"Boat" fire West Alton Sand bar

[Riviera]

Originally Posted by 8gv

I the YT video linked above it seems that the fire boat at the 5 o'clock position is spending a lot of time spraying water everywhere but at the dive.

The crew of the fire boat may have decided to do the world a favor, and let it burn.

Seriously though, I’m glad nobody was hurt, and I feel for the owners in terms of any financial loss. (I imagine that would be a tough boat/structure to insure). That said, the Dive has been a safety hazard since day one. It has run aground due to insufficient power/mechanical systems, it has nearly sunk, and now it has caught fire. It has also left an environmental mess in its wake. Had anybody tried to float such a structure on USCG governed waters, it would have never gotten certified for commercial use. I am not usually a fan of over-regulation, but laws should be enacted to keep this sort of amateur built behemoth off of public waters.

At some level, I could understand the entertainment attraction of having this sort of business/structure on the lake. It is always nice to have another food and beverage option while out boating, particulary a novel one. I personally detested the aesthetic nature of the thing, and I never thought it was right that a business could effectively “claim” a section of lake (the West Alton Sand Bar) as its own sort of free “lakefront real estate”.

I hope the powers that be are able to clean up the mess, now and in the future. If this sort of thing were to appear on the lake again, I hope it is done to USCG commercial vessel navigation and life safety standards, and I hope any future business is prohibited from anchoring itself in public waters for business purposes.