MetalCraft Marine has just launched the first FireCat of its kind ever built

The Monjeb 2 is a FireCat 82x25ft, 28-knot, 182,000lb behemoth fireboat. It carries 2,400 litres of fire extinguishing foam, can shoot 12,000 gallons of water per minute from her two 45ft high hydraulic towers and moves so smoothly through the water that there is virtually no wake. The Monjeb 2 is a Class II NFPA fireboat but easily converts to a Class 1.

All current NFPA (National Fire Protection Agency’s) Class 1 fireboats in North America produce 4–6ft of wake and only reach 12–14 knots. Getting to a fire fast is important, every second counts, but can cause hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage to other craft. These old tug style fireboats also cost more than twice what the FireCat 82 does and require double the crew to operate them.

The concept for the FireCat was originated by the Director of the Kuwait Fire Services Directorate (KFSD), Mosa Ackbar, now General Ackbar. He needed very high towers that could shoot huge volumes of water over and across the high decks of oil carriers. Kuwait Port exports approximately 2,000,000 barrels of oil per day. Oil fires are very hard to put out so the boat would need a massive amount of petroleum extinguishing foam.

MetalCraft started on preliminary designs back in early 2015. Several concepts did not fly due to the instability of shooting 12,000 GPM from 45ft above the water. Even a catamaran design would need to be very large and very heavy with a super low centre of gravity to support the force of 12,000 GPM from the tower monitors. Of course this is only one of the stability concerns; the boat would also need to handle severe seas if a fire occurred during a storm event. MetalCraft started looking at outside designs that were designed around severe sea states that could make good speeds and carry heavy loads. This led us to the Windfarm boats of the North Sea.

North Sea Windfarm boats travel long distances to service turbines that are 25–50 miles from shore and in very severe wave conditions. They typically run at 25-plus knots and carry multiple sea containers that hold all of the equipment necessary to keep the towers generating. They also run with small crews but carry a large number of turbine service techs. Most of these vessels are also semi displacement designs which means very little hull motion and a comfortable ride for the service techs. Seasick service techs don’t work very well.

MetalCraft decided on a Walker Marine Design hull design that had very tall hulls that were wide enough to house large diesels and lots of firefighting equipment and had several dozen vessels in service. The key to a mature design is its heritage, as each subsequent build incorporates new and better developments into the design. The MetalCraft FireStorms built today certainly have improved over the boats built in 2003, though they are all still running.

The design would be heavily laden above that of a CTV and so tank testing was used to verify speed at 175,000lb. The test revealed a 27-knot maximum speed as was the prediction of the designer.

The wheelhouse and systems design were a combination of MetalCraft and Walker Design. The fire systems were designed by MetalCraft and Jason Engineering of Norway. There were thousands of hours spent designing the systems to be flawless and easily operated and serviced. Each equipment component had to be vetted and verified through engineering. The Jason fire pumps were rated for 5,000 GPM each but delivered well over that. Each of the large monitors mounted on the towers could shoot 460ft. Jason supplied a large MF Display that could operate every part of the fire system from the bridge. All six monitors were electronically controlled and had electric valves as well.

The water curtain when tested could obliterate visibility if the forward diffusers were opened. This could easily protect the craft from large flying embers and the boat could be run completely on its navigation electronics. The boat has a US Fire Pump hydraulic de-watering system with a long hose reel for dewatering ships. It can reach 2,000 GPM dewatering. The boat has a medical room and a berthing room for four crew and carries 21 SCBA bottles.

Power is supplied by twin MTU 10V M84 engines rated at 1,360hp each. They power MJP DB550 waterjets and controls are MJP Jetmaster electronic controls. There is a hydraulic Sidepower 550 bow thruster from Imtra as well as Imtra-supplied Decca Straight-line wipers and much of the lighting on board.

The bridge is gigantic with a full width wraparound console, it houses all controls and the Jason full control display, which controls all six fire monitors, the hydraulic towers and the pumps, all electronically. There are two 16in Raymarine Axiom Pro screens plus two 9in on the main console and a 16in at the Command console. The communications system is wireless Setcom. Two very unusual electronic features of the boat are the Rothe Radio Direction Finder, which is the only RDF that gives the latitude and longitude of the radio signal. The boat also has an Ultra Sonic electronic anti fouling system. The boat has two P&S aft helm stations which also house 7in Raymarine displays.

The HVAC system is by Dometic, it has two 72,000 BTU units and a single 48,000 BTU system. Both bridge and cabins are independently controlled.

Specifications:

For more information, go to metalcraftmarine.com