By JOSEPH KELLARD
The Oceanside man sat defenseless as a 30-foot Rinker powerboat engulfed in flames drifted across East Rockaway Channel and crashed into the dock of his Ocean Harbor home on Sunday afternoon.
"I saw it when it caught fire," said Vanella, the owner of Vanella's Funeral Home in Oceanside. "I watched the whole thing. A front row seat I had. It was very scary. I was fearful of an explosion, and the smoke and flames were unbelievable."
The fiberglass boat caught fire while it was docked at Saltaire Marine in East Rockaway, the flames burned through the lines tethering the craft, and the wind carried it across the canal and into Vanella's dock, according to Vincent McManus, division supervisor at the Nassau County Fire Marshal's office.
Vanella said he thanked God that the Oceanside Fire Department responded quickly to the scene, arriving with three engine trucks, a ladder truck and an ambulance. Firefighters extinguished the blaze in about two hours, said Assistant Chief Tim Biscay. "The boat was fully engulfed, and we had a gasoline runoff problem from the boat into the canal," Biscay explained. "The fuel caught fire, and we had to use foam."
Biscay said that one firefighter sustained a shoulder injury. He was taken to South Nassau Communities Hospital, and released later that day.
The burning boat damaged Vanella's dock, his deck and a few pilings. The boat was destroyed, burned to the water line, and the stern sank, Biscay said.
"The boat is a skeleton," said Lee Vanella, Vincent's mother. "Apparently they can't take it out until they find out who the owner is. It's really a mess. It's bad."
At press time on Monday, McManus said that the cause of the fire could not be determined until the county's Marine Bureau removes the boat from the water. McManus said, however, that the fire appeared to have ignited inside the boat.
"As far as we can tell, there was no reason for the boat being docked at the marina," McManus said. "It was not a customer of the marina." He went on to say that there was some fire damage to the dock at Saltaire Marine dock, but a man from the marina, who declined to be identified, denied that there was much or any damage, and said that he'd never seen the boat before.
"I don't even know where the boat came from," the man said. "I think it just drifted down the canal."
At the time of the fire, former Herald reporter Jason Scheer was eating dinner with his family in a home on Weidner Avenue in Oceanside when he looked out a window and noticed smoke. "The sky was engulfed in black," Scheer said.
Comments about this story? JKellard@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 287.
