Paul Tranter: Fire risk for boaties rare but real

Always have a dry powder extinguisher aboard your boat.

It's that time of the year again that we've all been looking forward to and if the weather decides to sort itself out, many of us will be dragging out the boat.

Unfortunately, it's also a time that opens us up to all the dangers associated with it, including fire.

Now one thing I never want to do with these articles is come across as pious.

I'm a volunteer and a parent, and just like you. It's not until you see first-hand what can happen that the dangers all around us graphically reveal themselves.

A fire on a boat is an indiscriminate, real and present danger. I was a chartered yacht skipper for many years and have experienced situations you simply wouldn't normally account for.

One particularly memorable incident happened on the quay in Athens. I'd just returned from a hellish trip and was looking forward to getting my head down at the hotel.

A few boats away, I hear this huge commotion followed by a group of guys running in panic from below, through the cockpit on to the boardwalk and off into the sunset.

Before I had the chance to even wonder what was going on, there was the most almighty explosion. Much of the contents of what was a decent-sized boat shot skywards some 100 feet or more.

I later discovered the cause - and it's something you simply wouldn't think of.

One of the crew was moving stuff around the locker and in doing so laid the auxiliary outboard on to the battery. The terminals shorted out, igniting the fuel tank ... BOOM!

"This shouldn't be happening," was my first, useless mental response, before I recovered and darted for the fire extinguisher; that item of safety equipment that had, until now, seemed a legislative necessity rather than an item which might one day save my life.

Luckily, on this occasion, the explosion didn't cause a fire but it graphically illustrates the need to be prepared - for anything!

I've always been firmly in the "she'll be right" camp and resented the legislation that's thrust upon us, but as I mature I see more of the obscure incidents that drive it.

So this summer, all I ask is that you look at the safety kit on board and think about the "unthinkable", and make sure that at the very minimum there's a dry powder extinguisher aboard.

- Paul Tranter established the website Firebuddy.co.nz in a bid to get the fire safety message across. He is also a volunteer firefighter at the Mapua Brigade, near Nelson.

- Views expressed here are the writer's opinion and not the newspaper's. Email: editor@hbtoday.co.nz