Ben, Your story about a fire onboard was scary. I am glad that you were able to get it under control. I, too, own a steel-hulled boat and have been known to tout the advantages of steel when given the least opportunity. You have just given me one more reason to like steel. The contents may be flammable but at least the hull is not.
I can foresee a potential chink in the armor, however. If a person uses Marlon thru-hulls and seacocks to avoid electrolysis problems, the Marlon could melt or burn, letting the water in. Do you have any solution for this? I really don't want to use brass on or near the steel and stainless steel looses its good qualities if it is underwater and cannot get oxygen. Whenever possible (discharge lines) I am planning to weld mild steel pipe directly to holes in the hull and then only adding a seacock to the pipe above the waterline. Of course, for intake lines this is probably not feasible. Lee Huddleston s/v Truelove -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ben Okopnik Sent: Sunday, January 09, 2011 5:14 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Liveaboard] Marina Fire On Sun, Jan 09, 2011 at 04:12:52PM -0600, Lee Huddleston wrote: > > Many years ago I read on the liveaboard list a reminder that normal bilge > pumps > cannot keep up with any considerable hole in a hull.- Shortly thereafter I > happened to be in a Harbor Freight store and saw a �contractor�s mud pump� on > clearance. -It was a large centrifugal pump directly attached to the shaft of > a > gasoline engine.- I cannot recall the horsepower or the size of the intake (1 > + > or 2�).- I couldn�t resist the purchase.- Later I was able to purchase a > relatively-long wire-reinforced plastic intake hose from an industrial supply > house.- For the discharge I was able to purchase a fire hose that happened to > be on clearance as well.- This inspired me find a fire hose nozzle at a local > fire-control store. I was at a Northern Tool store a few weeks ago, and couldn't resist a similar purchase. Since I have two generators on board as well as a big inverter, I just bought a big electric trash pump and a good-quality hose for it. When I got to the boat, I hooked them up, tested them, lashed the whole thing into a neatly-stowable package with very light line, and stowed it all in a cockpit locker. It gives me a nice feeling of additional security to have it there. I like your idea of having a nozzle nearby as well; I'll be looking for one of those. What's surprising is that I didn't think of it myself - given how much I love multipurpose stuff on board. Oh well... can't be at the top of the game every moment, right? "We should not be crippled by the knowledge that no one of us can know what all of us together know." -- John Brunner, "The Shockwave Rider" > My question to you and the list is, -assuming that the pump was fueled but the > hoses not yet attached, would it have been possible to use such a pump to > suppress the fire on a neighboring boat and save it and hopefully yours or > would the fierceness of the fire have made such an attempt too dangerous? I had a fire on board about 10 years ago; in fact, it was on this very boat, in the aft cabin, and it grew into a fully-developed fire back there. I'll quote an earlier email that I wrote about it: [I was] making a passage down Delaware Bay, right up near the nuke plant there. The dry exhaust pipe had been routed close to wood shelving and was not shielded (!), and combined with the outside temps which were in the 90s, heated the wood enough to combust. I learned a bunch of lessons that day: 1) I'm truly grateful for my steel boat. I've seen a fiberglass hull catch fire; it was burning to the waterline in less than two minutes (I've got time-stamped pictures of it.) 2) You *cannot* get close enough to a fully-developed fire for long enough to do anything useful unless you're coming just behind a wall of water or foam. The human brain simply shuts down when the temperature around it is in the 400+-degree range. 3) Little fire extinguishers are OK for little kitchen fires, but a real fire takes real equipment. A small crewboat happened to be nearby; I radioed them, told them I had a fire, and asked them to stand by. They came over, jumped on board, and took turns with me putting the fire out; none of us could stand being in there for more than 5-10 seconds - the heat would literally suck the water out of your body in a flood (all of us immediately rammed down a quart of water every time we came out of there.) We managed to put it out. I lost a bunch of cabinetry and bedclothes, and the aft cabin stank of burned wood for a good year despite all the stuff having been removed and the entire place scrubbed endlessly. Of course, the exhaust system now has shielding all around it, and the cabinetry has been replaced, but I'll never forget it. Based on point #2, above, I believe that the rig I have - and surely the one you have as well - is sufficient to provide that necessary "wall of water", at least for a small to a medium sized fire (and that's big judgement call all in itself, too.) Trying to put out a real fire with anything less than that would be pointless - and could easily turn fatal. So, in short: yeah, I'd crank up my system if a boat next to me was burning - but I would be a damned fool if I didn't keep an eye on a *sure* escape route for myself while doing that. Ditto if I didn't already have my most valuable stuff in my pockets, or in a bag close at hand. Ben -- OKOPNIK CONSULTING Custom Computing Solutions For Your Business Expert-led Training | Dynamic, vital websites | Custom programming 443-250-7895 http://okopnik.com http://twitter.com/okopnik _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
