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Someone on a mariner's forum suggested one relatively recent development: Everyone is touting devices with (sometimes multiple) Li-ion batteries these days. Phones, cameras, vapes, diving lights. Highly energetic, have been known to catch fire and are almost impossible to put out.
If that's the case, we're going to get a USCG reg on where to charge devices - that is, not in bunk areas.
THAT is a really intriguing theory. Someone could have been charging something in the galley area, where a battery fire might go unnoticed until too late because no one was in the galley at the time (everyone either being below in the bunks asleep, or up on deck either sleeping or on watch.)
Some folks seem to have this idea that it's your responsibility to save the passengers if you work on the boat. Your safety comes first. If helping someone kills you too, then now there is one additional death that is not necessary.
You ever sail anywhere tropical without an open-able hatch in a V birth?
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Yes, I used to deliver boats for Beneteau and I raced for years. I am very familiar with hatch that opens in a v-berth but it doesn't come off. At very best you are getting a spinnaker through it or an air chute at anchor.
With the spinnaker the boat is sailing upright and not heeling.
Yes, I used to deliver boats for Beneteau and I raced for years. I am very familiar with hatch that opens in a v-berth but it doesn't come off. At very best you are getting a spinnaker through it or an air chute at anchor.
With the spinnaker the boat is sailing upright and not heeling.
Larger boats do not have them.
47 foot Catalina - Wonder what those things in the overhead are?
Those hatches are above the water line and do not come off.
Please. That is exactly what we are discussing. Hatches above the water line that open. There is absolutely no reason why a hatch would ever come off at least without tools. The issue is that a person can easily pass through such a hatch not that it comes off. Hatches in the Deck of the sunk boat could easily have been located in the deck along side the cabin or in the bow.
[quote=TMBGBlueCanary;56094996]I used to dive off a boat called the Encore to the Channel Islands. It's been decades and I don't even know if that boat still exists.
The best way I can figure to describe the setup for those who have never been in such a boat is that it's a lot like the racks one might find in a Navy boat. It's basically just a room full of bunk beds. It's tight (and I remember it being hot too with all the people packed in). Sometimes I would just go on deck and fall asleep there instead.
I found a picture of the Conception's sleeping quarters (it's similar to what I remember from the boat I regularly stayed on). I am not really sure about this "locked in" that I keep hearing. It looks like a regular staircase up. And to get to the head, you'd have to be able to get out of the sleeping arra (I would think... I am guessing the head was not in the sleeping area. I've never seen that before) so why would the crew lock passengers in? I think that's a mistake someone reported somewhere.
There are other pictures here including a diagram of the boat:
I would hold off on judgement on the crew of the boat. If it the fire was that hot, intense, and fast, there is really nothing anyone could have done except abandon the ship and call for help (which they did). Think of it this way, if it was too hot and fast for people who were trapped in it to risk running though the galley to get out, how superhuman would it be to climb down a ladder from the bridge (see the picture) into the fire-filled galley to get in to get to others? I would think anyone going in would quickly be overcome. Not to mention climbing a down a ladder into flames without protective gear is just not something I think I could even do if I wanted to.
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Yes agree. I’m no expert on boats period, but upon reading posts here and following news reports and videos, it looks to me as if the whole galley was aflame. Numerous explosions were heard by people on the other boat where the crew went to for help. The only thing that appears to be certain is that with two exits from the bunk area, and nobody out of 34 people was able to get out, there must have been something insurmountable that these poor souls just couldn’t overcome, or they most certainly would have. They would have done anything possible to get out of that inferno and smoke. This was such an unprecedented disaster and the swiftness and severity of the fire most likely will change future designs of boats.
Yes many questions remain to be answered.
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