WOW! Yacht Fire in Port Everglades - Pictures

[wiley]

Sound like my wife......

[blacklabmarine]

Really sorry about your boat.

A couple of thoughts from some recent experiences:

1) About a year ago I was trailering one of our boats up I-95 from a sea trial and came across a guy on the side of the road with an engine fire starting under the hood of his car. I pulled over a good distance ahead of him and went back to ask/tell him to get away from the darn thing. Big gas tank can mean big boom.

After he got away from the car a firefighter pulled over and put on his gear (he had it in the back of the car) and stopped traffic coming up the Interstate. At this point I remembered that since I had a boat on the trailer I had a fire extinguisher. I can be helpful. I hop on the boat and extract the extinguisher and yell to the firefighter that I have a tool to help him! He grabs the thing, points it at the small fire and pulls the trigger.

I can't begin to tell you how small the amount of extinguishing "stuff" was that came out. Useless. Beyond useless - aggravating. The firefighter was so frustrated by the anemic extinguishing tool that he threw the darn thing about 30'.

Point of the story - those small fire extinguishers that we all have on our boats are next to useless. They would only put out a very, very small fire. On my personal boat I now have (2) larger extinguishers and I suggest to our new owners that they do the same.

2) Small local fireboats: We've made some small fireboats and are spec'ing one right now. Due to the EPA the small (50-70hp Gas) engines used to drive the pumps have been eliminated from the market. You'll now see less competant small fireboats in your local harbor. These small fireboats can deploy quickly with two guys and put some serious water out (500gpm, 150psi) - now there will be less of them - thanks feds!

I'll get off my soapbox but hope that maybe someone reads this and decides to upgrade their onboard fire extinguishers and vote against those who remove good engines from the market because of global warming...

[FlyAU98]

2) Small local fireboats...

The Ft. Lauderdale Fire Boat in the pictures has a serious V-8 mounted just forward of the console it can push some serious water....

Besides, by the time a boat gets to burning...there usually isn't much to save but the surrounding property.

[wiley]

Yeah... it didn't take long once the smoke started for it to be fully engulfed.

[FlyAU98]

Wiley- How about that e-mail I sent you about the cruise ship photos.....???

I'll be rolling by next Friday...don't make me moon the Inlet Cam

[Bugbuster]

How would you find out what type of engines were on that boat. I'll bet a dollar to a doughnut they were detroits. Turbo seal failure.

[macmarine]

Can a boat with this damage be fixed? Just curious, I mean it still floats!!

David

It can be rebuilt but no insurance company would do it as it would cost waaaaayyy more than another similar or even much newer boat of the same brand and size.

Sadly whats left of this boat will sit in a marina on blocks until the insurance company decides what to do with it. Most likely will be auctioned off for pennies and whoever buys it will pick through remains for anything salvageable. If there was no insurance the owner will have to dispose of it properly or pay to store it.

I suppose it can be gutted and someone can turn it into a big center console and slap 3 or 4 outboards on it.

Cap, Sorry for you loss. Hats off to the LE and Fire response.

About 10 years ago a 90' Broward was torched by vandals in Charleston SC. The superstructure and most of the interior was destroyed, but the mechanicals still worked. Someone bought the boat and built a plywood helm station. He turned it into a 90' Center Console and sailed it down to Lauderdale. I heard a few years later that the boat was shipped to Turkey and completely refit.

[Mine]

Any update yet from Bertram42?

[tprice]

Sure is a neat but very sad set of pictures

[wiley]

Not sure if we'll get a follow up. I think the guy regretfully posted on another forum and is now a bit post shy.

That's ok though. The loss was bad enough without all the criticism