Was on a ship that had built in car decks in two holds Duke. It loaded cars on the drive on drive off system with the various rules for same. Even though the cars had to be loaded by cranes or derricks, usually the latter. They were driven down to the dockside and therefore had fuel in the tanks. The law at that time said words to the effect that the hold had to be force ventilated every so many hours to rid the atmosphere of petrol fumes . However we found that doing so caused dampness as regards the cars and damage. So we played lip service to the regulations , and rarely used the extractor fans, and opened a hatch in good weather to air the hold out. Wonder what H and S would say to that ? However they weren’t in being at the time as their insistence on going by the rules would have cost tens of thousands in insurance claims. However in your case flooding a hold is a bit extreme. Cheers JS.
