yesterday
all 4 rescued
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=9081986
all 4 rescued
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=9081986
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boat fire in SF
- Thread starter getakey
- Start date
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2013
- RO Number
- 33144
- Messages
- 1,490
They were risking their life staying on the boat. Life vests and of to the water! Lucky them though.
BayAreaBoater
Member
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2009
- RO Number
- 31155
- Messages
- 408
Thanks for posting! This is a great (but sad way to do it) reminder of how quick and hot our fiberglass (and of course, wood) boats can burn. Once a fire has started and (usually quickly) spreads, it is rare to be able to extinguish it.
Most boats today only carry the minimum amount of fire extinguishers and even fewer of the boaters store them in an accessible area. Most boaters have the "it'll never happen to me" mentality.
When I used to assist with USCG Aux boat inspections, most boaters only had one fire extinguisher on board and it was usually stored in a cabinet (along with the dinner plates, napkins, booze, etc...) down in the cabin or under the folding back to back seats along with the towels, anchor and line and the life jackets. Rarely were they properly mounted in an accessable location and even rarer that there was more than one.
Kudos to SFPD for their quick response and safe rescue of the occupants of the boat. VERY scary!
BTW, the boat was a Seaswirl Striper, not a "Sea Sprite"...
It's hard to tell what started the fire without a lot more information. And it's not beyond the realm of reality that the motor "malfunction" story was fabricated to cover up an unintentional action (cigarette being tossed overboard but actually landing on extra clothing or other flammable material or even a bbq being used the wrong way, etc... And I'm certainly not saying that is the case here, but I have seen/heard of that happening in the past.
From the looks of what was left of the boat, we'll never know. Which is unfortunate, because if there was an engine malfunction that was either the MFG's design or an operator error or lack of maintenance issue or a combination of all three, it could be valuable information for not only this investigation, but for other owners of the same boat and/or engines involved.
But the bottom line is that all of them were saved and none of the SFPD personnel were injured in the course of the rescue.
Most boats today only carry the minimum amount of fire extinguishers and even fewer of the boaters store them in an accessible area. Most boaters have the "it'll never happen to me" mentality.
When I used to assist with USCG Aux boat inspections, most boaters only had one fire extinguisher on board and it was usually stored in a cabinet (along with the dinner plates, napkins, booze, etc...) down in the cabin or under the folding back to back seats along with the towels, anchor and line and the life jackets. Rarely were they properly mounted in an accessable location and even rarer that there was more than one.
Kudos to SFPD for their quick response and safe rescue of the occupants of the boat. VERY scary!
BTW, the boat was a Seaswirl Striper, not a "Sea Sprite"...
It's hard to tell what started the fire without a lot more information. And it's not beyond the realm of reality that the motor "malfunction" story was fabricated to cover up an unintentional action (cigarette being tossed overboard but actually landing on extra clothing or other flammable material or even a bbq being used the wrong way, etc... And I'm certainly not saying that is the case here, but I have seen/heard of that happening in the past.
From the looks of what was left of the boat, we'll never know. Which is unfortunate, because if there was an engine malfunction that was either the MFG's design or an operator error or lack of maintenance issue or a combination of all three, it could be valuable information for not only this investigation, but for other owners of the same boat and/or engines involved.
But the bottom line is that all of them were saved and none of the SFPD personnel were injured in the course of the rescue.