In the early hours of 13 March 2025, fire broke out on the Seven Seas while the vessel was moored at Port Ghalib marina. It was approximately 6:30am. All 29 people on board, guests and crew, were evacuated without injury. The fire could not be contained. The 41-metre vessel, which had been operating as a flagship liveaboard under the Emperor Divers brand since 2023, was a total loss.
How the fire started
The Seven Seas was connected to shore power at the time of the fire. Neither the vessel's engines nor its generators were running. The first sign was smoke billowing from the engine room. Crew members attempted to fight the fire using the vessel's onboard fire extinguishers. Those efforts were unsuccessful and the fire spread. Authorities investigating the incident have pointed to a possible fault in the shore-side circuit breaker as a contributing factor, though no formal cause has been confirmed.
The scenario, a fire originating in the engine room while a vessel is at rest and connected to external power, points toward an electrical fault. Marina shore power connections introduce an external variable that is not present when a vessel is at sea operating on its own systems. Whether the fault lay in the vessel's electrical system, the marina connection, or the shore-side infrastructure is a question the investigation has not yet publicly answered.
The vessel and its record
The Seven Seas was a 41-metre liveaboard that had won the Best Liveaboard in the Red Sea award from German diving magazine Tauchen five times. It joined the Emperor Divers fleet in 2023 and was operating as their flagship vessel at the time of the fire. Capacity was 24 divers. The vessel held its required certifications and passed its periodic surveys.
Emperor Divers acknowledged the loss publicly and credited their crew with the professional execution of emergency evacuation procedures. The evacuation of 29 people from a vessel actively on fire, without a single injury, reflects well on the emergency response. The vessel itself could not be saved.
“A fire at the marina, while the vessel is at rest, not at sea, not mid-dive. Twenty-nine people got off without injury. The boat could not be saved. Those two facts sit alongside each other.”
– Red Sea Log EditorialShore power and fire at rest
Liveaboard fires at sea and liveaboard fires in port have different characteristics. At sea, the crew is active, watchful, and the vessel is operating. In port, connected to shore power with guests on board overnight, the risk profile is different, detection depends on someone being awake and alert to smoke, and the source of an electrical fault may lie partly outside the vessel itself.
The MAIB Safety Bulletin of February 2025, issued just weeks before this fire, recommended that liveaboard operators ensure fire detection systems are functional and tested. The Seven Seas fire reinforces that recommendation. A fire at 6:30am in the engine room of a moored vessel, with 29 people asleep on board, is exactly the scenario in which early detection is the difference between a serious incident and a fatal one.
The Seven Seas fire is part of the permanent incident record maintained by the Atlas. All 29 people were evacuated without injury, that outcome is directly attributable to the crew's response. The cause of the fire has not been formally confirmed. The Atlas will update this record when investigation findings are published. If you have direct information about this incident, use the comments below.
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