By Lindsay J. Patterson and Neil W. McCabe

Firefighters responded twice to a 26-foot motor boat ablaze as it was parked on a trailer on Charles Ryan Street, which is next to the DPW building Aug. 21, first shortly after 4 a.m., then an roughly an hour later.

A note attached to a cobblestone, which was found on the scene, led firefighters to believe that the fire was set, and it is now under investigation by the fire department’s both Lt. Christopher Major and the department’s arson investigator, Lt. Daniel Dipalma, said Lt. Thomas Salemme, the department’s administrative lieutenant. The motor boat is named Sickday.

The fire department would not release the name and address of the boat’s owner, Salemme said.

The first company to respond, Engine 7, used a 200-foot attack line to extinguish the fire. Because the nearest fire hydrant, which was by the intersection of Roberts and Charles Ryan Street, was blocked by a parked car, Engine 7 was fed by Engine 6 from a hydrant further down, according to the fire report signed by Deputy Chief Peter S. Clair, the incident commander.

After Engines 7 and 6 put out the fire, Ladder 3 overhauled the boat to prevent a re-flash. Meanwhile, Engine 1 and Ladder 2 surveyed the DPW building to see if the fire had extended there, and it had not, the report said.

Twenty minutes after the fire fighters left the scene, the boat reported to be on fire again. It was still burning when the fire fighters arrived, and the fire was extinguished and overhauled again. The fire fighters were dismissed at 5:54 a.m., the report said.

A man on Charles Ryan Street said he was awoken by fire trucks and saw the boat in flames. “The boat’s been down here for a long time.”

A 13-year-old boy who lives on Fennell Street, adjacent to Charles Ryan Street, said he did not see the boat, but had been sleeping on the couch when his father woke him up to tell him there was a fire.

He said that the boat had been there for the entire summer, but he did not play on it because it was private property. He said he suspects that someone from the city lit it on fire.