{"id":400133,"date":"2026-07-16T01:55:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T01:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/400133\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T01:55:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T01:55:14","slug":"total-chaos-bay-area-sailors-recall-rescue-of-boat-passengers-near-alcatraz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/400133\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Total Chaos\u2019: Bay Area Sailors Recall Rescue of Boat Passengers Near Alcatraz"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a 49-foot vessel carrying 20 passengers began sinking near Alcatraz Island on Tuesday afternoon, San Francisco locals were among the first to arrive on the scene and took part in the lifesaving search and rescue mission.<\/p>\n

Jul 15, 2026<\/p>\n

Updated 4:26 pm PT<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Aaron Anfinson, captain of the Bass Tub, stands on the fishing boat docked in Fisherman\u2019s Wharf in San Francisco on July 16, 2026.\u00a0(Beth LaBerge\/KQED)<\/p>\n

Captain Aaron Anfinson was driving his fishing boat, Bass Tub, up the San Francisco<\/a> waterfront toward the Golden Gate Bridge on Tuesday afternoon when a halibut fisherman flagged him down, pointing to what looked like a plume of dark smoke in the center of the bay.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought, \u2018Oh, there\u2019s a fire on that boat,\u201d Anfinson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anfinson was in the middle of a chartered 32-passenger cruise, but the trip quickly turned into a rescue mission. He radioed the U.S. Coast Guard to let them know what was happening.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI had my crew member grab the fire hose and put all the passengers inside, and we raced out there,\u201d Anfinson said.<\/p>\n

He was among the first to arrive at the site of a disaster in the San Francisco Bay<\/a> that claimed one life and left three missing. He saw the Volare, a 49-foot cabin cruiser based out of Stockton, that was sinking rapidly, sending its 20 passengers into the choppy, frigid waters of the San Francisco Bay.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"A San Francisco Fire Department boat pictured in the waters near Alcatraz on July 15, 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were a bunch of people hanging onto the boat as it was sinking,\u201d Anfinson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Other privately owned boats, a kiteboarder, and a Red and White Fleet ferry also joined in on the efforts, Anfinson said. Emergency first responders had yet to arrive.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Four or five more people were hanging onto the kiteboarders\u2019 board, Anfinson said. Boats from the San Francisco Police Department\u2019s Marine Unit and U.S. Coast Guard arrived soon after and started rescuing people, he said.<\/p>\n

Anfinson said he noticed that some passengers weren\u2019t wearing life jackets, and there was no liferaft in sight \u2014 crucial safety gear that Coast Guard-certified vessels like his are required to carry.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aI pulled the boat up to them, and my crew member threw them lifejackets. After yelling several times, they finally put them on. I think they were probably in shock,\u201d Anfinson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anfinson noticed a woman he guessed was in her 40s hanging onto the kiteboard and bleeding from the head.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose good samaritans called this distress case in, initially made us aware of it and then rescued people from the water. Your actions saved lives.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The passengers were mostly family members and were holding a memorial service when the boat was hit by a wave and capsized 600 yards \u2014 about five football fields \u2014 from shore.<\/p>\n

Commercial fisherman Shawn Chen Flading said the boat looked like a vessel more suited to calmer waters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aThose boats normally stick to the Delta, rivers and lakes.\u200aIt\u2019s not a seaworthy boat,\u201d Flading said, adding that 20 people likely pushed the limit for a safe number of passengers on board.<\/p>\n

\"\"A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter is pictured over the waters near Alcatraz on July 15, 2026.<\/p>\n

Flading said conditions were so windy on Tuesday afternoon that he decided not to take his 79-foot fishing boat out. He said on days like that, the wind can add 2 to 3 feet to the height of waves.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aOne moment the bay can look very peaceful and calm, and within a blink of an eye, the wind can pick up, and the swells come, and it\u2019s a totally different, more dangerous scenario,\u201d Flading said.<\/p>\n

James Smith, captain of the charter fishing boat California Dawn, based in Berkeley, was returning from a Salmon fishing trip when he heard a Coast Guard report that there was a vessel on fire a quarter mile from Alcatraz. He sped towards the scene.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was total chaos. There were people clinging to a board; there were people on the boat, which we didn\u2019t know if it was going to sink on the spot. It was a big, terrifying mess,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

But Smith doubted that winds and waves could be responsible for capsizing a boat so large.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aI think something catastrophic happened,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThere was probably no fire when the officials got on the scene, but there was definitely a fire there, because we could see the plumes of smoke coming from the boat.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said witnessing something like that \u201chit close to home\u201d for him and his crew.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aIt\u2019s just tough to see people going out for an enjoyable outing or a memorial, however enjoyable that is, and not expecting a boat to sink and take people down with it,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThat\u2019s a lot, man. That\u2019s a lot to chew on.\u201d<\/p>\n

KQED\u2019s Katie DeBenedetti<\/a> contributed to this report.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a 49-foot vessel carrying 20 passengers began sinking near Alcatraz Island on Tuesday afternoon, San Francisco locals…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-400133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}