Boat Sinks Off Malibu

The Phoenix, a 100-foot glass-bottomed paddleboat, sank Sunday morning off the coast of Malibu, authorities said.

A restaurateur from the Bay Area recently bought the Phoenix and hoped to transform it into a floating Cajun eatery, said Mickey Gallagher, chief of the Los Angeles County Fire Department’s rescue boat section.

But as the owner and three crew members were motoring the Phoenix to the Bay Area for a retrofit, nudged forward at about 4 knots by the vessel’s rolling wooden paddle, one of the glass panels sprung a leak, Gallagher said.

The Coast Guard received a distress call about 8 a.m. with word that the boat’s pump could not keep up with the leak.

As the crew scrambled to safety, the Phoenix filled with water and sank in about 600 feet of water, two miles off Zuma Beach, Los Angeles County Fire Inspector Edward Osorio said.

“It was just a beautiful boat,” Gallagher said. “Our crews were sick watching it go down.”

The owner of the boat, Rick Parker, told rescuers that the boat was commissioned in 1929. Crew members would not comment publicly, Gallagher said.

Coast Guard officials may return to the wreck to remove 10 55-gallon drums of diesel fuel that sank with the vessel.

The remaining fuel in the boat’s 200-gallon tank will be allowed to dissipate in the ocean, Osorio said.