"That does not explain why the maintenance procedures instituted obviously totally compromised the safety of the vessel, which looks to be a total loss. The spread of the fire indicates the ship was stuffed with flammables, presumably maintenance related materials. If that is SOP, it is asking for disaster."
if you've ever been in a shipyard when a ship is being worked on you wouldn't be surprised at all - as I pointed out earlier the same thing happens with buildings and civvie ships. The workers want the maximum amount of open space , they want to be able to move things around easily, they don't want enclosed spaces with fumes where people all to often die.. You have cutting, welding, painting, wiring all going on. The client wants the job done as fast and as cheaply as possible and lacks the detailed knowledge to supervise and control the work (anyway that's the shipyards job). You do have risk assessments but the devil here is always in the small details.