Coast Guard rescues two floating near flaming capsized boat off Fort Lauderdale
A blob of gray colored the horizon of Fort Lauderdale beach Thursday afternoon.
The unfriendly sky wasn’t only because of the storms in the South Florida forecast. Rather, people were gazing at smoke from what turned out to be a fire aboard a 30-foot boat that was carrying two people about five nautical miles east of Port Everglades, according to the Coast Guard.
Rescue crews from Station Fort Lauderdale responded to the fire and found two passengers wearing life jackets in the water near the boat, which had capsized amid the flames. One of them was the boat’s captain, James Rigby.
“We slowed the engine down. We cut it off and he had gone back down to try to extinguish the smoke and that got too big, then next thing we know the whole boat is catching on fire,” Rigby told WPLG-Local 10.
The boat eventually sank, but is not considered a hazard, the Coast Guard said.
This story was originally published June 4, 2021 at 10:16 AM.
