Fixed and portable systems, foam and the PFAS phase-out, detection and breathing apparatus. Fire safety is the leading detainable deficiency category under the Tokyo MOU. These articles cover the FSS Code in practice, how to choose suppression for a given space, and the inspection findings that recur year after year.
A fixed firefighting system released into a space that is still being ventilated is fighting a fire that is still being fed. Dampers and closures are what make containment possible, and they are among the most consistently defective items on any ship. By MarineCraft Journal · 17 September 2026 · 9 mins read … Read more
Fire hoses have a maximum length as well as a minimum, nozzles must do two jobs, and every ship above 500 tons carries a brass flange that may never be used in its working life but has to be produced the moment an inspector asks for it. By MarineCraft Journal · 16 September … Read more
A ship carries more portable extinguishers than any other item of safety equipment, and each one runs on three separate clocks at once. The annual service is well known. The five and ten year requirements, and the spare charge arithmetic, are where operators come unstuck. By MarineCraft Journal · 14 September 2026 · … Read more
The emergency fire pump exists for the day the engine room is on fire and the main pumps are unreachable. It is tested rarely, sits in a compartment nobody visits, and fails on inspection more reliably than almost any other item aboard. By MarineCraft Journal · 2 September 2026 · 9 mins read … Read more
On an offshore platform, detection has to work before there is a fire. The system is watching for gas, not flame, because by the time something is burning the useful window has already closed. That inverts how detection is designed, maintained, and audited. By MarineCraft Journal · 28 August 2026 · 10 mins … Read more
Ships rarely fail firefighting audits because the equipment is broken. They fail because nobody can prove it was maintained. The extinguisher works, the pump runs, the system is charged, and the finding is written anyway, because the record that should sit behind each of those things is missing, late, or signed by the … Read more
