Sailboat fire at Saba

i am not even sure how to begin this post. Did anyone else see the sailboat that burned to the waterline at Saba tonight? It was a cluster response of the most epic proportions.

So, I forgot to turn on anchor light to our boat and ran out mid dinner to turn on. Turn around and see boat anchored by Prickly Pear has its rigging on fire. Guessing this is 8ish. I vapor lock, then turn on vhf. It's quiet so I figure it's been called in. I grab an extinguisher and flashlight and jump in dinghy.

Turns out another dinghy scrambled from Saba and we tried to approach. No go. Then we look for heads in the water. None. Then we alert boats downwind. You'd think the smell would be enough. Nope, booze is strong. All got out of the way.

While I get that you don't dogpile an issue at sea, wtf was with the apathy. The rumor, stress, rumor, is that no one was aboard, but I've still not seen any official boat, 4 hours later. This boat roman candled. Am I taking crazy pills thinking there should have been a better response? I've never seen anything like this in 20 years of sailing.

This is Quinn's fiancée with an addendum. The sailboat in question looked to be a 44 foot mono. That sailboat caught fire somehow, none of us saw exactly how that happened, and then it burned incredibly evenly, bow to stern, for hours. We all saw the mast go up in flames and keel over into the water. We worried about possible explosions with the gas tanks.

There was absolutely no emergency response. No visar, nothing. Five hours later, no one's acting like anything's amiss. We have other things to do, so this isn't our focus, but this entire night has been so utterly bizarre that it seemed worth commenting on.

This makes me wonder what response capacity to fight fire exists in the bvi. Do they have a fireboat?

Is it even newsworthy

Was it a charter boat? It does not sound like it.

Fortunately it seems nobody got hurt.

You said you figured it had been called in, do you know for sure that someone did call it in? Photo's?

About 8 years ago the BVI purchased a brand new Fire Fighting boat shortly after it arrived it caught on fire was brought over to St Thomas for repairs[u][/u]

Photos to follow, one of our group got some shots from a digital and I'll upload when he downloads. It wasn't a charter, we think it was the boat of two Aussies that had been kite boarding for the crowd at Saba. The hulk sank sometime last night. About the call to visar last night, in my mental after action I realized I definitely screwed the pooch in not confirming the call myself. The fiancé read me the riot act, rightfully so, for the misstep. We're still unsure if anyone jumped on 16. She also pointed out that I got too close to the boat when doing visual to make sure there was no one on board. Considering the conflagration it was a dumb move and I should have immediately looked for swimmers. Photos to follow as soon as available, hopefully today.

There is a fire boat. It showed up in the Bight when a power boat went up in flames last Easter. Unfortunately by the time a boat from Tortola can get to the scene there is not much they can do. Fiberglass tends to burn quickly.

Hi all, it was the kite board folks. Dirk took some lessons from them yesterday and went back for another lesson this morning. Thru text messages he is helping them salvage belongings. That's all I have I am sure will know more later. everyone is OK

I have a picture but don't know how to upload it. Can I send it to someone to get it posted?

Kim,

I can upload it for you.

Send to Sailmardigras@cox.net

Tony

Oh sh?! I feel bad for the guys, happy they weren't aboard. I assume they were liveaboards?

Thank you Tony for posting the picture for me.

My friend Kenroy took the photo from his dinghy. He also took a video which he is sending to me as well.

He said it burned for three hours last night.

What a loss.

Here's the details from Kellan who was my kite board coach who was living aboard the ill fated sailboat. He was aboard Catatonic after my lesson the day before. I finally found a coach that got me flying on the board, what a feeling. We schedule follow up lesson for the next morning at 9am. He was living aboard a Gulfstar 37 he had bought in Florida, repaired, and sailed to the Virgin Islands to start Fusion BVI. He is a sponsored/professonal kiteboarder and good kid.

He was at Saba rock where they hang in the evening doing kiteboarding demos (where I met him the evening before during our Dinghy Poker Run), when he noticed the smoke coming from his boat. He grabbed his tender and some friends, but by the time they got to his boat, it was too hot. The fire burned his anchor line and the boat started drifting through the mooring field. Kellan and his friends were going aboard other boats to help them wake up and move anyone in the mooring field downwind. The boat eventually cleared the mooring field and sunk after the propane tank accelerated the process.

My kite was aboard his boat for repair, so needless to say, we didn't do our lesson that morning. Kilbride's was kind enough to loan us SCUBA gear and Kellan and I went to his boat to see what we could salvage. Other than some tools, rigging from the mast, and the ships wheel, it was nothing but ash above the water line with the exception of 6 boxes of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese which somehow survived. . A lionfish had already taken up residence under the keel!

Kellan has a condo at Leverick Bay and has been in touch with Husky Salvage to see what he needs to do next. It is too deep to be a navigational hazard, but should be marked with some kind of buoy so no one fouls their anchor on the wreck. Hopefully he'll keep going with his lessons (he is the best kite board instructor I've had yet) and will get back on his feet.

He is grateful that no one was injured or other boats were damaged in the process and suspects it was an electrical issue he had been working on with the fresh water pump that may have started the fire.

Thanks for the report, Dirk...so sad....

Glad everyone was safe. Hopefully the vessel was insured?

I’m pretty sure they were anchored next to us on June 28 at Saba. We were moored, I was a bit concerned how close they had anchored to us. They had some type of floating ramp (looked like it was used with the kite boards).

So horrible. What a terrible loss, but like everyone else has said, no one hurt, that's the good news. A boat can be replaced, a life can't

Circling back around on this now that we're back in the states with internet again - very glad to get extra confirmation that no one was aboard or injured. There was not a lot of reliable information available while the boat was on fire. A number of people immediately jumped in their dinghies and went out to try to help, but the boat was obviously a lost cause and they found no one in distress. For what it's worth, the boat did not seem to drift through the mooring field at all (a major concern for us because we were moored fairly close by) - it just burned in place for hours and then sank. CaveMan, that probably was the same boat anchored next to you - the only thing left standing the day after the fire was the floating ramp (and maybe some impenetrable boxes of mac and cheese, as Sailaway mentioned).

We saw the kiteboarding guys perform some amazing stunts the afternoon before the boat caught fire, and again at Saba a few days after. Really glad they are ok.