'Ghost boat' washes ashore on Florida beach

MELBOURNE BEACH, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - Beach-side residents in Melbourne Beach, Florida awoke to a strange new sight on the oceanfront Tuesday: a large sailboat in the middle of the sand.  The boat, labeled the "Cuki," out of New Rochelle, NY, just kind of showed up along the shore sometime overnight.

"It's like the whole thing is intact,” said Sylvia MacAllister who spotted it from her porch. “You almost expect to see somebody in there, ya know, little heads popping out."

The boat is very much abandoned. Beach goers surrounding it Tuesday night pointed out some of the decent technology visible on-board as well as a lot of old, rusted-out equipment, and some strange sights like a mannequin.

A representative for the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office said that the boat is registered in Key West and deputies believe it was washed northward by Hurricane Irma and other storms raging through the Atlantic.  The Sheriff’s Office has contacted the Coast Guard to track down an owner.

If no one claims the boat, and if it doesn’t wash away, neighbors living beach-side believe the boat will have to be pulled out by crane.