Those words I hated………

on joining a ship. “You’re in charge of the Fire and repair party”.

Now the fire and repair party (FRP) usually consists of twenty or more men or women of a variety of specialisations. Deck, engineering, catering, electrical, etc.

Of course I’m in charge of this motley cru (sic) and have to work out who is going to do what.

I have a junior officer as my number two and general dogsbody.

There is usually an officer from the catering department who is delegated to maintain the incident board, marking up on the wall mounted plans of the ship, the incidents as they occur. The incidents can range from fire and flood, to chemical hazards or radioactive contamination. (I don’t like the last two. They usually mean that I’m going to die a nasty death).

Fire is the most likely  scenario. Naturally a thousand miles from land and  dialling 999 does not get a response from the fire brigade. Ergo, we must fight fires ourselves.

To that end I have to form two five man firefighting teams. The problem is that all I have is a list of names. So I pencil in the names of the people against the duties that they will do. Simples.

Before I go on, I’ll just give you a run down on a five man team. All five are to be dressed in full fire protective suits and Breathing apparatus. each member will have a specific duty.

No.1 is the water wall number whose job is to be slightly in front, operating his hose in a circular spray to protect the team from the heat and flames.

No’2 is the fire-fighter who has his hose in ragged spray mode to actually fight the fire.

No.3 is the team commander who is slightly behind the front two and is surveying the situation with his thermal imaging camera (TIC).

No’4 is the hose handler.

No.5 is the ship protector who’s job is to seal the doorway to protect the ship to prevent the spread of fire into the rest of the ship.

Now comes the crunch. I’ve put names to the duties so everything is fine. NOT.

No’1 is a gay steward (Lovely chap) who suffers from claustrophobia.

No.2 is a female who is 5’ 2, who when turning on her hose is instantly bowled over backwards by the force.

No3, the team leader is afflicted with a stutter and is unable to communicate with the rest of the team over the radio.

No.4 is morbidly obese and struggles to carry his own wait let alone two fully charges hoses.

No.5 is no problem. Anyone can sit in a doorway watching the rainbows glistening off his water wall..

These are the problems when you have names and not faces. It doesn’t help that you usually have half a dozen of the FRP who make any excuse as to why they they should be exempt from a particular duty. “I’ve got gout, a rash, don’t know how to use the BA (Rubbish. You have to have done the course to even be there)”. Of course they don’t have a leg to stand on when I state that they wouldn’t be there without their yearly medical check up being passed.

This is a bit of a moan. However it is satisfying when it works. For some reason the majority of fires I’ve had to contend with have been at night. In every instance I’ve been amazed at the speed my teams have mustered, dressed and put the fires out.

Just goes to show, that with a little planning the system works.

The best fire-fighter I’ve ever had was actually a 5’ 3 inch, female cook, shaped like a beach ball, with a tenacity that was second to none. I would have made her team leader. However she couldn’t see over the two firefighters in front of her.

The only good thing about these drills is they are usually held towards the end of the working day. The upside is that TFE can rush off, have a shower, and get into the bar early.

Every story has a happy ending.

.

Fancy a cruise?

 

I was just pondering as an ex marine engineer, about the latest Cruise liner to be stricken down at sea with a loss of propulsion and main electrical power.

I’ll describe the propulsion system of my last ship, which although not being a cruise liner, due to it having GUNS and things, had the same basic principle of propulsion and power generation.

Our main source of power was 4 x 4.7 Mw, 6.6kv (6,600 volts), diesel generators. Now 6.6kv voltage is something you have to be really scared about. A small error can submit you to a lethal mini lightning bolt, that will fry you in instant.

These diesel generators have a fuel injection system that supplies fuel to the cylinders at approximately 300 bar (dependant on engine manufacturer). A loose connection, or a split in the pipework can result in a high pressure mist that could impinge on a hot exhaust. Here again I’m speculating as normally the high pressure systems are normally shrouded.

Anyway lets suppose that’s the cause of the fire in the engine room. The first thing that the control room staff would have had warning of this would normally a leakage alarm, rapidly followed by Flame flicker and smoke alarms. Some confusion can occur if the staff check the CCTV cameras, and delay action. I was on one ship where there was a fire in a machinery space, where the engineers entered the control room, looked at the CCTV monitor, saw no picture, and concluded that the camera was defective. In fact it was because the smoke was so dense the camera couldn’t operate. (That was only 90 seconds from the smoke detector operating).

Anyhoo, I digress.

How do you fight a fire when the equipment has such high voltage? The last thing you’re going to do is attack a 6.6kV generator with a saltwater fire hose. you’d be a dead, smouldering corpse, within seconds. ( remember the lightning bolt).

The answer is to inject the machinery space with an oxygen denying gas such as CO2 or Halon. This will hopefully starve the fire of oxygen and result in a non fire position. However it takes a short while to shut down the other generators in a safe manner as many commercial generator take their air supply direct from the machinery space. The last thing you want to happen is the diesel sucking the smothering gas in and then consequently chucking it up the funnel to the outside.

I hope you’re not getting bored.

Whilst the generators are being shut down a team needs to be shutting down all flaps and openings to the machinery space in order that the smothering gas is not going to be dispersed. Time is of the essence.

Once the gas has been released it should extinguish the flames, but will not cool the space significantly. It then becomes a waiting game for the space to cool down to a safe level to allow re-entry without re-ignition of any hotspots caused by air from the re-entry.

One unfortunate side effect is that you’ve lost all your electrical power and the lights have gone off and your fire pumps have stopped. Oh dear.

However, help is at hand. All ships have an emergency generator that will start automatically and supply limited power. This includes supplying limited lighting (usually 50%), power to an external fire pump, steering gear, navigation lights, and radio equipment.

Monitoring of the boundaries should continue until three consecutive drops in temperature of the machinery space, before any attempt to enter. This can take 24 hours, to be sure it is safe to re-enter.

This gives you time to make sure your firefighters are rested and in a good state. This includes getting a plan for re-entry in a safe manner, and sorting out your logistics. I.E, All breathing apparatus fully charged, enough hoses, considering that entry ladders may have melted or distorted, lack of lighting, etc.

Re-entry. There must be enough length of fire hose to enable the team to reach the furthest reaches of the compartment in case of a flare up. If not you might have made matters worse.

The happy ending: You have recovered the machinery space.

THE END

Maybe I’ll write a post of the trials and tribulations of attending the firefighting and damage control course at HMS Phoenix.

Sleep well and don’t have nightmares as you cruise the seven seas. (I’m still alive after 43 years. A great many of those years as Officer in Charge of the Fire and repair party, on a number of ships).

I'm sorry again

I'm afraid I watched the BBC news tonight.

The main news item was the terrible fires in Australia. What I couldn't stomach, is that they had to parade a weather expert in to inform us that it was Global warming that caused it. We were told like naughty schoolboys that there would be more disasters caused by global warming in the future.

What utter Bollocks. Australia has had bush fires every year since records begun, notwithstanding that some of these fires maybe have been the work of arsonists.

With all that hot air from the Beeb they should shut up and save the world.