50' Hatt "Bottom Line" Burned And Sank At The Bisbee's Black & Blue

[Avenger]

I just saw this on another site. The crew was rescued by another tournament boat. No explanations yet for the fire. Sad and scary.

http://www.sportfishermen.com/board...ckpot-tournament-photos-updates-277608-3.html

 

[solanderi]

The stuff nightmares are made of........Thank God for no injuries or worse. Sea state looks decent and of course broad daylight. We occasionally swordfish off miami from dusk to the wee hours approx 18 plus miles off-shore and I couldnt think of a worse scenario than a fire. Yikes !

Greg
1985 45C
Hat Time
N. Bay Village, FL

 

[Genesis]

Eeek......

 

[spartonboat1]

OMG...I remember a Hatt dealer trying to downgrade my 'old 6-71N's' and he admitted they had a newer Hatt suffer a fire in the ER when a blower blew a seal and the spewed fluid caught fire.

Anyone venture a guess what else would catch fire on a Hatt? Major electrical is all that comes to mind.

 

[SKYCHENEY]

Exhaust from loss of raw water flow, generator, electrical, batteries, turbo.

 

[nor'easter]

wow

 

[solanderi]

Go to school on those pics and whatever comes out when the captain details the story.

 

[Genesis]

The MOST LIKELY cause of a fire like that (which can't be put out by the ER bottle) is loss of raw water flow to the exhaust. The inside of the fiberglass tubes catch fire and that is nearly impossible to extinguish. This, by the way, is why I had exhaust stack temperature alarms!

Second is a turbo fire caused by detonation of a turbo or severe leak (e.g. oil that sprays onto a hot surface, etc) Those are bad news too, but the newer boats use water-cooled turbos that significantly reduce this risk.

Third would be electrical or fuel-related.

#2 and #3 USUALLY can be and is put out by the dedicated fire bottles in the engine room, unless it spreads beyond the bottle's reach before detection. Then you're screwed.

 

[Ross Macdonald]

Karl..What exactly are exhast stack temperature alarms? Are these temp sensors on exhaust tubing from the muffler to the riser? I have exhaust tubes extending from the forward end of the muffler connected to Trident blue hi temp hose that goes to the stainless exhaust. During long runs at slower speeds I shoot the tubes with an infra red heat gun and get around 190 degrees. These are for a 12-71. A temp alarm would be a great way to monitor these tubes. (If in fact that's what you're talking about.) These tubes were glassed inside and out to the ends of the muffler tube because PO tightened T-bolt clamps too tight and cracked the end of the tube. Thanks, Ross

 

[Brian Degulis]

I'm not buying the loss of raw water exhaust fire that takes time and unless the operator is an idiot it will be detected before it gets close to causing a fire. Fiberglass is hard to put out but it's also hard to get it started. Most of the time a fire that can't be controlled is fuel related. A small leak that's spraying fuel on a hot engine may very well go un noticed. The fuel vaporizes and creeps through the boat until some ignition source lights it up. When it goes up it's very quick and very hot and it's not confined to one place which makes it very hard to control.

Back in the early 90's I was in a partnership on a dinner dance boat on LI. You Long Island guys may remember when the Lady Edna out of Freeport burned off Long beach. That fire was caused by a leak in a dry stack exhaust system. It had been leaking for some time and nobody knew it because the mufflers and pipes where inside a steel stack and could not be inspected. The long term leak saturated the insulation within the stack with oil. The boat was being taken to the yard for a routine haul so the 1271s were running higher RPM than normal. At some point smoke was seen coming out of the Stb stack so they brought the boat to a stop went into the engine room and saw a glowing up in that stack. The stack had a 5 HP vent fan at the bottom that was running. They turned the fan off and oil vapor blew back down thru the stack and throughout the boat. It found a source of ignition some place and that was it. With 3 competent crew on board a load of portable extinguishers and a large fire pump they couldn't get it under control. They jumped off within 10 minutes of trying and it burned to the deck and sunk. That god no passengers were on board.

The sad part is that if they had left the fan on they would have been able to put it out. The fan was supplying air to the fire but it was also keeping it in the stack. When the oil vapor spread through the boat it was over.

Brian

 

[Pascal]

Ross

Aqualarm makes an exhaust alarm. I just installed one on the boat i captain. it's supposed to go off at 200 deg. It will go off if you loose water flow before the coolant over heats.

a few months ago, I picked up some stuff and lost some flow on of the engines (1400hp Cat 3412Es). engine or tranny temp didnt' move at all, not even 1 deg. but i noticed some steam out the exhaust so i stopped and cleaned the strainer. That was enough to affect the Trident blue high temp hose. no visible damage just a smell. I replaced it as a precaution (10" diameter but a short section to the fiberglass tubes). there was a small delaminated area inside. that's when i deceided to add the aqualarm... under $100.. too cheap not to have.

In this instance, who knows what happened. if anything, i'd bet electrical fire which can often be worst since the ER halon system may not do anything about it if the fire starts behind a panel or something.

On addition to the ER halon system, I keep two extra bottles near the ER door.

oh, and i keep a pack of PFD in the anchor locker as well as in a transom locker in case the primary PFDs become un reachable.

a year or two ago, a buddy davis caught fire off Key biscayne. Sistership to, and owned by the same people as the infamous Joe Cool. The electrical fire was put out, the passengers picked up, and the boat towed to my marina. you could smell it for days 100 yards away. these things make you think about "WHAT IF".... can you get to the fire? can you get to PFDs?