Fire on board, lessons learnt.

Following a fire on my yacht, I thought I would pass on a couple of things I have learnt from the incident.
I had been asleep on the boat and had just put the kettle on, as is my practice I started the engine so it could have a good run, I also put on the fridge as I was going to stock that up for the season so was getting it cold ready for food and drinks later in the day. I had been on night shift so went and lay down again, waiting for the kettle to boil, slow metho stove, I was on my V berth and the door had swung shut, a few minutes later, bearing in mind the kettle takes about 10 minutes or so to boil and hadn’t yet boiled, I was somehow alerted, sat up and took an earplug out as I had still got these in for sleep, then pushed the cabin door open with my foot. What confronted me was a large portion of the main cabin was ablaze, around the cabin entry flames were floor to ceiling and no way through in only a pair of shorts. I instantly made the decision to get out through the forward hatch, pushed that open, but it would only open a couple of inches, that’s when a little bit of self-preservation hit, I had secured a storm cover over the hatch, to prevent sun damage and water penetration as it did let a little bit of rain in.
The storm cover was a sewn panel of canvas secured by 3mm spectra, there was no way I could snap the spectra and I couldn’t force the hatch open enough to get out, I was extremely lucky that after 2 or 3 mighty kicks the cover started to rip, 1 or 2 more kicks and I was able to push through. I escaped through the hatch, closely followed by large clouds of thick smoke. I was lucky I had made the cover out of the old canvas boom cover and not new canvas. What have I learnt from this, in any future boat I own each cabin will have a fire blanket, fire extinguisher and knife mounted ready to be used, I believe if I had a blanket and extinguisher I could have run through the fire and dived into the water, I would have suffered a few burns but would survive, a knife, I could have cut the cover.
Always survey your surroundings, i.e. ways out in an emergency; I should have untied the cover before having a sleep, but it made me think about how many yachts out there have their tender mounted on the deck over their forward hatch? Certainly cause for concern for some.




I am lucky, I got out, Nautilus Insurance has been great, but I have still lost a fair bit of investment in the improvements I had made since buying Jezebel. So now starts the process again, looking for suitable replacement, although very salvageable if you have plenty of time, I just want to be sailing not working on a yacht so I am not buying her back from insurance but she will be a bargain project for someone out there.

Close call....
Glad to hear you made it out safe.

Yeah, thanks for sharing and glad you're okay. Its a good reminder to all of us. Very scary. I might start releasing the dinghy lashings over the aft cabin hatch just in case. I've got 5 fire extinguishes scattered around on board, but I've always wonder just how effective they would be in the real deal. Hope the insurance money get you a nice yacht with minimum work to get you out on the water. Now that'd be the dream, buying a boat that only required maintenance because everything needed was done or installed by the previous owner. Good Luck

So sorry to hear about the loss of your vessel, P&J. And thanks for sharing your experience. Good luck with finding another.

Pumnjump,
Is That a steel or alloy Van de Stadt 34? Might be a good buy from the insurance company for you or one of your mates.

Thanks for the post. Makes you have a good rethink about ones own situation and facilities on board.

Those of you with powder type extinguishers, remember to pick it up and tip it upside down while giving it a good shake at least once a month. Over time the powder settles at the bottom of the cylinder and packs down tight due to the movement of the boat through waves.
Do yourself a favor and the next time you have to replace a extinguisher go out somewhere and let the thing off. Its the best way to see how little working time you have with those mini ones.

WA DoT regs: Fire Extinguisher (one) is mandatory. Fire Blanket only "recommended".

CO - the silent killer. After reading stories about Carbon Monoxide poisoning a CO Monitor might be worth considering. I've got a couple of combined Smoke/CO monitors (from Bunnings). Even had one go off in the aft cabin when I had an exhaust leak. CO is scary stuff when you have crew sleeping inside your boat when motoring.

If you ever get a chance to, read this book, I would recommend it. Apparently the insurance company puts out a monthly newsletter to all its policy holders telling them about all the claims they've had so that the other policy holders can learn from the events. This book is a collection of the most noteable. One is the story of the guy on watch going down to wake the crew for shift change and they were all dead.



Here is the wrap about the book

BoatU.S. provides marine insurance coverage to 250,000 American powerboaters and sailors, which makes its collection of claims reports one of the world’s largest archives of boating accidents. For more than 20 years, as writer and editor of BoatU.S.’s quarterly publication Seaworthy, Bob Adriance has sifted and analyzed this rich trove to discover and highlight the profound lessons it contains. Here is the ultimate boater’s guide to preventing, responding to, and surviving accidents under power or sail, including hurricane damage, lightning strikes, collisions, fires, groundings, sinkings, crew overboard, dismastings, and more.

Experience may be the best teacher, but the lessons are a lot less painful when the experience is someone else’s. Here is a unique opportunity to use other skippers’ misfortunes to make your own boat and seamanship safer. “A boaters’ guide as important and practical as any I’ve read. And if you can ignore the occasional frisson of guilty pleasure, one that’s as engrossing to read as The Perfect Storm.”–Tony Gibbs, yachting writer, editor, and novelist “Hair-raising disasters, hard facts, and helpful advice; Seaworthy is a compendium of no-nonsense information on avoiding problems that only a marine insurer could provide. Invaluable for the boater, builder, designer, and surveyor.”–Dave Gerr, director, Westlawn Institute of Tecnology; author of The Nature of Boats and The Elements of Boat Strength

Mmmmm smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms on the list