Sunday, November 4, 2012

Fire Protection and Wiring of Marine Craft its Serious business

 The Wiring , Fire Detection and Protection of Commercial Water Craft is very different than wiring you do on shore.
Forget the romex the bx and conduit .
Everything on a vessel must be flexible and able to take harsh punishment  as you can see in the picture at left of a piece of marine cable which has an extra tough rubber style jacket with either an aluminum, brass  or Stainless steel mesh outer jacket.
Even Fire alarm wiring which is low voltage must utilize this type of wiring as you can see in the middle picture .
Because a vessel is always vibrating and flexing  as it sits in the water the wiring and components must be able to adapt to this environment.

One of the most dangerous aspects of being on a working vessel is fire especially in the engine room thats why many vessels utilize some type of  fire suppression agent which can trip manually or automatically  as you can see this boat has in bottom picture which is several CO2  cylinders which can be activated to snuff out an engine fire.
Not only do you have a diesel engines which propel the boat but also a diesel generator which provides power for lighting navigation and cooking .

All of these systems and rules  governing there installation and servicing follow under United States Coast Guard  USGC rules  for commercial vessels.

Personnel pleasure craft do not follow these rules but they  must be followed if a craft is used  for hire. Especially any craft carrying passengers or employees.

Even thou the tow boats I work on  which push rows of barges with all kinds of  commodities from oil to coal , scrap steel  to sand etc. are operated on an Inland rivers they must follow USCG rules. and pass Inspections  by a USCG officer.



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