Spectacular fire on Sydney Harbour captured on video

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com/nz on 19 Dec 2014 Sydney sailing sports photographer, Beth Morley was on Sydney Harbour, capturing images of the Friday night racing, when a luxury launch caught fire nearby.

She writes:

I was out photographing the Ransa Sailing yacht race this evening when I saw smoke coming from the back of a large cruise boat around the back of Sow and Pigs (reef) area towards middle head.

At first it was just a small amount of smoke but quickly we could see flames coming from the lower deck windows - and the fire quickly spread about the yacht - developing into a full blown fire and ending in total devastation of the boat.

There were a lot of nearby private vessels surveying the boat and I understand there was no one on board so no one has been hurt, and we also saw a small rib attending the boat to make sure there was no one on board.

The boat then drifted blazing into the cliff at middle head before martime firefighters could extinguish the flames and the boat has almost totoally sunk.

The whole drama played out in from of the RAN Sailing Club's final twilight yacht race before the Xmas holidays and would have been quite a spectacle...

These photos and video captured from the start to the end of the entire drama are from the headland around from Neilsons Park.... taken with a 600mm prime lens.

Images and video available from Beth Morley www.sportsailingphotography.com