox comment the poster was told by the physician in Grand Cayman that he should have been diving nitrox. In my hyperbaric practice here in the US, I have repeatedly seen patients for follow up (after a DCS event in the Caymans) who have been told that their DCS injury was a direct result of not using nitrox. It seems that for some reason it is par for the course to be told this when you get treatment for DCS in Grand Cayman.

 

[tarponchik]

So everyone stops the speculation: It was the crankcase of one the 6 diesel engines that cracked and split open. The info can be found in the San Diego Union Tribune this morning's edition.
Don

Thanks for the info. Looks like I goofed, but here is an interesting piece: crankcase explosion in marine diesel engines - tips to avoid explosion and fire on ship

 

[tarponchik]

I wanted to comment on the nitrox part of this thread. I noticed that at the beginning of the nitrox comment the poster was told by the physician in Grand Cayman that he should have been diving nitrox. In my hyperbaric practice here in the US, I have repeatedly seen patients for follow up (after a DCS event in the Caymans) who have been told that their DCS injury was a direct result of not using nitrox. It seems that for some reason it is par for the course to be told this when you get treatment for DCS in Grand Cayman.

There may be some thuth in what they say. In theory, it does not matter what you drink since only your total alcohol intake counts. However, in practice it is much easier to get drunk by drinking hard liquor than by drinking beer or wine. This is why many states/counties restrict sales of hard liquor more than sales of beer/wine. So if some percent of divers tends to be risky anyway, maybe, following this logic, they will get tired before getting DCS while diving on nitrox.

 

[diverdoug1]

There may be some thuth in what they say. In theory, it does not matter what you drink since only your total alcohol intake counts. However, in practice it is much easier to get drunk by drinking hard liquor than by drinking beer or wine. This is why many states/counties restrict sales of hard liquor more than sales of beer/wine. So if some percent of divers tends to be risky anyway, maybe, following this logic, they will get tired before getting DCS while diving on nitrox.

I don't follow the logic in this statement. If a diver is so devoid of the skills to manage a dive profile that they rely on fatigue to keep from getting DCS, giving them a higher ppo2 (with a lower MOD), causes them to be MORE likely to get injured diving with said mix. The morbidity and mortality are much higher with oxygen toxicity at depth than they are for DCS.

 

[tarponchik]

I don't follow the logic in this statement. If a diver is so devoid of the skills to manage a dive profile that they rely on fatigue to keep from getting DCS, giving them a higher ppo2 (with a lower MOD), causes them to be MORE likely to get injured diving with said mix. The morbidity and mortality are much higher with oxygen toxicity at depth than they are for DCS.

You only mentioned DCS, not oxygen toxycity. But now that you did, this graph here Scuba Diving in Goa | Scuba diving accidents Statistics says that DCS is blamed in 2.5% fatalities, and loss of conciosness/wrong gas only for 2%. Max depth which is causing oxygen toxicity is much easier to control than total time underwater, or total time at max depth, or the ascending rate.

 

[diverdoug1]

You only mentioned DCS, not oxygen toxycity. But now that you did, this graph here Scuba Diving in Goa | Scuba diving accidents Statistics says that DCS is blamed in 2.5% fatalities, and loss of conciosness/wrong gas only for 2%. Max depth which is causing oxygen toxicity is much easier to control than total time underwater, or total time at max depth, or the ascending rate.

You are missing the point. There many more incidents of DCS than oxygen toxicity, so the chance of a fatality or serious injury is MUCH higher with an individual ox tox event. Do I see more DCS cases than OX TOX cases in my hyperbaric practice? Sure, because 1. it happens more frequently, 2. the majority of divers that suffer oxygen toxicity on open SCUBA go directly to the mourge. Not sure why you say max depth is easier to controll than time under water. You come up to limit both. The simple fact of the mater is that using oxygen enhanced breathing media in hyeprbaric environments decreases some risks, and increases others and the consequences of an oxygen seizure underwater are usually more serious than that of a DCS hit. Giving nitrox to a diver unable to manage a dive profile will not mitigate thier overall risk, and is NOT a good idea.