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Gas Bottle Explosion aboard Emerald in Dunedin

makawe

By makawe,
in Australia & New Zealand Cruisers

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Dobby_The_Ship_Elf

Dobby_The_Ship_Elf

Posted
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I was trying to think where a ship would use a gas bottle.

 

Obviously not for cooking like we do for our BBQs in the backyard.

 

I wonder if the gas bottle was fitted to one of the fork lifts in the stores area.

 

If so, these are generally 15 kg LPG bottles.

 

As a techo with lots of fire experience in my day to day life I know certain things such as ....

 

LPG is actually a gas compressed and transported a fluid, when it is released it forms back into a gas ie BBQ gas.

 

1L of LPG (propane) weighs 0.51kg.

 

Considering 1L of liquid LPG (propane) equals 270L of gaseous LPG the 15 L gas bottle would have had 7.5 L of liquid.

 

That means 7.5 L of liquid is actually 2025 L of gas or thereabouts.

 

That's a lot of fuel and in a confined space like under decks of a cruise ship one can only imagine the size of the fire.

 

However this was reported as an explosion. An LPG explosion is a rare event. An explosion is all that energy being released at once. The only place to be to witness one of these is in the front bar of the pub watching the news!!

 

On a related note - that is why you should always do a leak check whenever you change your BBQ gas bottle. A 'sniff check' or 'hiss test' just doesn't cut it as an answer to your wife & kids when the flames are burning down your house.

 

Here endeth your Elfie lesson

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Dobby_The_Ship_Elf

Dobby_The_Ship_Elf

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There's a photo of the bottle lying on the wharf at http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/89259548/emergency-services-rush-to-port-chalmers-after-explosion-on-cruise-ship

It looks like one of the bottles we have at home for our cooking & heating. I hope there are not too many people injured.

 

yeah that looks like a 45 kg bottle. lotsa energy in there. very sad

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Dobby_The_Ship_Elf

Dobby_The_Ship_Elf

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Welding, maybe?

 

Nope - you don't weld with LPG.

 

Well done. You have nailed it this is an oxy-acetylene weld issue cos that is what the cylinder looks like to me from this image.

 

Acetylene cylinders are red/maroon this cylinder is industrial oxygen used in welding to provide the ooomph.

 

For it to end up on the dock shows how lucky it was for it not to happen at sea

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OzKiwiJJ Great Review Rare

OzKiwiJJ

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It was the only thing I could think of where they would be likely to have a gas bottle of some sort on deck, and there had been no actual confirmation of what type of cylinder it was as far as I know, only speculation.

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rkmw

rkmw

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This was posted by a passenger on the Emerald

 

Just a quick update on our situation. The maritime union have to investigate and can't get here until 10am tomorrow. This means we will miss The Fjordlands and will sail directly for sydney when we are able. I have no idea what that will mean for our arrival time in Sydney given we won't be leaving Port Chalmers for at least 16 hours after the anticipated departure time.

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Icerecon

Icerecon

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A sad Accident and my thoughts go to the Crewmans family.

 

Both sotries by the links provided state the it was a nitrogen cylinder, which I believe is used to compress the hydraulic accumulator attached to the life boat systems which I guess was being tested, topped up, replaced but we will have to wait until the investigation has been completed.

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MicCanberra Holiday Sharing Rare

MicCanberra

Posted
Posted
I was trying to think where a ship would use a gas bottle.

 

If so, these are generally 15 kg LPG bottles.

 

As a techo with lots of fire experience in my day to day life I know certain things such as ....

 

LPG is actually a gas compressed and transported a fluid, when it is released it forms back into a gas ie BBQ gas.

 

1L of LPG (propane) weighs 0.51kg.

 

Considering 1L of liquid LPG (propane) equals 270L of gaseous LPG the 15 L gas bottle would have had 7.5 L of liquid.

 

That means 7.5 L of liquid is actually 2025 L of gas or thereabouts.

 

Here endeth your Elfie lesson

 

The Herald understands inflatable vessels were being reinflated on deck seven when a 45kg gas cylinder exploded and flew through the air, killing the crew member.

 

The gas bottle was then seen spinning on the wharf with its base blown out, according to a passenger on board.

 

Not LPG but more likely to be Nitrogen or oxygen, both can be very dangerous as well. They were lucky it didn't do more damage. Very sad for the crew member and his family and colleagues.

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hematocrit

hematocrit

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Passengers are being allowed to leave ship and shuttle busses laid on to Dunedin. "All on Board" by 5pm, so we won't be leaving before 6pm at earliest (24 hours late) then sailing direct to Sydney - so missing out on the Sounds!

All very sad on board at the tragic death.

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MicCanberra Holiday Sharing Rare

MicCanberra

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Passengers are being allowed to leave ship and shuttle busses laid on to Dunedin. "All on Board" by 5pm, so we won't be leaving before 6pm at earliest (24 hours late) then sailing direct to Sydney - so missing out on the Sounds!

All very sad on board at the tragic death.

 

That is such a shame but understandable due to the circumstances.:(

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Dobby_The_Ship_Elf

Dobby_The_Ship_Elf

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The Herald understands inflatable vessels were being reinflated on deck seven when a 45kg gas cylinder exploded and flew through the air, killing the crew member.

 

The gas bottle was then seen spinning on the wharf with its base blown out, according to a passenger on board.

 

Not LPG but more likely to be Nitrogen or oxygen, both can be very dangerous as well. They were lucky it didn't do more damage. Very sad for the crew member and his family and colleagues.

 

sheesh we used to have up to 3000 psi of pressure in our Nitrogen bottles.

 

I certainly wouldn't want to be around if one of them let loose.

 

Talk about a loose cannon(ball) wowee

 

I spent some time in the early hours on my walks talking in broken 'technical English' to some of these guys on the Emerald, most were either Filipino or Indonesian, once I did they always smiled, waved and spoke to me every day - nice guys that worked really hard and long hours.

 

I fear it was one of these blokes, very sad

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