REGARDE AILLEURS: A Fire That Started 30 Seconds After a Routine Switch

Baie de Seine, 11 September 2014 — 13:30

REGARDE AILLEURS, a 12.7m wooden trawler out of Port-en-Bessin, was working her gear about six miles offshore. Engine parameters were normal. To get the port trawl cable working better against the tide, the skipper veered it out five metres and switched in the hydraulic pump's electromagnetic clutch — a completely routine adjustment he'd made countless times before.

What Happened

Thirty seconds later, heavy smoke was pouring from the funnel. The skipper stopped the engine immediately and shut the fuel valves — the right first move — but when he tried to get down into the machinery space to find the source, he saw what he described as ‘a ball of fire around the turbo’ and couldn't get near the extinguisher mounted at the top of the machinery ladder. He and his one deckhand emptied the vessel's other two extinguishers from the compartment entrance, with no effect. They tried blocking the ventilation grilles on deck with the movable covers kept nearby — the metal was already too hot to touch.

By 13:46 the liferaft was launched. At 13:48 CROSS Jobourg scrambled a Navy firefighting team for a helicopter winch onto a nearby standby vessel. The crew were in the water and aboard the liferaft by 13:53, recovered by the fire boat ALIZÉE 14 at 14:24. Firefighters who reached the vessel couldn't get into the machinery space either — it was too small to enter — and REGARDE AILLEURS sank at 23:00 in 13m of water. Total loss, no pollution.

What the Investigation Found

BEAmer's most probable cause: a hydraulic hose running the length of the machinery space had developed a leak — its last replacement date unknown — and sprayed fluid directly onto the turbocharger, igniting almost instantly once the pump was switched on. Vessels built before 26 April 2000, REGARDE AILLEURS included, are not required to carry fixed fire detection or fixed extinguishing systems in machinery spaces — which meant there was no early warning and no way to fight the fire except by hand, from an entrance the fire itself had already made impossible to use. A gas bottle stored aboard also meant external firefighters had to confirm there was no explosion risk before they could even start — a real delay layered on top of an already-lost fight.

The Same Lesson, Twice

BEAmer's own report draws a direct line to another vessel this pipeline has already covered: JOLENN, a small trawler that suffered a shore-power fire at Dieppe the year before. Both investigations reach the identical conclusion — on small fishing vessels, the difficulty of moving through cramped accommodation and machinery spaces turns what might be a containable fire on a larger vessel into one nobody can get near. It's not a one-off finding; it's the same structural vulnerability showing up in two unrelated incidents a year apart.

Check Your Vessel

• Skippers/owners: Hydraulic hose manufacturers typically recommend replacement every 5 years under heavy use — do you know your vessel's hose replacement dates, or are they as unknown as REGARDE AILLEURS's turned out to be?
• All crew on older vessels: If your vessel predates 2000 and has no fixed fire detection in the machinery space, do you know that means every minute of warning depends entirely on someone noticing smoke or smell in time?
• Owners: Are your machinery-space ventilation covers hinged and quick to close, or loose, movable panels that need two hands and time you might not have?

Source: BEAmer (Bureau d'Enquêtes sur les Événements de Mer, France) — Rapport d'enquête simplifié, Incendie et naufrage du navire de pêche REGARDE AILLEURS, 11 September 2014, published May 2015.