Pont-Aven Fire - 29 April 2019

[David Williams]

I think that this highlights the quality of the BF Crew, their ability to act as a strong team, their training and the strength of the onshore technical teams. 

[David Williams]

I also note that the concerns of some passengers were not whether the ship was sinking but how is my dog ?

[straightfeed]

1 hour ago, Cabin-boy said:

love the part (page 41) that says the crew who were sent to assist in fighting the fire would like to have something to eat beforehand to help with the stress of being disturbed from their sleep . That input had to be from the union shop steward .

Not so funny really. You awake from a deep sleep, grab and  try to correctly fit fire fighting gear in the middle of night, then make good decisions that maybe are life changing. Rapid fuel for the brain and body.

[Chef]

1 hour ago, straightfeed said:

Not so funny really. You awake from a deep sleep, grab and  try to correctly fit fire fighting gear in the middle of night, then make good decisions that maybe are life changing. Rapid fuel for the brain and body.

They're trained for such situations ,  no loss of power so no fumbling around in the dark , they're use to getting up in the middle of the night due to the nature of their work and twenty six minutes elapsed from when the vibrations were felt  trough out the ship ( wakey wakey ) till the first fire fighting crews entered the engine room . 

[David Williams]

Following on from this, I feel extremely safe sailing on BF crewed ships.

I am not sure of the standards (above minimum) on the Kerry, I note that one of her half sisters sank due to a fire.

ps I hope that BF insisted on the lessons learnt being applied to their eflexers.

Edited September 4, 2020 by David Williams

[BAI4]

On 04/09/2020 at 11:18, Chef said:

They're trained for such situations ,  no loss of power so no fumbling around in the dark , they're use to getting up in the middle of the night due to the nature of their work and twenty six minutes elapsed from when the vibrations were felt  trough out the ship ( wakey wakey ) till the first fire fighting crews entered the engine room . 

It’s one thing being woken up by an alarm you set, to get up and go for work. And another being rudely awaken in the middle of a deep sleep. I’m not sure training comes into it at this point – although I’m only talking from personal experience.

I suppose where training does come into it, is being trained to identify the alert signal, coded announcement or even here that ‘bing bong’ at 3am...you’re woken up by that and one thing and one thing only kicks in – adrenaline.
 

 

[hhvferry]

On 04/09/2020 at 11:29, David Williams said:

Following on from this, I feel extremely safe sailing on BF crewed ships.

I am not sure of the standards (above minimum) on the Kerry, I note that one of her half sisters sank due to a fire.

ps I hope that BF insisted on the lessons learnt being applied to their eflexers.

Two of the Visentini series sufferred fires, both of the Etretat/Connemara class rather than the Kerry one although the differences are not significant. As with the fire which destroyed the sister to the Baie de Seine these were lorry fires so not ship-specific. However amongst the contributory causes was proximity of upper deck hull openings where fire bursting out of the vehicle decks impeded access or usability of life saving equipment on decks above - so on Visentinis and other ro-paxes we've seen some movement or plating over such openings in certain places.

The Kerry is owned by Stena Ro-Ro so there won't be any safety concerns at all there, likewise the e-flexers are a bespoke Stena design - it wouldn't need BF to tell Stena how to safely design and operate ferries.

[KenTownley]

I find the report very reassuring (not that I really needed any reasurance) and I note the praise in the report of the technical and firefighting teams aboard. All in all I think this reflects well on the company so a big 'Well Done' to all involved.