A local pirate is going to have to rebuild his home after it went up in flames at the Hampton docks.

The fire destroyed one boat.

Peter Devlieg is a pirate without a ship.

He's known as Pirate Pete because he has spent the past 10 years fixing up and living on his boat - only to watch it go up in flames last night.

"I was walking through the parking lot, noticed some smoke, went down below, it was a little more than I could deal with so I called the fire department right then," Devlieg said.

Fire crews arrived at the dock off Settlers Landing Road in Hampton just before 9 p.m.

Firefighters were able to save the boat, but it suffered a lot of damage on the first and second decks.

Everything Pete owned was on board.

"I could have been on here any other night, I guess. I just happened to be lucky that's all."

Pete says crews on scene and the boat's sprinkler system kept the fire from spreading.

He says he is thankful for that.

"If I was on board I might have been able to see what was going on and I might have been able to stop it, so I don't know. You could flip that coin either way."

No cause has been determined yet, but Pete says a cause will not bring back the treasured memories and items he had aboard the ship.

"It will be a lot more personal once we start going through it too. So yeah, right now it's just kind of a numb feeling," Devlieg added.

http://www.wtkr.com/news/wtkr-pirate-hp-boat-loss,0,4587624.story