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I don't like to speculate, but combustibles that would have been in the main salon area probably include lithium ion batteries for the strobes and underwater video lights. Steve Small Business Website Design & Maintenance - https://spidercreations.net | OpSpec Training - https://opspectraining.com | Grayguns - https://grayguns.com Evil exists. You can not negotiate with, bribe or placate evil. You're not going to be able to have it sit down with Dr. Phil for an anger management session either. | |||
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| Leave the gun. Take the cannoli. |
Maritime and aviation accidents crack me up. Everyone is an investigation expert before the real experts have even finished their work  | |||
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Steve has a good point. UW lights could have been charging in the main cabin, and one could have overheated. As the boat was well maintained, this scenario is much more likely than a fire in the ship's wiring. Also if the fire started there, the emergency exits would have been blocked. -c1steve | |||
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The forces from the sea that a boat this size takes are substantial. So, the hulls are very strong. The hull may have only been 1.5" thick,but double planked, but with multiple ribs and so forth. You'd be very hard pressed to knock a hole in a wooden boat hull large enough for a person to fit through, with the boat out of the water at a boat yard and you standing on land hitting it with a fire axe for ten minutes. As for the wiring, it would be my guess. Even though the vessel is USCG inspected. There really isn't anyway to test or visually inspect the wiring for issues for most of the wiring. It is all run in a bundle of 100's of wires and loomed together and supported every 6", or run in wiring chases. Rarely do you see an issue on the exterior of the wires. It's just impossible to inspect it all and generally when you have a wiring issue, the spot in the wire is not obvious. BUT, 38 years is a very long run for wiring and is near the end of it's life in a boat. Best guess is it's a connection, possibly a galley electrical plug, stove, cook top, something of that nature. Judging by the dual coffee pots in the galley, they probably have been overloading galley plugs/circuits for years. It's all speculation, but honestly, since the vessel has burned to the waterline, I don't think the inspectors will be able to find a cause, because the cause has been destroyed by fire. I find it extremely odd that all 5 crew sleeping on the bridge, or outside of the cabin, simply jumped into the tender and went to another boat. It sounds like they simply abandoned ship. However, boat/yacht/ship fires on a vessel this size. As a rule you have 60 seconds from when the fire originates until the vessel is full ablaze. I have had 2 fires over the years and luckily found them and extinguished them before they turned into anything serious. Some examples of boat wiring: the looms on the far wall that are brown or blue in the first photo www.boattest.com/images-galler..._engineroom_2016.jpg https://www.bing.com/images/se...ist=0&vt=0&eim=1,2,6 https://www.bing.com/images/se...ist=0&vt=0&eim=1,2,6 I'm a USCG licensed 200 GRT/500GT STCW international Master (Captain) and have been a USCG licensed Captain for over 15 years and in the marine industry working on boats/yachts for over 20 years. | |||
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Investigations often take a year or more to complete and process. Speculation is unprofessional. | |||
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USCG works a lot faster than the NTSB and investigations are typically complete within 90 days on something this size. | |||
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| half-genius, half-wit |
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Conception Live-Aboard Tragedy: Interview with Truth Aquatics Owner
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I found out late last night that I knew one of people on the boat. He and his daughter were avid divers (I did not know this). His name was Scott Chan, and his daughter's name was Kendra. He had been an engineer for about 20 years, then transitioned to teaching physics (AP) at a high school. Everything I'm reading says that he was well-respected. We were both part of an informal car club some years ago, and helped host a Taurus SHO convention in both Sacramento and San Francisco. I'll have to look and see what postings he had made in the forum in the past few years.This message has been edited. Last edited by: SigSAC, | |||
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Drill Here, Drill Now |
This is pretty chicken shit:
Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer. | |||
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Official Space Nerd |
Well, it's not like the families of the dead would ever file frivolous and/or irrational lawsuits (bankrupting everybody involved in the process in order to cash in on 7-figure settlements). . . I could see it as simply trying to cover their butts, though I don't know enough about the industry to know if this is proper or not. Fear God and Dread Nought Admiral of the Fleet Sir Jacky Fisher | |||
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Told cops where to go for over 29 years… |
Small world... In 1989 I was in the Marines and stationed at MCAS El Toro in Santa An CA. I was also a PADI Divemaster and worked a part time job in the Dive department at Sports Chalet (fairly good size sporting goods chain) in Mission Viejo. A few of us from the Dive shop went to DEMA (Dive Equip & Marketing Assoc) trade show in Vegas that year. Three of us signed up for a complimentary boat dive with Truth Aquatics and The following weekend we headed up to Santa Barbara to spend the day on the Conception. Wasn’t an overnight trip, just a day run to show off the boat and service to try and get us to throw business their way. Was definitely a top-notch operation and a great day spent diving. Bagged my largest Sheepshead ever on that trip, also spent some time with a few very playful seals as well as tested out my newly purchased .44Mag bang-stick for my speargun. Shockwave of it going off underwater made quite an impression. Sad that the boat that brought so many happy experiences to so many people ended in such a tragedy. What part of "...Shall not be infringed" don't you understand???  | |||
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The Governor issued a statement - he focused on the one state employee and her husband. I'm not going to post the entire statement. https://www.gov.ca.gov/2019/09...-fire-investigation/ At the end, however, is the following: "California is committed to assisting in recovery efforts and the investigation however possible. Based on the findings of the investigation, the state will take action to prevent horrific boat fires like this in the future." Well, these boats are Coast Guard registered and inspected - at the Federal level. The State would be limited in their authority to regulate. Probably only at the business license level. The latest items on the investigation seem to center on two specific items: 1 - They did not appear to have an anchor watch - a person who is on duty at all times for safety. 2 - No propane onboard - it is now thought that battery chargers for diver's equipment, or the batteries themselves, may have started it. If I had to guess, some of the outcomes that will affect the industry as a whole will be: 1 - Smoke detection - will have to be interconnected throughout so that everyone knows if one goes off. 2 - A requirement for an exit that goes directly to the outside of any salons, cabins, etc.. From what I've seen of the layout, this might be accomplished by removing one of the rear bunks and putting a staircase to the stern area. If it ascends through part of the upper rooms, it would have to be fire-rated and open up directly to the outside. | |||
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Governor is just spouting off his cake hole because, you know, Government has to do SOMETHING!! That would be like the State government trying to regulate what the FAA and NTSB does with aviation. GMAFB... "...government is not the solution to our problem; government IS the problem." - Ronald Reagan, 20-JAN 1981 "If you’re a leader, you lead the way. Not just on the easy ones; you take the tough ones too…” – MAJ Richard D. Winters (1918-2011), E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil... Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel." - Isaiah 5:20,24 | |||
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Whether they are applicable here or not I can't say, but lithium batteries continue to be a very serious hazard. We take them for granted most of the time; they are useful and convenient and we have them in everything from laptops to personal equipment, flashlight batteries, etc. My wife noted that everyone on board the boat had laptops and in some videos she saw, the bunks were full of people using their laptops; normal today for ipads, personal computers, etc, as well as phones, and so forth. She saw a few videos and pictures with large numbers of charge cords plugged into single points, and thought it looked hazardous. In addition to an anchor watch, some means of observing a battery charging area would be warranted, as well as ensuring that charging is done in a metal location that can be accessed for battery removal or firefighting. I don't know if that has any impact on this mishap and I don't speculate, but you raise a good point that does have applicability elsewhere. I made it a point at home with kids and others that charging isn't done while asleep or unobserved. It's a good policy in general. | |||
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| Just for the hell of it  |
In diving, we have lithium batteries in many dive lights not to mention camera flashes. Some of the dive lights can have rather larger batteries. Although you find those more in the tec. community, cave and wreck divers. I have a Light Monkey canister light. The battery is inside a canister that attaches to my waist.  _____________________________________ Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain. Jack Kerouac | |||
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One of my friends runs a 85' yacht full time for a celebrity and they just got some hoverboard thing with a lithium batter and he asked about something to charge/store the battery in. I told him to get a sentry fire safe and keep the battery inside of it. | |||
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Who else? |
They had no one awake monitoring anything. No fire guard. No one watching for other vessels to avert a collision. No one monitoring the radio. Making sure they weren't adrift. Nothing. Tragic. Horrific. They should have known better. | |||
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Dances with Wiener Dogs |
Lithium batteries have gotten much better of late. Some of the chemistries they're using now are highly resistant to thermal runaway. But it can still happen. And once it does, I seriously doubt that boat had equipment to extinguish a lithium fire. IIRC, you need a dry carbon extinguisher. And you need an SCBA, as a lithium fire produces (in most of the battery uses) hydrogen cyanide gas. Some consumer products tend to push their batteries harder so that they can claim longer life and/or more rapid recharge. But you can only push so hard and the chemistry fights back. The Samsung Note 7 was one such case. Add in a lot of consumer products haven't gotten to the point of standardizing the chargers. E-cigs are probably a recent example of this. People use another charger because it's what they have with them and "the plug fits". One of our sister offices had a fairly substantial fire due to someone charging an E-cig on their desk with a charger that was for their cell phone. On top of that, the boat was designed and built LONG before every diver showed up with a laptop, cell phone, and rechargeable lights/flood lights/cameras/etc. So a lot of those chargers were likely shoehorned into a small area and were cobbled together in a spider web of charger cables. Lithium battery packs can have rapid chain reactions once a fire starts. One cell heats up the adjacent cells. Into this mix, if it's true they had no anchor watch, the odds caught up with them. _______________________ “The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.” Ayn Rand “If we relinquish our rights because of fear, what is it exactly, then, we are fighting for?” Sen. Rand Paul | |||
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Judging by the photo's and video's and from my experience of seeing boats/yachts that have caught fire. I'm pretty certain it didn't happen in the engine room, which would mainly be under the aft deck and outside of the house (80% +/- if not all of it). The engine room has an automatic fire suppression system, either Halon or FM200 that is adequately sized for the area. (Even though they were on generator.) If it discharged it would've shut the generator off and they'd have no AC power, so only DC lighting which may or may not have been bright. It appears to have origionated inside of the house on the main deck level in the galley area. So a lithium battery fire, or simply having a bunch of chargers plugged into and overloading the boats outlet, make a lot of sense. In the era that this boat was built, it was the pre- laptop/cell phone/ tablet/ etc. era (1981). So I highly doubt that it had a lot of electrical outlets installed in the intial build. The other thing is marine generators from this era put out generally 220 volts, 110 volts for household things like outlets. A lot of times even less voltage as they aged, whereas the newer marine generators put out 245-250 volts/ 122-125 volts, which would cause things to use more amperage putting a larger strain on wiring. Depending on the Flybridge, it is possible someone was awake and they had an anchor watch. IF the enclosed flybridge doesn't have a ladder into the house deck on the inside, meaning you have to walk outside and take a ladder down to the outside of the main deck, which is common in commercial boats because they don't want passengers up there fooling with stuff, it's quite conceivable that they would've never smelled or noticed anything until it was too late. I've also run several yachts from this era that had a linked fire system and sirens and a main panel in a general location that showed which alarm is going off. This size it was not required at that time for USCG standards. This wooden boat would've went up in flames extremely quickly. Like from a small smoldering flame to what you see in the pictures in 60 seconds is highly likely. 5 seems like a lot of crew for a boat this size, and generally it would be, if it weren't for having 34 overnight guests. You'd have a Captain (that shouldn't leave the 75'), a cook/stew, and then a mate and 2 dive mates. Mate most likely runs the tender, but it only holds x amount of people, then you have the 2 dive mates......try to keep 34 divers suited up, corralled together, in and out of the water, filling 30+ tanks at least once a day......it's grueling work actually. I feel really bad for these people as the escape hatch towards the rear was still inside of the house, which was engulfed in flames. And, even if it weren't, given it's location above a top bunk and it's size, it would take several minutes for 34 people to climb through it and get out. | |||
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