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Tuesday afternoon, Melinda Coleman wondered about the people whose boats had burned and said it was hard to look at the blackened remains of the boat in the slip next to hers. She and John Knox had planned to be at Sea Harbour and stay on their Pearson 365 “Here and Now” Monday night, which would have put them right next to “Pressando” as it burned. That became a “what if” after they were delayed in getting out of Raleigh Monday.

The Pearson 365 “Here and Now” appeared to suffer only minimal damage from the fire at the adjacent slips. The owners, John Knox and Melinda Coleman were among the many boat owners especially grateful to firefighters for keeping the fire from spreading..

The intense heat melted the radar unit and some other plastic parts on adjacent boats.

When Melinda and John arrived Tuesday afternoon, they were thankful on many levels, but especially to the firefighters for containing the blaze. Their work hosing down the adjacent boats meant that damage on “Here and Now” was kept to a minimum – the plastic radar unit mounted on a mast and a plastic dorade vent were deformed by the heat. As per the insurance company, they were going to have the “Here and Now” hauled and gone over to make sure nothing else was compromised.

But all that seemed secondary Tuesday to Melinda’s sense of appreciation and gratefulness to the Station 19 firefighters who fought the blaze for more than three hours. As she noted more than once, “they were all volunteers!”

John Knox and Melinda Coleman arrived at their boat Tuesday afternoon, both relieved to find the damage minimal to their Pearson 365 “Here and Now” and taken aback by the destruction in the next slip. Melinda made a special point of thanking Pete Ritchie, one of the volunteer firemen who worked to put out the fire and keep it from spreading to adjacent boats. (Pete reluctantly agreed to be photographed.) .

The volunteer firemen’s efforts and the timing of the call to 911, she says, kept the fire from becoming a much larger catastrophe.

Landon Winstead, dockmaster of the marina agreed. Without the firefighters’ hard work, he said, “it could’ve been a lot worse. We feel extremely fortunate and thankful for the firefighters’ efforts and the job they did.”

Gordon Kellogg looks out on his destroyed Catalina 36, “Pressando”. A musical term, it means “pressing on.”

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Posted Wednesday April 15, 2009 by Melinda Penkava

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