Avoid fire hazards in your boat slips

Ahoy.

Do you have two boats in your slip, with one boat being blocked

from leaving? Are you a yacht broker trying to maintain numerous

boats on display? Or are you a sailing club with a lagoon-type dock

configuration, yet you have a boat in the main fairway blocking the

entrance to the lagoon?

If you answered yes, then you are in violation of the fire code.

Issues of vessel berthing and uniform fire code were addressed at the

Newport Beach Harbor Commission’s study session Oct. 23.

Let’s start with the basics: The fire code states that one boat

may not block another boat from being moved out of a slip and,

regardless, boats may not be rafted together. This is so boats can be

cut free in case of a fire. From the beginning of boating, it was

standard simply to push the burning boat to drift downstream, since

marinas and buildings on the water were few and far between to catch

fire.

That method is what helped define today’s fire code and it still

works in rural areas with limited firefighting resources. Nowadays,

once the burning boat is away from the dock, the available shore-side

firefighting resources have been dramatically reduced.

Another thought is to move neighboring vessels away from the

burning vessel, and this needs a thorough study the actual

effectiveness of how the vessels are berthed. In other words, does it

matter if boats are rafted, separated by a few feet with a dock

finger or if the burning boat is in the end slip of marina?

To help, we need to review the previous boat fires in Newport, and

the recent marina fires in the Seattle and the Chesapeake Bay areas

to understand what started the fires, the fire patterns, burn rates

and best method of control to help guide our own fire codes. I would

like to know if the dock configuration made a difference, or did the

neighboring vessels in their own slips still burn, and what were the

attack methods.

I have full confidence in our harbor department and Fire

Department. When they are attacking a boat fire at a marina, the

control will be swift.

What bothers me is the double standard between land and water

storage of boats. I am allowed to keep a boat in the existing racks

that store boats three high, with boats to either side, and all the

boats movable only with the forklift. However, if I place these same

boats in the water two abreast and three long, it is now illegal.

It is common for a yacht broker to display boats side by side on

land, usually with the boats in cradles and abutting other buildings.

Now, if you simply switch the asphalt with water, it is now not up to

fire code.

Yacht brokers here are hard pressed to afford the necessary slips

for their inventory, with many brokers unable to bring in new boats.

In San Diego, on the other hand, the slip rate is much lower, so

brokers can afford regular marina slips for their new boats.

Let’s look at a broker with an 80-foot slip and the high slip rent

must be paid, so the broker has to maximize the slip usage. It is

within code to have an 80-footer in the slip, but not two 40-footers.

In practicality, the overall mass for the two 40-footers is less than

that of the 80-footer, which has a wider beam, deeper keel and larger

superstructure.

Lastly, it is legal within the fire code for me to back into a

slip with a 100-foot yacht carrying a 20-foot whaler on the aft deck,

yet it is against the fire code for me to hoist the whaler into the

water between the yacht and the dock.

This is a very complex issue that needs detailed study with

current fire science models, and I did not have the space to dive

into the standards of new yacht construction. I think the insurance

industry will be the major player in guiding the standards, as they

are the ones to pay the tab in the end.

Safe voyages.

* MIKE WHITEHEAD is the Pilot’s boating and harbor columnist.

Send him your harbor and marine-related thoughts and story

suggestions via e-mail to [email protected] or BoathouseTV.com.