A super yacht formerly named after Ghislaine Maxwell caught fire in a harbour in Washington, DC.

The 180ft vessel was bought by press baron Robert Maxwell for $20m in 1986 and he named it the “Lady Ghislaine” after the youngest of his nine children.

The yacht was later sold and was most recently purchased in 2017 by Anna dePeyster, a British and Australian writer who was married to Rupert Murdoch from 1967 to 1999. She retrofitted the vessel and renamed it the Dancing Hare.

TV channel WUSA9 said firefighters were called to the Washington, DC wharf area at around 2pm on Tuesday to deal with what was said to be “light smoke”.