Crews work to salvage sunken yacht that caught fire over weekend

COCONUT GROVE, Fla. (WSVN) -- Salvage crews hope to remove a 60-foot yacht that burned and sank over the weekend by Monday afternoon.

All four people on board the 60-foot Sunseeker escaped the boat after it caught fire about one and a half miles east of Elliot Key Sunday and then sank.

By late Monday morning, crews from Sea Tow floated the $600,000 yacht to the surface and hope to have it upright and towed back to shore before sundown. "We were able to move the boat, raise the boat off the bottom and move the boat just off of Key Biscayne, which is where we'll complete the job, and we should have it done, I'm estimating, at about four o'clock this afternoon," said Sea Tow's Scott McClary.

Joan Venaleck and her husband, along with another couple were headed to Little Palm Island when, she said, all of a sudden, the engines quit and then moments later, a fire began. "We're just grateful that everybody on board is well and alive. The boat can be recovered, material things are not important," said Venaleck once she was on shore.

The victims jumped in the water and were rescued by two nearby boaters after radioing out a distress call. Craig Crumbliss was able to take pictures of the fire as he approached the scene, before both City of Miami Fire Rescue and Miami-Dade Fire Rescue arrived to fight the fire. "It was fully engulfed, heavy fire, thick smoke," he said.

Crumbliss and the other boater noted that the victims remained cool during the ordeal. "They were actually really calm for the situation they were in," Crumbliss noted. "They knew that help was on the way."

Miami-Dade Fire Rescue is now investigating what may have ignited the blaze.

(Copyright 2009 by Sunbeam Television Corp. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)