J FOR JULIET

By

Ameyy Kubal QM


A true story of survival and courage on high seas. An insight into how fires are fought at sea.



- FOREWORD -


Seafarers are not professional fire-fighters. During the pre-sea training which is mandatory before joining the sea, we do a basic three day course on fire fighting namely FPFF short for Fire Prevention and Fire Fighting. It’s a one and half day of theory and rest is practical. It’s just the bare basics on procedures and precautions to be taken while fighting a fire in a controlled environment. But when a ship on high seas goes up in flames, it becomes a very dangerous situation. In this case, mind should be as calm as possible while tackling a blaze. You can’t allow panic to take over. In this story I haven’t mentioned any of my ship mates’ names and changed my ship’s name to protect their privacy.
This is my story when my ship ‘M.V. Ocean Pearl’ went up in flames off the Sri Lankan coast on 24th May 2008, a 10000 dwt, 750 TEU container carrier.
This story is about will and courage under fire literally and to what lengths sailors can go to save their ship from an oppressor far powerful than them, an oppressor looking forward to ravage their ship. This story is about how a fire is fought on high seas and the complexities involved in it.
A.K.
Bombay



Juliet has many different meanings for different types of people. In literature she becomes Romeo’s lover in the famous Shakespearean love-tragedy classic. Hers is a common name on land rather old fashioned. But at sea she takes on a dangerous new meaning. Because at sea, Juliet stands for: ‘My ship is on fire and I (may) require immediate assistance’. That’s what exactly happened to us on that fateful day on 24 May 2008 which made heroes of the guys sailing with me and the way I look at life now.


‘Hard-a Starboard, engines full speed astern, bow to port easy’ ordered the pilot as we entered the breakwater at Colombo harbour and were preparing to go dock at the Unity Container Terminal at Colombo port. I concurred the pilot’s order and I being the duty helmsman put the wheel 30 degrees to starboard with a couple of tugs pulling us. ‘The wheel’s hard over sir’, I answered as the Captain put the engines to half astern or 60 rpm through the bridge telegraph and the bow thruster’s dial 5 degrees to port. There was a shudder through the ship as the propellers 25 meters below our feet churned the water in astern propulsion as the thruster fan helped the ship to berth safely at UCT jetty. Half an hour later we were secured safely in the usual four plus two plus one formation fore and aft. Gangway was lowered and pilot disembarked. Port formalities like customs, immigration and ISPS security check took another 2 hours. With that the cargo operations started immediately. For us it was just another voyage to Sri Lanka. Colombo port is as usual busy and the port terminal deployed two gantries to work on us. We had totally 304 containers to discharge and another 412 to load. We had hoped to sail the day after next if the stevedores were god, bound for Chennai and further north to Kolkata. Little did we know that our world would turn upside down after departure with catastrophic results.
At 1800 hrs after my watch, I went ashore with friends partying till 2300 hrs at Liberty plaza, a hip pub in the heart of Colombo’s Sandown’s area. I came back onboard at 2330 hrs for my watch oblivious to the events that would change my life and the way I look at it now. We finished the cargo ops next day evening. The cast-off took place at 1800 hrs which would mean that the TSS at Dondra Head would come in my watch. This needs some explaining. TSS stands for Traffic Separation Scheme. Just like on land, we have traffic lanes at sea in busy places like Dondra Head, a promontory at Sri Lanka’s south coast for inbound and outbound ships. An incoming ship if she cuts her lane and strays into the outgoing lane, will be heavily fined by the SLPA short for Sri Lankan Port Authority. That area is so crammed with the ships 24/7 that an extra lookout is provided exclusively to report the ships’ movements. A ship has two sidelights, green to starboard and red to port. In the TSS, every vessel has to be reported to the officer of the watch with the sidelight visibility and the bearing. He then calculates the Closest Point of Approach (CPA) and Time for Closest Point of Approach (TCPA) needed to pass the ship safely. All this is calculated automatically by the ARPA short for Automatic Radar Plotting Aids and displays on its screen with the ship’s name if connected to the AIS (Automated Identification System). ARPA calculates the ‘big three’ the bearing, distance and the course for all the vessels in the radar range individually displaying them on the radar screen. That night traffic was heavy as usual. We had to pass the likes of 35 ships most of them bulkers going along to India’s west coast and further west to the Atlantic. It was a very busy watch for us. I keep my watch with the second officer from midnight to 0400 hrs. This watch is called as the graveyard shift amongst us sailors. At 0400, I was relieved by the cadet and the second officer by the chief officer. Little did we know that the second mate would be dead in a couple hours time. I headed off to the mess where I had my breakfast ( that’s what I call it) of noodles and milk before scampering off to sleep. It was already 0530 hrs. and I was in midst of a dream when the fire alarm went off outside my cabin. ‘Must be testing the goddamn alarm’, I remarked sleepily to my roommate as I glanced at my wrist watch. It was exactly 0530 hrs. No one tests fire alarms at this hour especially on a ship. Something must be up. Just then a wiper came to my cabin screaming,’ Fire in the radio room’. I leapt from my bed and into my boiler suit within seconds. After donning my PPE ( Personal Protective Equipment), and carrying a portable DCP fire extinguisher, I hurried up the companionway two stairs at a time. After reaching the Engineers’ deck, I stopped dead in my tracks, bedazzled at the ghastly sight before my eyes. Orange-red flames were pouring out of the radio room with intense dark smoke. I looked at the fire extinguisher in my hand. No fucking chance. The fire had already surpassed that now. I threw it aside and went out from the aft alleyway to help in rigging the fire hoses. Two were rigged quickly. The engine room was already instructed to turn on the fire pump. They started it in record 5 minutes. Thick smoke was now pouring out from the aft alleyways, stinging the eyes. Fire nozzles were quickly fitted onto the hoses. I grabbed a hose and rushed inside with the Emergency Attack Party 1 (EAP1) comprising of myself, 2 sailors, 5th engineer and an oiler. Keeping myself sheltered from the smoke, I aimed the jet onto the flames but was pushed back by the pungent smell of the smoke. We had to control the blaze ASAP before it reached the navigating bridge, one deck above the Capt. Deck where the fire was blazing. We continued to fight the fire there for 15 minutes before handing over to EAP2 while we went out to catch some fresh air. Boundary cooling was already in progress by the SP1 (Support Party) from the outside.
Then someone shouted,’ Where is the second officer?’ His cabin was adjacent to the radio room where the fire was at its peak. At that moment everything was in chaos. It pretty soon dawned on us that the second was still in his cabin, maybe unconscious, maybe dead. We had to get him out of there ASAP. It is a known fact that most people die due to the smoke rather than the fire itself. Fire eating through live human flesh is horrendous while asphyxia is compared to drowning. It’s a fateful end but compared to death by fire, it’s a rather comforting thought. Meanwhile someone had already broken the second officer's porthole and got a hose playing inside. At that moment we were 120 miles away from the Lankan coast, far away from her territorial waters but still in the Exclusive Economic Zone which extends 200 miles into the sea of almost every single maritime nation. So technically, we were both on Lankan soil and in international waters at the same time.
The fire was rapidly getting out of control by now. Meanwhile the engine room had cut off all the power to the accommodation, isolating it to prevent further short circuits. The banshee noise of the fire alarm finally ceased.
‘Broad-siding a ship’ is a dangerous manoeuvre in which either of the ship’s side is exposed to the swell. Broad-siding is achieved to reduce the drag and stop the ship in least possible time. It clearly contravenes the general seamanship practices which state that ‘Whenever the ship is imminent danger, she should offer her stem to the danger than her broadside...’ But sometimes the risk is taken to stop the vessel in an emergency, preceding only to the ‘crash stop’ which damages the engines. It is so practically unheard of and so very rarely done that sailors can spend their entire careers at sea without even knowing its meaning. The gale was howling on our port beam. It was decided that we would broadside the vessel to starboard to get some lee on the port side. It would temporarily clear the smoke from the alleyway so as to attempt a SAR op. It was almost 0700 hrs when we came full bore downwind, all thirty thousand tons of her thundering down at sixteen knots and then we hard starboarded her, and with her pitching violently, we broadsided her into the swell and immediately, she went into a ‘barrel roll’ or the ‘death roll’ as we sailors call it. It was a very dodgy manoeuvre but we came out of it intact. In a barrel roll, a ship starts to roll as much as 25 degrees on either side. At 35 degrees a ship would normally submerge on its side but still stay afloat due to the reserve buoyancy it she carries. It was getting very hard to maintain balance. The ship would scend into each and every swell of white hills pouring onto the decks. The SAR operation to get the second officer out of the cabin was already underway. The third officer had already donned the SCBA set short for Self Contained Breathing Apparatus which contains an oxygen cylinder and the airtight mask attached to a neck strap. Still the smoke was intense and pouring out of the aft alleyway. But the intensity was slightly reduced. That’s when the 3/o went inside the alleyway from the aft end. Just a couple of minutes later, he was out pulling the body of the second officer, burnt on both shoulders. Meanwhile the fire was still raging inside. It had to be controlled from within. And that job came to me.
My fire station duty clearly designates me as the SCBA and fire suit wearer and leading the EAP1 in case of accommodation fire. To perfect that we have fire drills on board at least twice a month where a realistic fire scenario is replicated, timings noted from ‘muster’ to ‘fire under control’. Later debriefing takes place to improvise and rectify any shortcomings.
My initial fire station muster duty was to rig fire hoses and to bring portable fire extinguisher and the SCBA duty was designated to a rather skinny guy. The entire gear of the SCBA, fire suit including the helmet, jacket, trousers, boots, and gloves weigh around 20 kgs excluding the 10 kg fire axe, an extra clip-on on the waist. So the Captain switched our duties in the first fire drill on account of my physique. I being rather stout guy was fit for that job and so it went on like that. During every single fire drill, I used to falter with something or the other...suit not zipped, mask not put on correctly, the position of the oxygen bottle, the pressure gauge not checked, low pressure alarm not tested on so on.
The fire suit is a rather uncomfortable setup. Made out of asbestos, it perspirates the wearer immediately. Then the SCBA bottle is worn like a backpack, the nozzle in ‘always down’ position. The gauge is checked for low pressure warning in form of a whistle, then the fire mask is donned and tightened. Boots and gloves are worn and the nozzle is opened to let in the air into the mask. Here there are two pressure modes namely positive pressure mode and negative pressure mode to control the air flow. This needs explaining. In negative pressure mode, the rate of the air influx depends on the rate of the breathing of the wearer. In this mode, the air is conserved for longer period of time. That’s not the case with the positive pressure mode. In here, the air is pumped continuously into the mask irrespective of the wearer’s breathing. Here the air is continuously expended and this mode is used for shorter periods of time. It was this mode which I chose after donning the SCBA mask to fight the fire of a lifetime that day, not because the ship muster states it but because if the mask gets cracked anytime in the smoke filled chamber, the air coming continuously into the mask negates the smoke trying to enter the mask.
But that day I made two crucial anomalies. I didn’t check the amount of air inside the cylinder which is displayed on the gauge in form of Bars. An ideal cylinder when full has 200-250 bar pressure in it sufficient for fighting a fire for about 20 minutes in positive pressure mode. And I also didn’t strap on the lifeline which is used to communicate by a system of pulls between the wearer and the attendant. I grabbed an ‘uncharged’ fire hose and instructed the attendants to turn on the water after exactly three minutes. That’s the time I would need to negotiate the turns leading to the Radio room from the aft alleyway. Adrenaline is a hormone secreted by the adrenal gland. It functions to prepare the body for ‘fright, flight or fight’. The action of the heart increases along with the rate and depth of breathing. The metabolic rate increases. The force of muscular contraction improves, delaying the onset of muscular fatigue. This is what exactly happened deep inside my body as it prepared itself for ‘fight’. Then high on adrenaline, with the smoke engulfing me , I switched on the helmet light and entered the alleyway. The heat was intense and I began to sweat immediately inside the suit. The worst part is when the sweat enters the eyes and you can’t do anything to remove it because of the helmet. I had my fire axe strapped on my waist. The air was blowing on my face. I came across a partition door. I tried to open it but it wouldn’t budge. The lock must have melted by the heat and jammed it. A three inch steel bolt on a wooden door stands no chance against a standard 10 kg fire axe. It especially stands no chance when the fire axe is slammed down on it by a 80 kg man high on adrenaline. It shattered into bits without protest. Now came the fear of back-drafts.
This needs explaining. A back-draft is a dangerous phenomenon in which a fire having consumed all available oxygen in a closed chamber suddenly explodes when more oxygen is made available. The resulting fireball is so intense that it is quite capable of knocking a man for about 10 meters. So after breaking the lock, I didn’t immediately open the partition door. I clambered behind it and opened it inch by inch. Sure there was a back-draft but not so intense. Within a split second it was gone with a resounding whoosh. I felt a rumbling inside the fire hose. The guys must have started the water. I braced for the ‘kickback’ as the water came gushing out. I put the nozzle into ‘JET’ mode. I picked up the hose and became a fire fighter. I proceeded to the far end of the corridor and took a left, coming face to face with the carnage inside the ship’s office. The chairs and the cabinets were scarcely recognizable, skeletons of blackened wood and the radio equipment fixed to the walls was distorted beyond recognition and festooned with metal stalactites where solder had dripped and congealed; more equipment lay on the floor, black, twisted pieces of metal in the debris of charred wood. The emergency accumulators had come down through the burnt out deck-head and lay on the floor where they had fallen; one had smashed down through the fire-blackened table and had crushed the half melted remains of the GMDSS radio transmitter. And yet the fire raged. Outside the sea was rising, the wind increasing, the ship rolling, rolling steady and slow, but gradually her bulwarks going under as mountains of water lifted her onto their steaming crests and tumbled her down into the valleys between.
I aimed my fire hose straight into the fire. The noise of the fire was incredible, burning up the wooden panelling everywhere. The sweat in my eyes was blinding me and it was becoming difficult to see with every passing second. The fire was making ominous noises which threatened to bring down the deck head panelling crashing on top of me with every heel of the rolling ship.
Lying broadside to the onslaught of the crashing waves, she was rolling heavily by now.