A family outing to spread ashes of loved one on San Francisco Bay turned into another tragedy

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — U.S. Coast Guard crews combed cold, choppy waters in and around San Francisco Bay on Wednesday for three people missing nearly a day after a boat capsized with 20 family members and friends aboard to scatter the ashes of a loved one.

Ralph Boisa said his extended family and a few close friends were on his younger brother's boat Tuesday afternoon to celebrate the life of his daughter who died at age 33 in 2016 and loved to surf.

His older brother, Clifford, died shortly after being pulled out of the water. Sixteen others were rescued as the cabin cruiser took on water, listed heavily to one side and rolled over before sinking. Clifford's dog also died.

The three people missing are his sister Carol, Clifford's wife Jackie, and his daughter's friend, he said.

“We’ve gone through a lot of tragedy over the years,” said Boisa, who lost his other daughter in 1995. He lives in Washington and couldn't make it for the excursion.

U.S. Coast Guard Captain Jared S. Toczko said rescuers have cumulatively scoured 950 square nautical miles (3,260 square kilometers) and will continue searching until sundown Wednesday before ending rescue efforts.

Toczko would not dismiss the possibility that those missing could still be alive, though he also said some could have been trapped inside the three-deck, 49-foot (15-meter) cabin cruiser.

“We do know individuals were in the main deck and potentially below deck," he said. Witnesses described seeing people pounding on glass windows, trapped as the boat sank.

Crews have identified the location the boat sank but have yet to determine how deep it sank, Toczko said.

Once the boat is located, officials will send either divers or an underwater drone to determine if it's feasible to salvage it, said San Francisco Police Commander Brien Hoo. If the boat is under 120 feet (37 meters) of water, it would be difficult for divers to get to it, he said.

Witnesses reported “rough seas,” San Francisco Fire Department Chief Dean Crispen said, and rescuers said swells reached up to 5 feet (1.5 meters). Marine weather conditions, however, didn't warrant a small craft advisory from the National Weather Service.

Fire department spokesperson Lt. Mariano Elias said the vessel, named Volare, was registered out of Stockton, California, which sits at the eastern edge of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

According to the ship-tracking website VesselFinder, the boat departed a San Francisco marina, passed under the Golden Gate Bridge twice and visited Angel Island State Park, the largest natural island in the bay. It was on its way back to San Francisco when it sank near Alcatraz, the famous maximum-security federal prison which closed more than 60 years ago.

Kirk Miller, an experienced local sailor with a master mariner license, said an uneven distribution of passengers could have caused the Volare to tip.

“As it rocks in the waves, it leans over a little bit,” Miller said. “And as it leans over, the stability would decrease. If you had weight down below it acts as ballast. There was nothing in the conditions that were extreme in any regard. There was no massive gust of wind, no huge wave.”

Two men who jumped into action while fishing for halibut said the boat that sank was more than capable of being out in the bay. Justin Marceline and Michael Montoya said they saw what they thought was smoke and arrived to find the vessel halfway submerged.

“We just started yanking people out,” Marceline told The Associated Press. At least two people bobbed in the water without life jackets, while others clung to a windsurfer’s board.

Marceline could see people trapped inside the rapidly sinking boat through its windows. He threw lead fishing weights to survivors in the water, hoping they could smash the glass, but they were too weak.

“It was like Titanic in real life,” he said. “There was stuff everywhere. People were banging on the glass.”

Montoya estimated they pulled eight or nine people aboard, including the captain, before first responders arrived.

Initial callers reported what appeared to be smoke coming from the boat, but San Francisco police officers who first reached the vessel said it was steam.

Toczko said there were life jackets onboard the boat and that some people were rescued wearing them.

Sudden immersion in water under 60 degrees Fahrenheit (15 degrees Celsius) can lead to cold water shock, a condition where people lose dexterity in minutes. That can be dangerous or deadly when trying to escape a sinking watercraft.

The owners of the boat are John Boisa and Miriam Boisa of Stockton, Coast Guard records show. They did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

“All of us are grieving during this time,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Ralph Boisa said John is a “very capable and experienced boatsman” who served in the U.S. Navy. He frequently took family members out on the boat to the San Francisco Bay, Boisa said.

His older brother who died, Clifford Boisa, lived on a small prune orchard in Sutter County in the Sacramento Valley and was a volunteer sheriff's deputy for more than a decade. Ralph Boisa had planned to visit him for his 80th birthday party next month.

“He was a happy guy, jovial,” Boisa said. “We're pretty broken up here.”

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Associated Press writers Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire; Ed White in Detroit; and photographer Noah Berger in San Francisco contributed to this story.