I, officer spoke with subject regarding his vessel catching fire on the morning of 6/4/23 at approximately 01:00 hrs.  The following is what he reported:

I was traveling north on the icw when i encountered strong winds approximately 20 knots, accompanied by high tide and a strong current coming out of the mouth of browns inlet.  

The motor quit, which allowed the current to beach the boat.  Since the motor would not restart, i anchored the boat.  As the tide went out, it caused the beached boat to tilt over to more than a 45 degree angle, which allowed water to enter the hull from prior damage caused by the last hurricane.

Approximately one foot of water was standing in the bottom of the boat.  I had an electric bicycle in the bottom of the boat with a lithium ion battery which was sitting in the standing water.  I picked up the battery to get it out of the water, and it started shorting so i threw it and it landed on the other batteries in the boat.  This caused all of the batteries to start shorting and the cabin filled with smoke.  

I had to get out of the cabin because i could not breathe due to all the smoke.  I was unable to get back into the cabin to contain the fire that had started.  The flames spread quickly, so i had to abandon the boat.  I had several gas cans each containing gallons of gas which combusted when the flames reached them.  The fire burned the boat down to the water line.

ICW
HUBERT                        