If you’re in the UEL you’ve already missed the boat ( pun intended) and if you are depending on staying in the UEL for your safety you’re tactics suck.
Boat Explosion in Greenport
- Thread starter shemandr
- Start date
Considering that gasoline's flashpoint is below freezing, and therefore almost always above that temperature. it seems like the big factor.
Air temp in most places does not hit 120F.
Of course engine surfaces and in some cases engine locations could exceed 120F but that fact that gasoline is almost always at flash point, everywhere, seems the big factor.
Fun fact: I used gasoline to make "movie" explosions back in the day when I did pyro and fireworks professionally. For that exact reason.
Air temp in most places does not hit 120F.
Of course engine surfaces and in some cases engine locations could exceed 120F but that fact that gasoline is almost always at flash point, everywhere, seems the big factor.
Fun fact: I used gasoline to make "movie" explosions back in the day when I did pyro and fireworks professionally. For that exact reason.
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It's pretty cool what you can do with an aluminum backing pan, couple cups of gas, steel wool, 50'extension cord, and a 12V battery.
Kids ignore this post or just hold my beer stand back and watch.
Kids ignore this post or just hold my beer stand back and watch.
I grew up with a kid, whose dad refilled ammo. Had bags of various powder.
I grew up in a family that did professional fireworks and pyro as a sideline that because a business...
Nuff said.
All body parts intact but my hearing kinda sucks a bit.
Edit: my nephew didnt build a tree fort until he was an adult...
We delivered the powerboat I mention above last week. Typical Pen bay conditions for going from the head of the bay toward the mouth; 10 -15 knots on the nose. The seas about 2/3rds the way home were 2 -3' and small whitecaps. I don't know a whole lot about powerboats (but that's as much as I want to know,...This being a sailing forum I feel it is considered acceptable to bash any stink pot regardless of fuel.
), so I was experimenting. 24', 5,000 lb semi planing, 327 engine (or something which was 50 hp more than original).For a while, I had it going pretty nicely at under 12 knots(engine still in break-in period which limits rpms). Nice enough ride into the chop. Impressive for a sailor that has covered this ground countless times. I was glad I wasn't delivering a sailboat as the trip would have taken all day(hold that thought,...).
But a South wind often builds and the bay, which is quite sheltered at the head, becomes more exposed and opens like a big funnel as you head toward the sea
Pretty soon we got a few complaints from the passengers aft in deck chairs. We were bouncing a bit. Not pounding like a Whaler (bone crushers) does on 2' seas but I had to throttle back to 10 knots or so.
About 12 miles down the bay, seas were growing a bit as winds were gusting in the 15 knot range. I was soon at 8 knots to smooth things out a bit. So I started experimenting with course trying to cleeve through the seas a bit. That didn't work too well as the boat - quite dry going dead into it - gets a bit wet off the seas. We had good shelter but spray was becoming a problem.
The last stretch dead into it was the worst. I wasn't going much faster than I do in Xmas with a reefed main and about 120% jib (burning ZERO gallons as opposed to 5-6 per hour). But what I really missed at that point, was the heel.
Yes, I wanted to be tucked in down low to leeward, solid and comfortable. A sailboat is a joy to ride to windward in these conditions, not going dead into the seas and taking twice as long to get to the same place.
Instead. I was leaning against the starboard coaming holding the wheel, then the waves booted me toward the port side, hold on to the wheel, then booted back against the starboard side.
And about then we ran out of fekkin' gas.
The seller said we had plenty in that tank to get to Rockport and a half a tank in reserve in the other. Sure, except the way we were bouncing and rolling, I figured our standpipe sucked air (which it did).
Always the optimist, I told the owner we were lucky the seller was such a cheap bastard and didn't fill the tanks. We may have found out that our 25 gallon tank can be in fact less than 22 or so, in a tight dangerous situation instead of out in the bay.
So we threw the valve to the other tank and this being a gas engine, there's no bleeding (I hoped that, and yea, that was so! A good thing about GAS). Little pumps turn on and she fired right up after one try.
That tank got us in. I 'stick-ed' the tanks the next day, we had 5 gallons in each.
We'd proven, 5 gallons means ZERO in a seaway.
I like this boat but our waters are 'big' here. The owner got a good taste of that. We're ironing out some problems but I think it was a good choice.
Tennis Ball Cannons?I grew up with a kid, whose dad refilled ammo. Had bags of various powder.
I grew up in a family that did professional fireworks and pyro as a sideline that because a business...
Nuff said.
All body parts intact but my hearing kinda sucks a bit.
Edit: my nephew didnt build a tree fort until he was an adult...
Ayup. They go really well. Also a kite string roll just fits a marble with enough room to sneak a fire cracker wick beside it. Stop up the other end and you have a hand held canon.
In middle school we had a science fair with some grown ups showing more advanced stuff. There was a setup with a clear plastic cylinder about 2" diameter. The guy put about a half teaspoon of gasoline in the cylinder then put cork in the top. There were electrodes built into the side of the cylinder. When he applied a voltage across the electrodes it blew the cork clear across the gym with a really loud pop. I doubt they could get away with that today.
In high school my science teacher set up a paint can with some flour dust. He told the kids in the front row to move back. He was about to light it then looked at the kids in the second row and told them to move back. That was a loud bang.
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Did that. And much more.
Today the police would worry that we were terrorists.. Nope. Just boys with an interest in science and loud bangs and fortunately an eye for safety.
Science kits, electronic kits.. That was what I got for xmas.
Went to PGI conventions eventually.
Nothing matched the pro stuff though. I once hand fired a 12 inch kamuro shell that was 6ft away (squib failed). I miss it.
They would be fun. I would love to be safely nearby when one of those bunker buster bombs went off.
For some reason the shell sound, shockwave, and sparks everywhere when manually firing a large fireworks show are what I miss.
Only actually saw the finale. The rest was just sparks and boom..
Damn i miss it.
Shows like that are all fired by wire now
Disney uses a pneumatic launch system with digital timers on the shells for some of their stuff
my nerd side thought it was cool.. My other side thought it took away all the fun.
All "propper" bilge blowers I know are safe to operate no matter how bad the fumes are. They have to have a spark proof motor, or they aren't really "bilge blowers" meant for that operation. If someone MacGivers something together, they takes their chances.
Anyone else old enough to remember potato cannons? They were all the rage for about a year. Raw potatoes, about 4' of PVC pipe and a highly flammable brand of hair spray that I don't THINK is still available. With the right trajectory you could get the potato to fly 50 yards or more. Somebody I knew decided that baked potatoes would be safer...and the only one he fired definitely was because it turned into mashed potatoes that never made it out of the pipe!
--Peggie
Here is a bit more detail regarding the explosion from a friend in the area:
As the newspaper account said, they had just finished fueling up. Gremler turned on the blower but did not wait (Or wait enough - my addition) and when he turned the ignition key the explosion occurred. It blew out the side of the hull and both were thrown into the water. Gremler some distance. The women swam to Gremler and held his head out of the water until someone in a dingy arrived to help as the newspaper account said. She was blown into the bulkhead and had several broken bones (Clavical, Ribs, wrist or arm). Tough Gal! Gremler was thrown the other way -away from the bulkhead - "...into the channel." If that description is accurate that must have been one hell of a ride. He has some unspecified head injury. None of the injuries are life threatening.
It was described as a "Flash explosion" which I don't really know the definition of. And I don't know what differentiates that from any other explosion.
On the lighter side, he owns the restaurant "Billy's By the Bay" which locals are now calling "Billy In the Bay."
As the newspaper account said, they had just finished fueling up. Gremler turned on the blower but did not wait (Or wait enough - my addition) and when he turned the ignition key the explosion occurred. It blew out the side of the hull and both were thrown into the water. Gremler some distance. The women swam to Gremler and held his head out of the water until someone in a dingy arrived to help as the newspaper account said. She was blown into the bulkhead and had several broken bones (Clavical, Ribs, wrist or arm). Tough Gal! Gremler was thrown the other way -away from the bulkhead - "...into the channel." If that description is accurate that must have been one hell of a ride. He has some unspecified head injury. None of the injuries are life threatening.
It was described as a "Flash explosion" which I don't really know the definition of. And I don't know what differentiates that from any other explosion.
On the lighter side, he owns the restaurant "Billy's By the Bay" which locals are now calling "Billy In the Bay."
My parents neighbor was launched from a Seasdoo that lit off from the poly tank cracking. It was recalled by the manufacturer but Hamden been taken care of. The cracks develop from ethanol blend gasoline. She was thrown into the water. Airlifted to the state trauma center and almost lost a foot above the ankle.
Potato cannons spawned one of the funniest threads EVER on the old Compuserve Sailing forum: It was getting close to Thanksgiving and one of us decided that potato cannon dock-to-deck delivery of roasted turkeys with all the trimmings to cruisers in the Caribbean could be a money maker for somebody. We spent days working out the logistics--necessary diameter of the pipe, prices, max distance, whether the "shipper" would have any liability in the event a customer's position co-ordinates were inaccurate....I don't think I've had that much fun online since!
--Peggie
Aqua-Net
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Mom could never figure out why her can did not last as long as it should. We kept an extra can and swaped them out.
Dads cigarette light fluid worked too.