Commodore Clipper - Marine Accident Investigation Branch

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1.2 BACkGROUND
Commodore Clipper provided a passenger and vehicle freight service linking St.
Peter Port, Guernsey and St. Helier, Jersey in the Channel Islands with Portsmouth.
One round trip of all three ports was completed in each 24-hour period from
Monday to Saturday. At the time of the accident, Commodore Clipper was on the
overnight leg, from St. Helier to Portsmouth. The vessel was certified to carry 500
passengers, but 62 were on board at the time. The vehicle decks were almost full to
capacity, mainly with unaccompanied road freight trailers.
1.3 EVENTS LEADING UP TO THE FIRE
1.3.1 Cargo operations in Jersey
On 15 June 2010, Commodore Clipper sailed from St. Peter Port at 1747 and arrived
at St. Helier at 1940. The main season for exporting Jersey Royal potatoes was
reaching its end; 24 of the 77 trailers that were loaded on board were refrigerated
units, carrying pre-packaged potatoes for delivery straight to supermarkets. There
were too many refrigerated trailers to allow them all to be loaded on the upper
vehicle deck (deck 5), which was in the open air and would have allowed their
diesel-powered fridge units to be run. Consequently, those refrigerated trailers
that could be powered from the ship’s electrical system were loaded onto the main
vehicle deck (deck 3). These trailers were connected to power sockets on deck 3 by
staff working for the haulage company, using cables provided on board Commodore
Clipper.
1.3.2 Departure from Jersey and return passage
1.4 FIRE
Cargo operations and ship stability calculations were completed and Commodore
Clipper departed from St. Helier at 2145. The weather was fair, the ship made good
progress to Portsmouth and was able to reduce to a more economical speed. Crew
conducted fire and security checks of the accommodation through the night hours.
The Officer of the Watch (OOW) and lookout maintained a periodic check on the
vehicle decks from the bridge, by monitoring the closed circuit television (CCTV) and
fire detection systems.
Masters, deck officers and managers had identified that the vessel’s repetitive daily
schedule did not provide bridge watchkeepers with the best opportunities to rest if
traditional watch handover times were kept. Accordingly, the two second officers
handed over the bridge watch at 0230. Navigational traffic was light and there
were no indications of any problems on board. At about 0240, the off-going second
officer made his way from the bridge to the mess room. He did not notice anything
untoward or smell any smoke as he passed through the accommodation.
1.4.1 Early fire development
At 0237, the picture recorded by CCTV camera 7 on the port side of the main
vehicle deck started to get hazy (Figure 1). The vehicle deck lighting began to
appear more diffused and the picture gradually faded grey. Shortly afterwards a
machinery control alarm showed an earth fault at the bus-tie breaker linking the two
parts of the main 400V electrical distribution system. The third engineer, on duty in
the engine control room, also heard the noise of the breaker opening. Two minutes
later, at 0241, the image recorded on CCTV camera 6, at the centreline of the main
vehicle deck (Figure 2), began to darken.