Search for Victims of Capsized Boat Near Alcatraz Suspended

Officials suspended their active search for three missing passengers who were aboard a boat that capsized in the San Francisco Bay Wednesday, the U.S. Coast Guard announced.

One person is dead, and three remained missing Thursday after a boat carrying 20 passengers sank near Alcatraz Island on Tuesday afternoon.

“We have completely saturated the search area,” said Captain Jarod Toczko, sector commander for the U.S. Coast Guard, during a press conference Wednesday afternoon. “Despite that extensive effort, we have been unsuccessful in locating any survivors within the search area.”

The deceased, Clifford Joseph Boisa, 79, of Sutter County, was identified Wednesday morning by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. San Francisco Recreation and Parks confirmed that the boat was captained by John Boisa, 62, who is the deceased’s younger brother. 

According to their brother, Ralph, Clifford’s wife, Jackie, and their sister, Carol, are among the three people who remain missing.

San Francisco Fire Department Chief Dean Crispen said officers with the San Francisco Police Department’s Marine Unit were the first on the scene and saw a man in the water in “severe distress” near the capsized pontoon boat.

They initiated CPR, but after transporting him to Gas House Cove in the Marina District, he was pronounced dead.

Three passengers, including the boat’s captain, were injured and transported to local hospitals and have since been released. SFFD confirmed one dog also died in the sinking. 

Crispen said the passengers were mostly made up of family members. They were participating in a memorial service when they were hit by a wave, took on water, and the boat capsized.

Ralph Boisa, 77, whose daughter Yvonne Thatcher was on the boat with her husband and three kids, said some family members were inside the boat’s cabin when it took on the wave and quickly lost stability. 

Thatcher told her father that she was with Clifford, his wife, Jackie, and a third woman in the enclosed space. 

“She managed to get to the door and get out, just before the boat fully went under,” Ralph said. 

U.S. Coast Guard officials said Tuesday that there is a “high possibility” that the missing passengers were trapped in the vessel when it sank. 

“We’ve done survivor debriefs, and we do know that individuals were in the main deck and potentially below deck,” he said. “However, that is gonna come out in the investigation stage of this. We’re still focused on the search and rescue, trying our best to see if we can locate the three missing individuals.”

The U.S. Coast Guard led the initial search and rescue effort, covering 950 square nautical miles and 1,700 miles of the boat’s route over 29 hours.

At sunset Wednesday, officials suspended the active search, turning the case over to the San Francisco Police Department to steer boat recovery. 

“Suspending an active search is one of the most difficult things we do as Coast Guard commanders,” Coast Guard Captain Jared Toczko said Wednesday. “I don’t take that responsibility lightly at all. Our goal is always to bring home families, loved ones, and we understand that families want answers. And that is never lost on us.”

SFPD Commander Brian Hoo said that the department will work with private companies specializing in diving recovery for that effort, but the department will not know if pulling the boat out is feasible until it is located. 

The U.S. Coast Guard has the exact location of where the boat was last seen, but they are still searching for where the boat ultimately sank. The area they believe the boat is located is around 130 feet deep, which can be difficult for diving, officials said.

Ralph, who was not on the boat with his siblings Tuesday, said many members of his extended family had taken the boat out on the bay for a memorial of his adopted daughter, Maria. 

She lived in San Francisco before she died by suicide in 2016, he said, and spent much of her time surfing in the Pacific Ocean. 

Ralph’s other daughter and her family, along with Clifford’s daughter and her family, were also aboard the Volare, according to Ralph.  

He described his sister Carol, who is still missing, as jovial and said all of his siblings were “a jokester one way or another.” 

Clifford, who worked as a volunteer sheriff in Sutter County for more than a decade, was about to celebrate his 80th birthday in September.

Fishing boat captain Aaron Anfinson, of the Bass Tub, said he noticed that some of the people weren’t wearing life jackets, and there was no life raft in sight, crucial safety gear that Coast Guard certified vessels like his are required to carry. 

“ I 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.” Anfinson said. 

Anfinson noticed a woman he estimated to be in her 40s hanging onto a kiteboard who was bleeding from the head.

“My crewmember threw a throw ring at her, told her to hold on and we pulled her onto the boat,” Anfinson said. Meanwhile a halibut fisherman was busy “grabbing the rest of them and putting them on his boat,” Anfinson said.

The crews out the bay face difficult conditions, according to David McMurdie, co-founder of California Recovery Divers, a volunteer team that leads underwater search and recoveries in Northern and Central California.

“There’s a lot of surface chop, and there’s a fair amount of wind,” McMurdie told KQED.

The rescue operation involves using an underwater exploration device called a sonar towfish. McMurdie said poor surface conditions can make using the tool tough “because the towfish under the water is bounced around as the boat is balanced on the surface.”

Even in calm waters, the San Francisco Bay water lacks visibility.

“It’s a blackout condition. When you get down to the bottom, you might have enough visibility to see your hand if you put it out in front of you, and you might not,” McMurdie said. “It’s a really dangerous situation because the boat can be rocking around, you could be trapped in the boat, so the extent of the search is a real challenge.”

At 3:37 p.m. Tuesday, the SFFD received a report of a vessel in distress or on fire approximately 600 yards off Alcatraz Island, Crispin said.

Lt.  Mariano Elias, public information officer for the San Francisco Fire Department, described the vessel as a 50-foot “cabin cruiser” boat with three levels, including enclosed main and lower decks.  He said the boat, named Volare, was based out of Stockton. 

Toczko said that officials believe the vessel took on a wave and leaned heavily to its starboard side before it quickly rolled over.

People were jumping into the water when rescuers arrived, and the boat was already mostly underwater, Elias said. 

“The reports we’ve had from witnesses is that there were rough seas, and apparently the vessel began to take on water and was turned over in the bay,” Crispen said. 

Crispen initially said the vessel left from the St. Francis Yacht Club, but a spokesperson for San Francisco Recreation and Parks confirmed that the boat departed from the nearby San Francisco Marina Yacht Harbor. 

Officials initially believed the boat had 19 passengers, but after talking to witnesses, they determined there were 20 people on board. Sixteen have been recovered.

In a statement, the St. Francis Yacht Club said, “Our hearts go out to the friends and family of those on board the boat that sank off the waters of Alcatraz Island. While the boat did not embark from St. Francis Yacht Club, nor were there members on board, we share this day and therefore understand the weight of this tragedy.”

There were 47 fatalities due to recreational boating incidents in California in 2024, according to the California State Parks Division of Boating and Waterways. Compared to open coastal waters, fatalities from recreational boating accidents are relatively rare in the San Francisco Bay. 

Zero deaths were reported in the San Francisco Bay from boating accidents in 2019, dipping from 3 deaths in 2015, according to DBW. For pontoon boats specifically, the most common types of accidents in 2019 were related to operator inexperience or inattention. 

That mirrors trends nationwide where boating-related deaths occur predominantly on vessels operated by people lacking safety instruction, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. Alcohol is also considered a leading contributing factor in boating accidents and fatalities.  

The boat in Tuesday’s accident was registered by the U.S. Coast Guard and was theoretically capable of carrying 20 passengers, Toczko said, “but there are a lot of things that go into account when you consider the stability of a vessel.”

This is a developing story and will be updated. 

KQED’s Natalia Navarro contributed to this report.