Whether it is a township, city, or county, officials from areas throughout the U.S. are taking delivery of new fireboats. In many instances, the new vessels are also used for search-and-rescue and patrol duties.
METALCRAFT MARINE
In early March, MetalCraft Marine, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, had five of its 43/44s (that’s MetalCraft Marine’s FireStorm 40, measuring 43’1”x14’4”), under contract and a sixth was about to be sold to the Port of San Diego Harbor Police Department, which will use it for 24/7 security as well as a fireboat.
The Fire Storm 40 design is extremely popular. “It’s been selling like a train,” is how MetalCraft Marine’s contracts manager Bob Clark puts it — ever since it won the 2020 WorkBoat magazine Boat of the Year award. Since then,
“We’ve never had less than three of them on order at any given time,” said Clark. “So much the success of that boat is directly related to WorkBoat magazine.” The design gets its 43/44 moniker because “it can be made a little longer or shorter without any real costs attached,” said Clark.
What’s new is that the 43/44 fireboat now has an outboard option. The first 43/44 to be powered with outboards came out of MetalCraft’s metal shop in mid-March and should be going to St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, this summer with triple Yamaha 300 outboards mounted across its transom. The driving force for the outboard option is “cost per horsepower,” said Clark. “There are many reasons but [cost] that’s the biggest; it’s dramatically less with outboards.”
A contributing factor is the lack of service for inboard engines in certain areas. “The ability to get service for diesels engines seemed to get harder and harder,” said Clark. A servicing issue recently arose on a Caribbean island for one MetalCraft boat “and then another issue on another Caribbean island. We were blown away that Cummins did not have service all through the Caribbean, only in Puerto Rico,” Clark said. MetalCraft had to fly their team from Miami to the Caribbean.
The FireStorm 40 fireboat going to St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, will be outfitted with a new monitor design from Elkhart Industries, Elkhart, Ind. It’s a 3,000-gpm stainless steel monitor that requires a 4-inch waterway; it’s a beefier version of Elkhart 2,000-gpm monitor that also uses a 4-inch waterway. The new monitor “is a big step because the 2000 was a tremendous monitor,” said Clark. The next most powerful Elkhart monitor is 5,500 gpm, which requires a 5” waterway. The reach of the 3,000-gpm monitor is 307’. “You get a big flow,” noted Clark after MetalCraft tested the new monitor’s delivery. The 2,000-gpm monitor reached out to 294’.
Another popular fireboat model is the 32’x10’6” Stanley Custom Aluminum Boats landing craft (MetalCraft and Stanley have been partners since 2017, and each builds the other’s boats.) MetalCraft sent two Stanley 32s to Jacksonville, Fla., just before Christmas and a third one is currently being built at MetalCraft. They are powered by twin Mercury 350-hp outboards and are equipped with Elkhart 2000-gpm monitors.
SILVER SHIPS
In early March, a 30’x10’ fireboat hull with a walk-around cabin design was being lofted at Silver Ships, Theodore, Ala., for the Cape Coral (Fla.) Fire Department.
“It’s the second one for them,” said David Hunt, Silver Ships director of business development. The first fireboat for Cape Coral was also a 30-footer, but it was a closed center-console design.
The yard is also building a 34’x12’ Endeavor design fireboat for the Abington Volunteer Fire Department in Gloucester County, Va.
The Abington fireboat will have a Seakeeper gyroscopic stabilizer. Hunt describes it as “a very large, very heavy gyro” that can be used “to stabilize the boat, so it doesn’t rock. It makes for a more comfortable ride,” he said.
The crew on the 34-foot fireboat going to Abington, Va., will also be protected from chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats with an over-pressurized cabin filtration system. “They can shut the doors and turn up the cabin filtration system to protect against chemical warfare. It’s also good for an environment with toxic industrial chemicals,” Hunt said. Funding for the boat came from a port security grant managed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to “enhance security and provide critical technologies at our ports.”
Silver Ships recently expanded its Endeavor line of vessels by delivering a fireboat to the Norfolk Fire-Rescue in Norfolk, VA. Initially, it was envisioned as the standard Endeavor 30’x10’. Then it became apparent that 30 feet wasn’t enough boat, so “it was decided to lengthen it to create more capability,” said Hunt. That led to a 32’x10’ design and a new model within the Endeavor line. The Norfolk 32-footer is a multi-mission fireboat that provides 1,000-gpm firefighting support for the city of Norfolk and the Port of Virginia, both on the water and by supplying water to shore.
Twin 300-hp Yamaha outboards power the 32-footer to speeds up to 46 mph. The cabin’s fully enclosed pilothouse is equipped with an over-pressure air filtration system for operating in chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear environments. That boat was funded by the Department of Homeland Security.
SAFE BOATS
Safe Boats, Bremerton, Wash., is building a 38’x12’ aluminum fireboat with a full cabin for an as-of-now unnamed customer in New York. Normally, the Safe Boat 38-footer would have a 10-foot beam, but the extra two feet “gives us a lot more deck space,” said Troy Knivila-Ritchie, Safe Boats’ marketing and sales specialist. The back deck is also wider than usual with dive tank storage and a 2’ 6”x 3’ cutout near the transom on the port side with a dive ladder. Beneath the deck will be a 1,000-gpm Darley fire pump that will feed water to a remote Task Force Tips (TFT) rooftop monitor and a second TFT manually operated bow monitor.
Powered by four 300-hp Yamaha heavy-duty outboards, the 38-footer should get where it’s going in good time. In addition, it features improved visibility thanks to larger cabin windows and larger spotter windows that will benefit search-and-rescue missions as well as enable more aggressive firefighting. The crew will be seated in four Shoxs shock-mitigated seats or at the workstation behind the helm.
The aluminum hull is being built with the Safe Boats SAFEXDR-2 collar system with an additional row of rubstrake material and bow-mounted push knees.
Recently delivered fireboats from Safe Boats include two 29-footers. One is a T-top for the City of Panama City, Fla. Fire Department. This boat has a manual fire monitor on the forward deck, fed by a 500-gpm pump in the aft locker. The other 29-footer, which went to the Escambia County (Fla.) Sheriff’s Office has a walk-around cabin and a 500-gpm fire pump and a remote monitor on the bow. In this case, “firefighting is a secondary capability,” said Kivila-Ritchie. “They just wanted to have the capability. It’s used for search and rescue and law enforcement.”
Prior to their delivery, both of these 29-footers “made an appearance at the International WorkBoat Show in New Orleans last year,” said Knivila-Ritchie.
