Opua: explosion
Opua: explosion
At about 1:30 p.m. just after THE HAWKE OF TUONELA was settled in her cradle at Ashby’s Boat Yard and I was climbing up a ladder to the deck, a boat in another part of the yard fifty yards away exploded.
I turned to see a man stagger onto what was left of the deck. Several other people closer than I rushed to help, so I didn’t. A second man emerged from a cloud of smoke. Ambulances, a fire engine, and police cars all arrived quite quickly considering our remote location.
It seems that when the owner of the boat lit the stove to prepare lunch there was a propane explosion. The two men suffered burns that are described as non-life threatening. The middle third of the deck of the 45’ boat was blown up and away.
I have heard of such explosions, but never before been present when one occurred.
Again the picture partially lies.
THE HAWKE OF TUONELA’s bottom looks good for two years and more than 25,000 miles. The slime would have sloughed off with a day’s sailing. I last anti-fouled here in March 2008. However, sitting on her mooring for the past five months, there was some hard growth on the starboard side of the bottom that does not show in the photo.
The yard’s pressure wash removed almost all of it except for the bands beneath the travel lift slings which I scraped away this afternoon.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010