Here are a couple of notes I sent out earlier this week. Thought you
guys would be interested in the story, video and pix. This was in
League City, TX, just South of Houston.
__________________________________
Pix at: http://tinyurl.com/24uxr5
________________
First, I'm fine, and Anastasia III is fine. Had a close call Sunday
though..
If you didn't see the news, a boat exploded then burned five slips
away from
me on pier 15 at South Shore Harbour. It ended up destroying 5 boats
and
damaging 3 or more others. Two people were taken by Life Flight to the
hospital with severe third degree burns, and a third was treated and
released. My friend Tom, who lives in the apartments took a home
video...
this is the one you saw on channel 11. I haven't see the whole thing,
but
here's the story and clip on Ch. 11's web site: http://tinyurl.com/yuk8lk
At
the very first of the video, you can see my last efforts spraying the
fires
down; at the end Tom catches me going into my boat to get my laptop
and
evacuate.

The boat that exploded was Crew Rest IV, most recently owned by Lacy
and
earlier by Rick and Shannon over on pier 4. It was a Carver 36 (I
think) aft
cabin. It was in the process of being sold. The soon to be new owners
were
down on Saturday fueling the boat out of portable gas cans, since it
apparently was out of gas. They got the engines running, but when
they came
back Sunday morning, they found about 20 gallons of gasoline in the
bilge.
They called a mechanic to help them pump the gas out. According to
them,
they had all the power off to everything, all the windows open, etc.
Man,
that thing reeked of gasoline fumes, even out on the dock. I asked
them how
they were doing around 1 p.m., and they said they were about done. As
you
can imagine, everybody on the dock was nervous.

Around 5:30 or so, I was sitting in my boat when I heard the
explosion. I
knew without looking what had happened. Ran straight out the door to
the 2"
fire hose on the dock. I probably had a full stream on the boat within
a
couple of minutes at most. It was totally engulfed in flames, and was
so hot
one of the other guys on the pier had to spray me down with a water
hose
from behind so I could fight it. The fire and smoke was so thick, I
couldn't
see past the boat up the pier, but I could hear the guys screaming.
Turned
out later that one went into the water, and Gerald of the boat
"Whatever"
who used to be on pier 12 pulled him out and got him to an ambulance.
Both
of the guys with bad burns were in shock, and two Life Flight
helicopters
landed in the parking lot to take them to the hospital.

There was no way I could put out the fire with that 2" hose, so I was
trying to keep it from spreading, or at least slow it down. The latter
was
about all I could do. I was close enough to keep Dennis and Susan's
boat,
"Cancer Free" from going up by keeping it wet as best I could. The
brokerage
boat next to them kept catching fire, so I would knock that down,
spray
Cancer Free a bit, hose the dock to keep it from catching on fire,
then back
to hosing the original boat and Dottie's Folly, which was next in
line. The
fire spread to Dottie's Folly, coming down the pier towards my boat. I
had
to retreat back one slip, but the big electrical distribution box on
the
pier was a good heat shield, as I could hide behind it and fight the
fire
from not too far away. Still managed to keep water on Dennis and
Susan's
boat, and slowed the fire down on Dottie's Folly as much as I could. I
was
spraying Arasaig (formerly Anastasia II, my old Cruisers 3950) as much
as I
could, but I was still losing ground. Dottie's Folly became completely
engulfed, and the sides of Arasaig were beginning to smoke and catch
fire,
despite my best efforts. Being that was a gasoline powered boat, I was
worried about another explosion. The USCG was on scene by then, and
ordered
us off the pier.

We couldn't get off the pier of course, because the fire was between
everyone down at my end and the parking lot. The USCG's patrol boats
shuttled us all over to pier 14, where we could walk up to the parking
lot.
We were just lucky that they happened to be patrolling Clear Lake that
day,
as normally they are stationed in Galveston, a long way away, even for
those
fast boats. About this time, the fire departments who had responded
got
enough big line down the pier so that they could seriously fight the
fire.
It was maybe 5-10 minutes from when I stopped my fire fighting efforts
until
they got their large hoses going. As the fire was jumping from boat to
boat
through radiant heat, they towed a couple of them out of the slips to
stop
that. One was Jim and Linda's boat, "Regalo", and also Dennis and
Susan's
"Cancer Free". This stopped the fire from spreading further down the
pier.

When the fires were out, Crew Rest IV had burned to the waterline. The
Luhrs
behind them was pretty much destroyed. Dottie's Folly was almost
completely
burned up, and Arasaig looked to be so burned as to possibly be a
total
loss. Some other boats were scorched and damaged, but probably
repairable.
While Jim's boat wasn't damaged by the fire, he suffered damage when
waked
while tied up to the steel bulkheads at the apartments, where the
Coast
Guard had towed him. As of this morning, Tuesday, we still can't get
back to
out boats, and the power has been off since the fire on Sunday. Since
I'm a
liveaboard, I was able to go down there on Sunday and Monday
afternoons, to
retrieve keys, clothes, medicine, and other stuff that is kinda
necessary!
One of the adventures of living on your boat... something like this
happens
you can't go home! John and Pege have been nice enough to put me up
for a couple of nights. Thanks guys! What's left of Crew Rest IV has
been
floated, and they expect to move it later this morning. We should then
be
able to return to our boats. Who knows when the power will be back on,
but
hey... that's what the generator is for. None too soon for my
reefer... I
imagine about now it's reaching around 32F.

If you did watch the news Sunday, I think I was on every channel but
13.
Standing there dripping wet in my shorts, the news guys found out that
I was
down there when it happened and couldn't wait to interview me. I even
found
out later that I did my interview in Spanish on Telemundo or
something...
now I'd like to see that! If anyone has any
questions, ask away. I hope the guys who got burned recover, and I'm
really
sorry for the loss of the various boats. People, you have to be
careful with
gasoline!

On Mar 31, 8:04 am, "Keith" wrote:
Here are a couple of notes I sent out earlier this week. Thought you
guys would be interested in the story, video and pix. This was in
League City, TX, just South of Houston.
__________________________________
Pix at:http://tinyurl.com/24uxr5
________________
First, I'm fine, and Anastasia III is fine. Had a close call Sunday
though..
If you didn't see the news, a boat exploded then burned five slips
away from
me on pier 15 at South Shore Harbour. It ended up destroying 5 boats
and
damaging 3 or more others. Two people were taken by Life Flight to the
hospital with severe third degree burns, and a third was treated and
released. My friend Tom, who lives in the apartments took a home
video...
this is the one you saw on channel 11. I haven't see the whole thing,
but
here's the story and clip on Ch. 11's web site:http://tinyurl.com/yuk8lk
At
the very first of the video, you can see my last efforts spraying the
fires
down; at the end Tom catches me going into my boat to get my laptop
and
evacuate.

The boat that exploded was Crew Rest IV, most recently owned by Lacy
and
earlier by Rick and Shannon over on pier 4. It was a Carver 36 (I
think) aft
cabin. It was in the process of being sold. The soon to be new owners
were
down on Saturday fueling the boat out of portable gas cans, since it
apparently was out of gas. They got the engines running, but when
they came
back Sunday morning, they found about 20 gallons of gasoline in the
bilge.
They called a mechanic to help them pump the gas out. According to
them,
they had all the power off to everything, all the windows open, etc.
Man,
that thing reeked of gasoline fumes, even out on the dock. I asked
them how
they were doing around 1 p.m., and they said they were about done. As
you
can imagine, everybody on the dock was nervous.

Around 5:30 or so, I was sitting in my boat when I heard the
explosion. I
knew without looking what had happened. Ran straight out the door to
the 2"
fire hose on the dock. I probably had a full stream on the boat within
a
couple of minutes at most. It was totally engulfed in flames, and was
so hot
one of the other guys on the pier had to spray me down with a water
hose
from behind so I could fight it. The fire and smoke was so thick, I
couldn't
see past the boat up the pier, but I could hear the guys screaming.
Turned
out later that one went into the water, and Gerald of the boat
"Whatever"
who used to be on pier 12 pulled him out and got him to an ambulance.
Both
of the guys with bad burns were in shock, and two Life Flight
helicopters
landed in the parking lot to take them to the hospital.

There was no way I could put out the fire with that 2" hose, so I was
trying to keep it from spreading, or at least slow it down. The latter
was
about all I could do. I was close enough to keep Dennis and Susan's
boat,
"Cancer Free" from going up by keeping it wet as best I could. The
brokerage
boat next to them kept catching fire, so I would knock that down,
spray
Cancer Free a bit, hose the dock to keep it from catching on fire,
then back
to hosing the original boat and Dottie's Folly, which was next in
line. The
fire spread to Dottie's Folly, coming down the pier towards my boat. I
had
to retreat back one slip, but the big electrical distribution box on
the
pier was a good heat shield, as I could hide behind it and fight the
fire
from not too far away. Still managed to keep water on Dennis and
Susan's
boat, and slowed the fire down on Dottie's Folly as much as I could. I
was
spraying Arasaig (formerly Anastasia II, my old Cruisers 3950) as much
as I
could, but I was still losing ground. Dottie's Folly became completely
engulfed, and the sides of Arasaig were beginning to smoke and catch
fire,
despite my best efforts. Being that was a gasoline powered boat, I was
worried about another explosion. The USCG was on scene by then, and
ordered
us off the pier.

We couldn't get off the pier of course, because the fire was between
everyone down at my end and the parking lot. The USCG's patrol boats
shuttled us all over to pier 14, where we could walk up to the parking
lot.
We were just lucky that they happened to be patrolling Clear Lake that
day,
as normally they are stationed in Galveston, a long way away, even for
those
fast boats. About this time, the fire departments who had responded
got
enough big line down the pier so that they could seriously fight the
fire.
It was maybe 5-10 minutes from when I stopped my fire fighting efforts
until
they got their large hoses going. As the fire was jumping from boat to
boat
through radiant heat, they towed a couple of them out of the slips to
stop
that. One was Jim and Linda's boat, "Regalo", and also Dennis and
Susan's
"Cancer Free". This stopped the fire from spreading further down the
pier.

When the fires were out, Crew Rest IV had burned to the waterline. The
Luhrs
behind them was pretty much destroyed. Dottie's Folly was almost
completely
burned up, and Arasaig looked to be so burned as to possibly be a
total
loss. Some other boats were scorched and damaged, but probably
repairable.
While Jim's boat wasn't damaged by the fire, he suffered damage when
waked
while tied up to the steel bulkheads at the apartments, where the
Coast
Guard had towed him. As of this morning, Tuesday, we still can't get
back to
out boats, and the power has been off since the fire on Sunday. Since
I'm a
liveaboard, I was able to go down there on Sunday and Monday
afternoons, to
retrieve keys, clothes, medicine, and other stuff that is kinda
necessary!
One of the adventures of living on your boat... something like this
happens
you can't go home! John and Pege have been nice enough to put me up
for a couple of nights. Thanks guys! What's left of Crew Rest IV has
been
floated, and they expect to move it later this morning. We should then
be
able to return to our boats. Who knows when the power will be back on,
but
hey... that's what the generator is for. None too soon for my
reefer... I
imagine about now it's reaching around 32F.

If you did watch the news Sunday, I think I was on every channel but
13.
Standing there dripping wet in my shorts, the news guys found out that
I was
down there when it happened and couldn't wait to interview me. I even
found
out later that I did my interview in Spanish on Telemundo or
something...
now I'd like to see that! If anyone has any
questions, ask away. I hope the guys who got burned recover, and I'm
really
sorry for the loss of the various boats. People, you have to be
careful with
gasoline!

Hello Keith,

That fire sure did put alot of black smoke in the air. I live aboard
on the north side of the lake at CLMC.
Grabbed the binoc's but could not see anything but the smoke.
What a mess, I hope the people burned recover OK. Over on
alt.sailing.asa I posted a link to a video of the boats burning.
Glad to hear your boat is OK.

Joe