Aleution Yacht's Polar Bear; Caught Fire

That should've been avoidable......anytime you're welding you should have plenty of fire protection at the immediate area.

Wow, that video sends shivers down my spine. Fire on a boat what a nightmare. Hopefully everything will get sorted out for the owner.

I was surprised at that as well. Firefighters have a saying, "put wet stuff on the red stuff" so they tend to squirt a lot of water.

It is easy to understand why they did not flood the hull, it might have caused the stands to fail and the boat to fall over and that would have created a real mess.

What I am surprised they did not do (at least in the video) was set up fog nozzles around the boat to keep the radiant heat from damaging other boats or structures but perhaps they did but we didn't see it. It might have been too hot to get on the waterside of the boat to set up fog on that side.

While shoreside firefighters may not be all that well trained in marine firefighting I bet the ones in SD have had a lot of Navy training and did what they knew to be the best in that case. The boat was literally toast and not worth risking anyone.

Yeah, I've missed his posts also. He has the most beautiful Avatar of anyone here, as well as a wealth of knowledge.

Is the Polar Bear 100% steel constuction?

If so that fire is very sobering, all that was just the interior burning.

I guess if you were at sea you would still have a floating steel carcass but the smoke would have killed you if you didnt abandon quickly.

Hi,

It might have easily got so hot that you were forced to abandon ship before the smoke got ya.

I think this vessel was a steel hull with alu superstructure

Aluminum melts @ 1,200 degrees f and will support combustion @ 2,200 degrees f. I can only assume the superstructure of this vessel is aluminum. I was in a shipyard in Saugatuck Mi. Years ago where two 90 - 100 ft completed yachts were ready for delivery to their owners & were blocked in a shed out of the water for the winter due to lake michigan being frozen, these vessels caught on fire due to a kerosene heater malfunction and the only thing left were the engine and generator blocks and maybe the washer / dryer frames or anything made out of iron/steel. Fire got so hot that it blew huge craters in the concrete floor. There were a few small puddles of molten aluminum on the floor but 99 percent of it burnt or consumed itself. I think that the British Navy found this out the hard way in the Faulklands.

Have any post fire pictures been posted? I would like to see if superstructure melted.

So where do you expect the liability is in this? If it was caused by welding is it clearly the yard ( assuming they supplied the welders) or is the burden put on the owners insurance?

Is it typical for a yard contract have indemnification clauses in them?

Owner of $24M Yacht Devastated by Fire | NBC 7 San Diego

Reporters are the same everywhere... "There was a Widescreen TV in the bedroom..!" Yep, and now the widescreen TV is gone...

If it was caused by welder's supplied by the yard, than it should fall on the yards insurance.

Does foam spray like water ?

Here ya go

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTCDqltPc4Y


AFFF- Aqueous Film Forming Foam is carried on the water stream by a venturi arrgt

There are two common kinds , Protein Foam a sort of reddy brown colour is corrosive and is made of bulls blood and the other is synthetic

That is the explanation I wanted.
Other videos of the fire look like they are spraying with water but the harbor looks like foam is floating on top.
Still the water carried foam could add weight to the boat, crushing the stands and tipping, no ?

Nice video.
They sound like Detroits.

And isn't that a great sound?

It is.

Like diesel pornography, if you will.