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· Bristol 45.5 - AiniA
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· 1968 Columbia 50
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· Sea Sprite 23 #110 (20)
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'glass burns ugly. Not only is it a hot and hard to put out fire, but it produces some nasty black smoke. Not the kind of stuff you want to be downwind of. Once it starts to burn, get away and let the professionals work at it
 

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· baDumbumbum
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By the time the contents of your boat are burning hot enuf to ignite an aluminum flybridge, you are well into 'total writeoff' territory. The real lesson here has zippo to do with fiberglass, or steel, or aluminum. It's that any sort of fire on board any boat is desperately serious business. You can build the shell out of asbestos-lined concrete; if a dead short in an unfused wire ignites some floatation foam, which in turn sets off 300 gallons of diesel fuel, that's a floating hibachi -- and the choice of hull or deck materials becomes kinda irrelevant. The burned-out concrete/asbestos boat is simply a bigger disposal problem.;)
 

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I lived on a boat USS Long beach, during and after the Falklands war. She had an aluminum superstructure. We really worried when we saw what the Exocet did to those British ships during that war, as I remember they burned until they sank.( and maybe after).
 

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The fire trucks are all there. It seems that they are just letting it burn out as they probably don't want to be near it when the fuel goes up. But it would still seem feasible to direct a fire hose onto that sailboat just to prevent damage from that heat.

You would think some body would be doing something, but nobody was home. I guess you can't see the gigantic smoke plume while playing pinocle.
John
 

· Over Hill Sailing Club
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Don't forget that boats usually also have pyrotechnics aboard to complicate things. I would not want to be near a burning boat when a SOLAS flare went off or those 25 old flare gun flares decided to ignite! Firemen near marinas must be well aware of that.
 

· Owned by Velcro
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We would have just covered the thing in foam
 
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