Fire in the Galley!

Nothing strikes fear to the heart moreso than the thought of fire in it's uncontrolled state; this is especially true in the case of fire at sea. In the fall and winter of 1973/74, I served as second engineer in the motor tanker Irving Wood, carrying petroleum products around the coasts of  Newfoundland. The Wood was a hard old bucket to sail in and maintain. Built in Britain, for packaged freight, she survived the invasion of Dunkirk, she was truly hard to kill; Irving converted her to a tanker and it is said she made more money for K.C., than any other single ship he ever owned. British
technology shines in some fields, while never getting off the ground in others.

One such failing endeavour was their attempts to build an oil burning galley range. The problem wasn' t with the range in itself, but rather in the burner and carburettor fitted thereto. I' ve sailed in seven British built vessels that had identical ranges; all equally dangerous. It was an identical range to the one fitted in the Wood that caused the loss of the Sheila Patricia, out of Mulgrave, on April 30, 1958, with the loss of four lives.

The Wood had a most unconventional arrangement for her bridge and wheelhouse; she was, what is known in marine architectural terms as a turret deck vessel. Her " turret deck " rose in a crown above the weather deck, and the wheelhouse was in the form of an arch, rising over the turret with a foot on each side of the weather deck. The deck officer's cabin's were in the arch legs, while the captain, chief mate, and chief engineer had their cabins aft on the boat deck. Any vessel sailing on the coasts of Atlantic Canada in winter are prone to " wash " and are, in the case of loaded tankers mostly submerged when at sea, and of course such was the case with the Wood; hence it was considered a nuisance for the seaman on watch to have to rig up with rubber gear to go back and get the mate a coffee; so a small pantry had been fitted in the wheelhouse, and it was stipulated that the  engineer on watch should do the fire watch in the after accomodations and  galley. This plan left a lot to be desired, for on many watches, what with the ship being so decrepit, the engineer was so completely engrossed in keeping it all together that he no time for prowling around the aft end of Irvings Pride, looking for fires. In a three watch system, the chief mate and second engineer
have the same watch, four to eight, morning and afternoon.

On the morning we had the fire, the mate and I arrived in the officers mess at the same moment. After a few pleasantries we decided to see what was in the galley fridge. Upon opening the door between the mess room and galley we were met with a wall of flames. We slammed it shut and went into action. The mate headed for the nearest fire alarm, while I headed for the boat deck where the storage/daily use tank for the range was located to shut off the oil supply. The tank held two hundred fifty gallons. Directly over the range was a four by eight foot hatch which supplied the only ventilation to the galley. Beside the hatch combing, which was about four feet high, stored in brackets was the ships oxygen/acetylene bottles. Working in the dark, I found the fuel valve by feel, closed it and turning round realized that the flames were now issuing through the hatch. The adrenalin was pumping real good now, as I made my way to the hatch, unhooked it and slammed it  shut. Couldn't see the loop of gas hoses that lay on the edge of the combing.

When the hatch fell, it cut off both hoses, and I was rewarded with the hiss of escaping gas. Some idiot had left the bottles turned on. Traced back the hoses and shut the bottles off. Hurried back to the mess room to find the guys doing boundary cooling to both galley bulkheads, where by now the paint was blistering. The mate had pulled the Halon release, and with the hatch closed,  the fuel shut off, the fire triangle was broken and the flames soon died.

Everybody went back to bed, except the hapless seamen detailed by the mate to clean it all up. Me and the mate went on went on watch, albeit a bit late, and I  chewed the third engineer out real heavy for not maintaining a better fire watch. No serious damage was done to the galley............ some scraping and painting and the forge was as good as new. Lot of sea cooks earn the appellation
of "blacksmith" hence the forge, the idea behind this is they would probably be better at shoeing horses than thety are at cooking. Prior to my joining the Wood in late September, she had had a crankcase explosion, while loaded with high test gas in the Bay of Fundy. the forth engineer, who was on watch, was badly burned. The crew pulled the CO2 and abandoned ship. The CO2 did it's job. The crew reboarded the tanker and they returned under tow to St. John, where a new
crankshaft was installed in the main engine.

***
The Sheila Patricia: Mentioned earlier in this narrative, was a side trawler out of Mulgrave . On April 30, 1958, she cleared Mulgrave for the Banks. Running down the Strait, when she passed Sand Point, fog could be seen outside, shutting in the land at Canso and Hazel Hill, and as she was passing Cerberus Rock, she became entombed in the swirling grey shroud of the Atlantic fog. It was a
routine start for a twelve day trip, and most of the crew went forward to turn in, leaving the skipper and one man on watch in the wheelhouse.

At eleven AM the cook was roused in accordance with his wishes. When he reached the galley, he  found the area in a mass of flames. 1958 was before the inception of MED(marine emergency duties) certification, for fishermen and commercial crews by  Transport Canada, so the crew of the dragger had no training whatever to carry them through an emergency. Side trawlers of the Sheila Patricia's model, accessed the engine from the galley. The engineer on watch, (it would be the chief) 0600 to 1200HRS, was and had been on the bridge yarning with the skipper and when the cook raised the alarm, he raced back the boat deck to shut off the oil supply to the galley stove. When he reached the tank he found the valve wheel missing, and he had no wrench or pliers with which to close the valve.

The engine in the Sheila Pat was of the heavy duty slow turning type; what is known as a direct reversing engine, that is to say that the engine could be controlled  from the engine room only. As the fire had cut off access to the ER, and because no breathing apparatus was carried ( it wasn't manditory ) the engine could not  be shut down from the control panel. The chief tried the dogged down escape  hatch.........not a move !! That too was seized. Lack of maintainance; but let it be said that this was only partially to blame on the trawlers engineers.

The way it was on the fresh fish trawlers, the engineers did no maintainance  whatever. This was left to the shore gang, who in turn only did what they were  asked to do by the trawlers chief. When I was on Cape Howe we docked after  midnight, shut it all down and was away for home twenty minutes after the lines hit the dock. A note was left on the engine room desk for the fitter foreman.
When we arrive back after our forty eight hours home, the trawler would be  filled with fuel, lube oil and potable water, with the engine idling ready to leave for sea. All ships have manual shut offs to all fuel tanks. These shut  offs are activated in various ways; some are sophisticated; some are not. It is a wise engineer who gives careful attention to the quick closing valves on the  vessel's fuel system. On your typical side trawler, the fuel system was as simple as it could possibly be made. The bunker tanks were found on each side of the ER, with the ships sides making one side of the tanks. These tanks were piped to the fuel transfer pump, with which the fuel could be moved between the  port and starboard tanks, to correct a list, or from one or both tanks to the daily use tank, which varied in size from trawler to trawler, and sits high in the ER to provide a gravity feed to the main engine and auxiliaries. All tank  valves are controlled from a remote location ( on deck ) by what is known as extended spindles. The ends of these spindles are covered with deck plugs and are in a square configuration and are activated by a wrench with matching  socket. These spindles are the bane of engineers, in that they require unceasing  maintainance, passing as they do though a stuffing box in the deck, and are fitted with numerous universal joints, and thus are prone to seizing. It was  found that the spindles on the tanks of the trawler were all seized up. Had the  supply valve to the engine from the day tank been operable, the engine could have been shut down in about one minute, and the trawler would have become "dead in the water." thus allowing the lifeboat to be lowered and the crew embarked.

Panic ensued when the draggers crew consisting, I believe of some twenty men, most from the Fortune Bay area of Newfoundlands south west coast, found themselves with a raging fire at their backs and the icy waters of the Atlantic to face. The dragger was fitted with one lifeboat, hung on davits on the starboard boat deck, plus a double dory deployed with a boom back aft of the
funnel. Four of the crew opted to try and launch the lifeboat as the dragger surged relentlessly onward through the fog some thirty miles south of Petit de Grat. The attempt to launch the boat was doomed to failure, for as soon as the  boat struck the water she immediately over turned sending four to their death in  the wake of the runaway trawler, the lifeboat smashing against the trawlers
side, filled with water caught by the falls ( tackles which raise and lower a  ships boat ) The skipper had of course, sent a mayday and the world at large knew that a tragedy was unfolding southeast of Canso, for at that point in our history, practically every house in the coastal villages had a marine band radio; it was a hobby with a great many, even though they may not have had a direct connection with the fishery or the coastal boats, they still listened.

Soon the wheelhouse of the trawler became untenable, as the heat from the flames broke the port light glasses and roared from them like the breath of multiple dragons, and the crew took refuge on the fo' castle head, as far from the fire  as it was possible to get. Still the faithful Mirrlees diesel thumped on, propelling the Sheila Patrica aimlessly through the swells at eleven knots, in
the inpentrable fog. As the afternoon progressed, even though her holds were  filled with many tons of crushed ice, the heat began the creep forward and when the trawler would mke a complete circle, those on the fo'castle head were blinded and choked by the clouds of acrid smoke emitting from the stern, the wheelhouse was starting to melt out of shape as the flames became ever hotter as
the fire found more combustibles to fill it's insatiable appetite. Darkness fell, and although the trawler and her hapless survivors were being tracked by airborne radar it was impossible for any surface vessel to approach the Sheila Pat, because of her erratic course path. It was after midnight when the day tank finally went dry and the faithful Mirrlees, slowed and died for want of fuel.

By ths time the fire had just about burned itself out, having burned all the flammable material in the after part of the vessel. The fog which had been so  dense all through this harrowing ordeal, suddenly lifted as the rescue vessels came alongside to take the survivors off the burned out hulk.

Things have  changed in the marine industry since 1958. Transport Canada brought in mandatory  training for fire fighting and survival and competency in life boat handling, in compliance with SOLAS ( Safety on Land and Sea ) At first the certication had to be renewed every four years, now it is none expiring. When I went through my MED to fire fighting was done at the NS fire school at Waverly. They had the after  end of a dragger similar to the Sheila Patricia on site, as well as the smoke house, and going through that course made one fully cognizant of what fire on  board a ship is really like. This training has upped safety awareness in both officer and crew levels, and moreover there are more dry ( booze free ) ships today. Most Classification Societies have made provision to have all quick closing fuel valves, extended spindles, ventilation flaps, water tight doors,  etc., as well as CO2 systems operated before their inspectors on a yearly basis. Transport Canada inspectors are also present for these inspections. Many other safety features have been incorperated ( at a great cost to the ship owners ) Smothering for scavenge trunk fires on larger engines, heat sensors installed in critical locations, smoke detectors in all spaces. Weekly fire drills ( weather permitting ) followed by a safety meeting. Just a better way.

Seanachie.