by Andrew Himes
On the evening of Friday, May 17, the Seattle Marina, where my
1929 classic Seven Bells is moored, went up in flames, destroying 37
boats, over 30 of which sunk. Ten of the boats destroyed were live-aboards,
and over half of the destruction was of older wooden boats,
including several genuine and irreplaceable classics.
By the merest whisker of fate, Seven Bells escaped safe and
unharmed, though it could not have been a closer shave. Seven Bells
was the very last boat out on the edge of the survival zone on the
eastern pier of Seattle Marina – every boat past ours was destroyed.
Fortunately, our boat will sail again after they clear out the
wreckage of burned and sunken boats around it. Interested in a boat
ride?
Seven Bells was six slips from the end of the pier. The fire
started on a houseboat at the end of our pier, and then spread
explosively and immediately – within a few minutes – to engulf a
houseboat and five other boats immediately adjacent to each other.
It then stopped momentarily, prevented from further progress by a
corrugated metal firewall, leaving only a single boat, a 1954 wooden
boat that belonged to Jolene and Stewart Williams-Hunt, between the
fire and Seven Bells.
Jolene and Stewart were live-aboards who had already gone to
sleep when the fire erupted and barely escaped with their lives,
fleeing down the long pier in the darkness as explosions shattered
the night behind them. As the fire grew on the east pier, one of the
firefighters reportedly untied Jolene and Stewart’s boat – which was
not on fire at the time – and pushed it out into center of the
marina, apparently to create open water between Seven Bells and the
flames. When Jolene and Stewart’s boat collided with a flaming
wreck, it too caught fire, burned to the waterline, and sank.
Another of the boats on our pier had been blown by the wind across
the marina to the west pier, where another twenty or so boats burned
and sank.
I arrived at the marina just before 10PM after a call from my
friend Tim Ryan, the owner of CYA member Marian II, a 1928 Lake
Union Dreamboat that is the nearest slip neighbor of Seven Bells on
the landward side. I rushed right past the crowd, through the police
and fire lines, and out onto the dock until I could see that the
fire department had successfully set up its farthest hose on the end
of the finger dock to which Seven Bells was moored. (In the
aftermath of the fire, a number of people have politely expressed
their concern that I might be a complete idiot.)
The fire was at its height at 10PM, with flames roaring over
fifty yards in the air, and dozens of vessels fully involved. I
could see five or six boats, including Jolene and Stewart’s 1954
restoration project, floating freely and burning fiercely in the gap
between the two long piers of the marina. There were small flames
licking the roof of the dock immediately above Seven Bells. Within a
few minutes of my arrival, the Chief Seattle fireboat arrived after
nearly an hour’s journey from Elliot Bay and through the Ballard
Locks. With the combination of the fireboat, a police boat with some
firefighting capability, and the water hoses run out on the docks
from the land side, the tide of battle was finally turned and the
fire was contained. By 11:30 the fire was fully under control.
I returned the next morning to a scene of strangely neat
devastation. About a third of the dock space had burnt, and 30 boats
had simply slipped beneath the water’s surface, leaving the sense
that a quiet and extraordinary exodus had taken place. Only a few
badly burned hulks still floated in a black scum of oil and ashes to
indicate the extent of the destruction, and stunned survivors, my
fellow boat owners, walked slowly through the parking lot sharing
their tales. Jolene and Stewart told how they had barely escaped
with their lives, wakening to the sound of close-by explosions and
the vast incandescence of fireballs, running down the dock past
Seven Bells in nothing but a bathrobe and a pair of shorts. They had
lost everything in the holocaust, clothing, memorabilia, records,
and treasures like Jolene’s beautiful old violin and Stewart’s
mandolin.
A couple of Seattle fire fighters escorted me out to Seven Bells,
which I saw to my amazement was apparently without any damage –
nothing burned or melted, no blistered paint or bubbled varnish, no
ruined canvas or parted lines or broken hardware.
In the days since the fire, I’ve gotten scores of calls and
messages from friends and strangers, near and far, asking about
Seven Bells and our neighbors, expressing their love and compassion,
their prayers and hopes that we will be safe and that this lovely
old boat of ours will float far into the future.
I’ll always remember standing on the center dock of the marina in
the midst of the inferno, watching as Seven Bells hovered on the
verge of destruction and explosions echoed in the darkness every few
minutes, and thinking that even such a treasure, no matter how
beautiful, was nowhere near as important as the safety of my friends
and family, and the work we all have to do in the world on behalf of
justice, healthy communities, and human dignity.
Andrew Himes is the owner of Seven Bells, and is the executive
director of Project Alchemy,
a nonprofit that provides technology assistance to grassroots
groups working for social change.
