Top Ten of 2013: Honorable Mention; Yacht destroyed in record-setting blaze
Published 4:05 pm Sunday, December 29, 2013
One could quibble about the price it might have fetched. But when an 85-foot luxury yacht went up in flames in the Roche Harbor Resort marina July 10, it set a new high on the official tally for the cost of fire-related destruction on San Juan Island.
Advertised for sale for $5.4 million at the time, the yacht was occupied when fire broke out in a lower cabin near the bow at about 10 a.m. An initial attempt to contain the blaze below decks proved unsuccessful and firefighters were forced to abandon ship because of the intensity of the fire and its dangerous location. Divers drained about 800 gallons of fuel from the wreckage after it sank around 6 p.m.
At $5.4 million, the loss exceeds the price tag of the island’s now second-most destructive fire, the 2002 blaze that destroyed five Friday Harbor businesses and which left a quarter-block of the town smoldering in a heap of debris.
— Scott Rasmussen
