HIGBEE BEACH – The cause of the Tuesday, Dec. 12, overnight fire that burned up the sailboat Panache, which was beached weeks ago in Lower Township, is still undetermined.
The Lower Township Police Department received a call at 6:56 a.m. Dec. 12 saying the boat, which had been beached near the Higbee Beach Wildlife Management Area, was on fire.
According to Deputy Chief Donald Vanaman, when officers arrived the boat was mostly burned. Local firefighters and the Cape May County fire marshal responded to the scene.
Fire Marshal Conrad Johnson said he spoke to his deputies who were on the scene, and they reported that the cause of the fire was still undetermined. Johnson said the Lower Township Police Department was looking for any security video that might lead to the cause, but he was not confident anything would be found.
Johnson said fire investigators are not ruling out an electrical short as the cause, but it would be difficult to determine if there was enough power in the boat’s battery to cause a fire.
Vanaman said the boat was not insured, so authorities did not suspect the fire’s cause to be suspicious. The owner had contracted with Sea Tow prior to the fire to dispose of it. Vanaman said the company showed up about 8:11 a.m. to begin work.
Jack Moran of Sea Tow said his company had a contract with the owner, who resides in Connecticut, and planned to begin removal of the boat at 9 a.m. on Dec. 12.
Moran said the owner gifted the boat to two men, who were attempting to sail it to the Chesapeake Bay area and restore it. The boat did not have a working motor, and the men were sailing at night when they got into trouble. The boat ended up on the beach.
Moran said Sea Tow was still able to remove the boat, which included a 6,000-pound lead keel, but the fire made things more complicated and an environmental concern. He said that, besides melted fiberglass, there were other items that had to be removed, such as metal cables and aluminum rigging.
“It was a more complicated removal than it would have been before it burned,” he said. “We would have just dragged it down the beach and cut it up. That would have been a lot easier, but (the owner) had to get it off the beach one way or the other.”
Contact the author, Christopher South, at csouth@cmcherald.com or 609-886-8600, ext. 128.
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