Anybody have a new Porsche on order?

[Dr K]

https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a39120715/cargo-ship-with-porsches-and-vws-burning/

:(

[ducatithunder]

Working in the industry a bunch of things have to go wrong for this to happen. The fire suppression systems on these ships are robust and well backed up. I would be curious to see the incident report after the fire is extinguished. Ship is likely a total loss if the fire spread between compartments. Hopefully they can stabilize it, get the fire estinghised and towed back to port. I would bet alot of human error played a part in this incident.

[mlytle]

According to some other articles, a big percentage of the vehicles on the ship were electric. Once all those big car batteries lit up, there was not much hope for the rest of the cargo or the ship.

Have maritime fire systems been updated to deal with lithium ion battery fires?

[ducatithunder]

According to some other articles, a big percentage of the vehicles on the ship were electric. Once all those big car batteries lit up, there was not much hope for the rest of the cargo or the ship.

Have maritime fire systems been updated to deal with lithium ion battery fires?


From what i have read water and foam have been used to combat this type of fire. WAG .. I would imagine these cargo ships have a Hifog water set up or foam setup. We have large battery banks for UPS systems and we cover those spaces with Inergen that will drop based on heat detection automatically. Remainder of the spaces are covered by Co2 and water. ​

Co2 for large cargo bays would be expensive and most likely hard to use in those cargo bays. I would wager they needs adequate ventilation based on cargo carried. Sealing up that space and the charge size, means that a very large bottle bank is needed to cover it ... Unilke an engine room or machinery room space where it can be bottled and a Co2 charge dropped. Also i doubt it would be an automatic system of Co2 for crew safety and proper mustering. Inergen would be cost prohibitive. So a large Hifog system would be my educated guess. They could also keep specific cargos, ie electric cars in holds with Class A60 bulkheads for protection and other specific fire fighting measures. Again my expertise is in tankers and not RoRo ships.


Like most fires on a ship ... its all in the response time. 10 mins without proper bulkheads and heat boundaries and a fire can become uncontrollable. Best measures are preventative. As they say ... the Sea is Selective. ;)

[mlytle]

agree. i have some background in shipboard firefighting / damage control also.

tons of regulations for shipping gas powered vehicles. i just doubt the regulations and shipping companies have caught up with the new threat of large quantities of electric vehicles in a confined space. local land based firefighting has not effectively dealt with the heat generated from LiOn battery fires and the long period of reflash danger they present.

the results of the investigation into this shipping incident should be eye-opening for the industry i suspect.

[ducatithunder]

the results of the investigation into this shipping incident should be eye-opening for the industry i suspect.

That tends to be the tread lately. Riding on the blistering edge of profit margins and safety, until the cat is out of the bag. This will be another change in new builds and effect retrofitment for class in 5 years no doubt.

The spree of containership incidents and the late Golden Ray RoRo incident a few years back will take the microscope off the offshore rigs (ie Deep Water Horizon). Before that it was on the tanker industry for similar issues.

The other is the IMO regs and how the classification boards will implement them. Shipping in the last 5 years has changed dramatically with fuel regs and now with ballast regulations. It's way more than just operating now a days ...

[mlytle]

Exactly!

[tbernard]

Update this morning is that the ship has sunk. It was listing to starboard. Fire was apparently out, but obviously too much damage.

[BlackTalon]

I heard a rumor the fire started when a SpaceX rocket booster 'accidentally' hit the ship, a few thousand miles from it's intended landing site...


:lol:

[Vicegrip]

Car ad voice on. “Knocking out the competition!”

[Trak Ratt]

Car ad voice on. “Knocking out the competition!”

Some where on the corporate tax return; “sunk costs”

[cmartin]

:lsl:

[Vicegrip]

Rock bottom pricing! No one undercuts us!

[super90]

The crew reported that it was one of the electric cars that start the fire.