A British couple have been left with a £200,000 bill after merchant sailors accidentally set fire to their classic 100-year-old wooden sailing boat by letting off emergency flares as part of their boisterous New Year celebrations.

The Ukrainian trio were arrested and put in a police cell for the night after flames came close to destroying the 65ft-yacht called Maori, built in Scotland and registered in Glasgow, at Alicante Regatta Club.

The owners found out about the devastating blaze while they were on holiday in northern France and jumped into their car immediately to make the 15-hour drive to the Costa Blanca.

They will now have to fork out the money for the repairs, despite two of the men who were arrested confessing to taking the flares off the ship they were on and setting light to them in the port during their first court appearance.

The couple have so far been too distraught to talk publicly about what happened.

Well-placed sources said the boat’s hull had been valued at more than £2.5 million some years ago for insurance purposes.

Police & fire brigade at the scene of the yacht fire

The boat’s charred deck is visible in this image

The ship’s deck was ruined with lawyers for the distraught couple warning repairs must be completed quickly to prevent rain from washing the ash through the deck and into the cabin

Two of the suspects are seen close to the scene of the fire being arrested by police

Police retrieve distress flares from the arrested suspects

Marcos Cascales Dorta, one of the two lawyers acting for the pair, who are understood to live in London although at least one of them hails originally from Scotland, said: ‘They are obviously devastated. They’ve owned the vessel for 20 years and use it regularly.

‘It’s a 65-foot wooden sailing boat and although they’ve haven’t got an official valuation of the damage that’s been done and the money they’ll have to spend on repairs, the estimate they’ve been given is around the £200,000 mark.

‘Because of Brexit and the problems they had continuing to insure the boat, it wasn’t fully insured which means they’ll have to pay for the repairs and then reclaim the cost from those responsible for the damage.

‘At the moment two of the three merchant sailors are part of an ongoing criminal investigation, one who has confessed to taking the emergency flares off the ship they were on and another who has admitted he lit them.

‘But for the purposes of compensation we are trying to get that investigation extended to include the captain of the merchant vessel who was responsible for the safekeeping of the emergency flares and the ship’s owner.’

The couple’s other lawyer Moises Candela Sabater added: ‘The owners were on holiday in Brittany when they found out about the fire and got in their car and drove to Alicante.

‘The sailing boat is made out of teak which is very expensive.

‘The quick response from the firefighters meant the vessel wasn’t destroyed completely but there’s a lot of damage to the deck.

‘The repairs will have to be carried out quickly so the ash doesn’t filter through to the inside of the boat if it rains.’

The alarm was raised just after 4am on New Year’s Eve.

A man examines the aftermath of the fire

Aftermath from the fire

Police show flares confiscated from the sailors

A general view of the Alicante Regatta Club harbour

The unnamed Ukrainians, aged between 20 and 35, were arrested shortly afterwards thanks to the assistance of two witnesses.

Police found them carrying some of the emergency flares they had taken off the merchant ship they were on, a Portuguese-flagged vessel which had to delay its departure from Alicante following their arrests. Other flares were found in a bin nearby.

A spokesman for Spain’s National Police said: ‘Around 4am on January 1 officers on duty to prevent possible incidents in Alicante Port saw one of the yachts in the port had caught fire after being set alight accidentally by an emergency flare thrown seconds earlier.

‘Three Ukrainian nationals aged between 20 and 35 were subsequently identified.

‘Five identical emergency flares to the ones which caused the fire were found on them and in a nearby bin.

‘They were arrested on suspicion of a crime of damages.’