Another container ship on fire

[John Arton]

We all used to think tankers were dangerous but it appears that container ships are just as dangerous.
https://gcaptain.com/crews-battling-...eid=3b737aa316
Rgds
J.A.

[Chris Allman]

Its because of all the dangerous cargo in the containers John, cargo that has not been declared properly or at all.

[j.sabourn]

#1... My short year on tankers I was lead to believe the most dangerous time on a tanker was when she was mt and not gas free. The likes of cotton and coal. And a few more cargoes. Considered harmless I would consider just as dangerous as a loaded tanker with crude. Two of the cargoes I carried as a green tanker mate was Naptha , and wondered why people were walking around on tiptoe. I found that some of the old tanker mates used to get their kicks when taking ullages by getting their noses as close to the ullage caps as possible , were mYbe ex glue sniffers. jS

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi John.
Was on quite a number of tankers, but only on two that had a fire emergency, made the bum tighten up. Had just left Swansea when a tanker exploded in the tanker berth. All in all with the number of tankers in service in those days it was pretty safe .
Cheers Des

[j.sabourn]

What was that general cargo ship that exploded up the. Gulf somewhere think it was one of Stricks , was put down to a box of toe puff , which was found after the event to be highly combustible.
When you get down to all the various types of grain on a general cargo ship I would consider that dangerous especially when carrying large amounts of flax seed , which is like carrying water when considering the viscosity of it. Dangerous as to any shift and losing stability. At least the old way of freight you could see and know where the danger was anyway. Containers you are going blind and relying on others who may not be so aware, why should they worry however the insurance will probably pay them more than the freightage. Zinc concentrates they were late in finding the dangers there and it cost two ships and many life’s to adjust the rules. What I found and have said before in another post, the people who should load a ship stability and safety wise are the people who have to sail and work that ship. Today this is rapidly disappearing and is being taken over by shore people, maybe today would be a good time to tell them to get off their asses and come and sail the ship as well. Cheers JS

[Shaun Gander]

Fire scares the &$@/ out of me, especially at sea. As said before my last firefighting course was awful in terms of reality for hose who didn't know better Also some of the postings here are frightening.

Dockwalk - The Essential Site For Captains And Crew - DockTalk
Dockwalk - The Essential Site For Captains And Crew - DockTalk

I seem to remember seeing some device that punched a hole into a container and delivered a water or foam mix? Did that ever make it into general usage?

At home I am annoying anal about fire prevention. We had no power yesterday so we were using candles for lighting after all the battery operated things went flat, I moved all the extinguishers into the room. My wife was OK... But knew why I'd done it. One of her friends visiting once asked why so many extinguishers. Fire blankets are almost impossible to find here, I brought two on my last visit to the UK for the kitchen.

SDG

[j.sabourn]

The best thing if in the right place and under the right circumstances in the case of fire on board is to call the fire brigade and put distance between yourself and the seat of the fire. Every fire is different and will have some material to feed on. The biggest and most horrendous fire I ever saw was onboard the Piper Alpha. Although was close enough to feel the heat searing your face and skin , every person will see the situation in a different light. For days after between the whiskey bottle and my trying to put together the actions I took without really thinking about them, I came to the conclusion that without even thinking about it my biggest danger was unthinkingly going into an area with gas in the water and going down like a car in a sink hole. And to this end was going into parts with floating objects such as ropes and hoses and even bulkheads knowing there was a danger of getting the screw foul. I forget how many weeks or days even after the fuel source was cut off it took Red Adair’s team to extinguish the fire from the biggest floating fire engine in the world at the time.Fire is every seaman’s worse nightmare. Especially in the past when stuck out in the middle of nowhere , wondering if a message had been got put. Today with Epirbs and the modern aids is not quite as bad, but bad enough. JS

[happy daze john in oz]

Yes tankers particularly when empty could be areal fire hazard.

But container ships are afar bigger threat to safety.
Not only is there at times unknown cargo that could even explode in certain conditions, but how do you get to put such a fire out?

How do you get below if that is where the fire is, simply you do not.
You get off quick smart while you can, even fires at deck level will be hard to contain or control on such ships.
The contents of each container is supposed to be in the manifest, but how do you check such coming from some countries?

Tinned tomatoes from Italy a couple of years ago turned out to be tins of cocaine lucky to be found but how many others do get though?

[j.sabourn]

And that’s without worrying about the illegal immigrants. JS

[John Arton]

I was watching Mighty Ships program the other day all about the Canadian ice breaker bulk carrier that spends its life sailing from Quebec to a nickel mine in Labrador, very interesting as it appears to go through Belle Isle straight year round. It took supplies for the mine outwards and it's return journey brought the nickel ore back. Now nickel ore if loaded wet is very dangerous as it rapidly turns to slurry yet on that vessel, despite loading in mid winter, the nickel ore looked dry and dusty. When on container ships we always treated containers manifested as medical supplies with suspicion as they had been shown in the past to contain anything but medicine.
Another cargo that you have to be careful with is soya bean meal as if wetted it produces enough heat to self ignite. Any cargo carrier at sea is subject to the IMDG code but of course, especially with regards containers, the seafarer is reliant on those filling the container to truthfully declare the contents as well of those on board to have knowledge of the code.
I spent many happy years sailing on tankers, VLCC, product and chemical and one thing about them was the more dangerous the cargo the safer the ship.
The early disasters where VLCC tankers were suffering explosions were more down to industry wide ignorance regarding the dangers of static build up and discharge in a flammable atmosphere. Inert gas regulations and better training of crew went a long way to eliminate those dangers yet even today fire and explosion occur on all types of tankers yet if you look into the causes most of those incidents can be put down to crew disregarding proven safety practices or trying to cut corners to save time or money. I saw quite a bit of the latter when working with the Greeks as port captain where a number of the captain's seemed more interested in preserving their end of contract bonus than ensuring their crews safety, even to the extent of refusing to purchase certain regulatory items required for specific cargoes for fear of spending on safety would impact on their bonus.
Rgds
J.A.