I thought “Carbon Tet” was Carbon TetraChloride CCl4, also known as TetraChloroMethane
TRIChloromethane is better known as Chloroform. It has to be administered at close range, soaked in a rag and applied over the face for instance.
Diethyl Ether however has a strong smell, is highly flammable, and My old chemistry teacher at school died from it in circumstances that were called suicide at the inquest, but could equally have been “being overpowered by fumes” having been found dead, lying face down in a lab coat soaked in the stuff whilst in the confines of the 01 Prep room.
I would imagine that many other organic liquids have the ability to “overcome with fumes” as well. Removing all trace of smell/postive test after the desired effect is somewhat harder to achieve however. Many of these solvents have a knack of rolling around the floor and lingering! 
I believe the perfumy sweetshop smell of leaky fridge units on older trailers smell of one of the chloromethanes. I don’t think it’s Chloroform though. I’m talking examples like the old cream and blue nagel trailers here…
Winseer:
I thought “Carbon Tet” was Carbon TetraChloride CCl4, also known as TetraChloroMethane
TRIChloromethane is better known as Chloroform. It has to be administered at close range, soaked in a rag and applied over the face for instance.
Diethyl Ether however has a strong smell, is highly flammable, and My old chemistry teacher at school died from it in circumstances that were called suicide at the inquest, but could equally have been “being overpowered by fumes” having been found dead, lying face down in a lab coat soaked in the stuff whilst in the confines of the 01 Prep room.
I would imagine that many other organic liquids have the ability to “overcome with fumes” as well. Removing all trace of smell/postive test after the desired effect is somewhat harder to achieve however. Many of these solvents have a knack of rolling around the floor and lingering!
I believe the perfumy sweetshop smell of leaky fridge units on older trailers smell of one of the chloromethanes. I don’t think it’s Chloroform though. I’m talking examples like the old cream and blue nagel trailers here…
Trust me having worked with the stuff ‘Tricloroethylene’ certainly doesn’t need to be soaked on a rag and held over the face to knock anyone out.As I’ve said it needed to be treated with a lot of care in the case of the fumes given off by a degreaser tank of the stuff even in a large well ventilated area.I’d guess that it probably wouldn’t take anything like as much to make sufficient fumes to do the job in an enclosed space like a truck cab etc.Possibly a large aerosol can charged with the stuff maybe or some other type of device which could spray a reasonable amount of it around.
Winseer:
Assuming we’re arguing seperate iissues entirely, I’ll have a go.
The seperate issues here are “How easy is it to deliberately gas someone for robbery purposes when inside their own cab already asleep” and “How easy is it to administer gas to an entire area, so everyone around is apparently a victim” which is what the account posted above would seem to indicate.
I’ve suggested it is very hard to adminster a gas to an individual behind closed doors as it were. I stand by that.
It IS however VERY easy with the right chemistry to administer a noxious gas over a wide but contained area, such as downstairs inside onboard a ship which is described.
If I were police, I’d treat the following as attempted murder by the way, so serious a threat to life that it is.
Here’s how it could be done, as per the account above:-
H2SO4 + HCOOH (both household chemical liquids, colourless, and low odour)
Stick 'em in a kettle (which is near where you might find one of the liquids to start with!) and leave it to boil. Once boiling, Carbon Monoxide is produced, which being colourless and odourless itself would be an UNDETECTABLE noxious gas amongst the steam coming out of the kettle. It looks to anyone standing around as if the kettle has just boiled that’s all.
Now, the Guy described ON DECK would HAVE to have been INSIDE to have been exposed to this of course. Likewise, anyone ON DECK throughout, likely those with their doors locked if you’re an untrusting fellow like me, then they’d escape unscathed.
Exposure to carbon monoxide causes chronic drowsiness, and death if the gas doesn’t start to disperse before fatal blood saturation has been reached.
Since the easiest sources of the chemicals described are going to be somewhat less than “conc” variety, the reaction would soon be done, and the kettle would just be boiling residue water some way before the kettle actually boiled dry. The kettle would of course also need to be of the type that does NOT switch off when boiling. Neither liquid would destroy the kettle in the process of boiling either, assuming the kettle is standard whistle-when-done type made of stainless steel/aluminium.
A blood test would pick up high concentrations of carboxyhaemoglobin in the blood, which makes the blood look a lot redder than usual. The bone marrow would recycle new blood to replace this knackered blood over the course of the following weeks. Expect continued sleepiness in the meantime, although the headache should cease within 48 hours, given lots of fresh air and normal food & drink intake. 
Don trust them filipinos man 