VESSEL REVIEW | Fire and rescue boat to operate in California’s San Joaquin County

The Woodbridge Fire District of San Joaquin County, California, has taken delivery of a new 36-foot (11-metre) response boat built by Lind Marine's Moose Boats division in Vallejo. The custom vessel will be operated primarily in the San Joaquin River Delta, which covers approximately 500 miles (800 kilometres).

The new boat will respond to calls for service within the San Joaquin Delta and its sloughs, marinas and islands, providing firefighting and medical evacuation assistance. The boat will be berthed at Tower Park Marina in Terminous and will support the US Coast Guard, San Joaquin County Sheriffs, and its surrounding mutual aid partners.

Rugged yet compact design for greater deployability

“It is a compact monohull boat that delivers plenty of power with twin 300hp (220kW) outboards and a dedicated engine to push 1,500 gpm (6,800 litres per minute) out two master streams,” Ken Royal, Vice President for Sales and Marketing at Moose Boats, told Baird Maritime. “This is because the owner required a rugged aluminium fire/rescue vessel that could deliver plenty of fire flow water and can also act as a dive platform while being small enough to be trailerable.”

Royal added that the vessel is of a popular Moose Boats series. Interior options are available for the owner to choose and can easily be accommodated through CAD drawings to final layout.

“The Woodbridge Fire District has jurisdiction throughout the San Joaquin River Delta in Sacramento,” said Royal. “Summertime activities ramp up with large numbers of vacationers and locals taking to the water in this area, and with this greater number of people comes a greater need for emergency response services.”

The boat features twin Mercury outboards with stainless steel propellers with a heavy duty protective guard including tow line guides, a tow post, and an integrated towing spool. A custom hybrid air/foam collar provides added protection against impact damage.

The firefighting setup includes a Darley pump with a driveline shaft assembly and two TFT monitors mounted one each on the cabin top and on the bow for enhanced firefighting coverage regardless of the boat’s orientation. The pump is driven by a dedicated Volvo Penta V8 engine.

The boat is fitted with Moose Boats' proprietary integrated dive platform door on the port side and a victim retrieval door on the starboard side. The electronics meanwhile include a Blue Sea System electrical panel, Lifeline house and start batteries, a Furuno radar, a chart plotter, a depth sounder, and a Teledyne FLIR thermal camera. The cabin interior is kept comfortable with the aid of a Webasto heating system.

“Our hull designs are proven,” Royal told Baird Maritime. “However, we still work to keep ahead of the technological curve by incorporating existing systems that have benefited from further improvement.”