From Burning Boats to the Ha-Ha & Ta-Ta, Roll Is There

The 102-ft steel yacht Polar Bear, valued at $15 million, caught fire and burned spectacularly for six hours at the Marine Group yard in Chula Vista yesterday. The speculation is that sparks from welding in the yacht caused the fire. Fortunately, nobody was seriously injured and no other boats were damaged. It was also fortunate that San Diego’s Kurt Roll, Latitude 38’s drone mentor, was on the scene to take incredible videos and photos. Several San Diego television stations used his footage on their news shows last night.

Roll was also at the 2013 Baja Ha-Ha, during which time he took aerial shots for a video he made of that event. You can see his cool Ha-Ha video at this weekend’s San Diego International Boat Show at Sheraton Harbor Island, as it will be repeatedly featured at the Mexico Tourism booth.

The booth will be staffed by Mexican Marine Association harbormasters — all of whom are really great guys. At 4 p.m. on Saturday there will be a seminar on the updated rules for bringing a boat into Mexico, featuring an Administrator of Customs Operations in Mexico, as well as the harbormasters. In addition to explaining why there won’t be a repeat of last year’s AGACE fiasco, they’ll be happy to answer everyone’s questions.

Since we’re already on a roll, we can also report that Kurt will be along on Profligate for this summer’s SoCal Ta-Ta, a Ha-Ha sister event that will see the fleet cruise between Santa Barbara and Catalina September 7-13. The Ha-Ha drone will also be along, so two drones will be vying to take the best video  — as well as a chance to crash into the Pacific. A rough compilation of the video of the Ta-Ta will be shown at the final Ta-Ta party. There are currently 36 boats signed up for the event, many of which did the first Ta-Ta in 2012. If you’ve always wanted to do an event with a ‘Reggae-on-the-Ocean’ theme, sign up soon here, as a maximum of 50 boats will be accepted.