17 Oct. 2014; At Sea.

Today is our sea day before we arrive in Boston to get back in the cruise schedule. As the  hurricane of the day is creating havoc about 700 miles away, we have no issues with the wind but the swell is coming all the way to us; and the ship is quite lively even with our stabilizers working full time. By tomorrow evening that swell should start to subside and if the predictions turn out to be correct then the guests will have a smooth ride down to Port Canaveral. Of course it is not good for a cruise ship sailing without guests, it upsets the accountants and eventually the shareholders, but for us dealing with safety, it is quite handy.

We can do drills to our hearts content without having to worry that we reduce the guest’s satisfaction. So today I facilitated a fire drill which came into the guest areas. Normally the fire crews might have to go through guest area’s to get to the location but having (stage) smoke billowing through the corridors is another matter of course. But now we had the chance, so we took it. Switch the A.C. and pump out enough smoke so that visibility is reduced to less than 5 inches. (We have a very good smoke machine!!!)

The philosophy between shore side firefighting and shipside is completely different. If needed shore side they can keep everybody at a safe distance and then control the fire. We do not have a safe distance; we are on the ship so we have to go in at all times, to stop it from being a local fire, to shipside fire. While the shore side can call in much more resources than we do and have much more extensive equipment available we have the advantage that we are always “on top” of the fire, or under it if it is on the higher decks.

Also we know exactly what is in which locker so we can plan better than shore side, who seldom knows what they might come across when they attend a fire at a house or factory. They have to tread very carefully as they never know if there are gas bottles or other explosive devices located inside. Very scary and very dangerous. The owner is not always there, nor does an owner always realize that his barbeque, or drums with chemicals, can be the cause of instant death of a firefighter, and might just forget to mention it. We know where everything is, it is all on the fire-fighting plans and thus we can attack much more specifically. It is standard in the ships fire fighting business that you have to get to the source of the fire within 10 minutes otherwise it is getting difficult to control it. You might still be able to do it but a larger area will be affected and it will be harder to extinguish it.

The teams, we have four of them, two deck and two engine, are trained in rapid dressing up and should be fully dressed up with breathing apparatus (SCBA) operational in about 5 minutes. That gives them then 3 minutes to get to the staging area (from where the attack starts) and then they should be on location, safely behind two hoses within the next 2 minutes. From then on it depends on the location of the fire, how extensive it is, and if there are casualties inside that have to be evacuated.

The bridge is guiding the process but the attack is being orchestrated by a First Officer, who is called the OSC – On Scene Commander – who sets up “The Box”. This means that as quickly as possible the area concerned is surrounded – boxed in – by the fire teams. Then one team attacks and a second team is ready to help. Sometimes they both go in, sometimes one team can do it if it is a smaller problem. Then there is a whole slew of supports troops. Medical with a stretcher team, Security with an evacuation team, Hose handlers, SCBA refill team, 2 man who carry the thermal imaging camera’s, a Passenger Assist Team that evacuates the nearest guest cabins, a Passenger Notification Team who are ready to answer any questions from the guests, etc. etc.

The initial evolution gets about 80 crew on the move and if things are not settled quickly that goes up to about 200, if the captain starts considering getting the guests to the lifeboat stations or completely to the other side of the ship. So we had our fun this morning. The only one who might have been a bit unhappy about it all could have been the Exe. Housekeeper, because when you mess around with charged fire hoses, you get water everywhere. But we have those beautiful industrial size vacuum machines that can take care of it very quickly………………….. so why not use them once in a while?

Tomorrow life will return to normal and we will start our Trans canal.  We embark the first group of guests and then the rest is coming in Fort Lauderdale for a cruise which will end in Sand Diego on the 8th. of November. It will be interesting to see how far they have progressed with the Panama Canal. They had some set backs but I think they are rolling well forward now.