27-05-2025
Large sailboat docked at Oakland estuary sinks; crews attempt salvage operation
Salvage crews on Monday were trying to refloat a large sailing ship that sank Sunday night while docked at the Oakland Estuary. The boat, part of an ocean cleanup project, is now presenting a cleanup problem of its own.
The ship - called The Kaisei, Japanese for "sea star" - is a 150-foot-long, two-masted ship called a brigantine which has been sailing since 1987. It has most recently been the property of the Ocean Voyages Institute, headquartered in Sausalito. The group bought the boat to conduct the Kaisei Project, a month-long expedition in 2009 to survey and study the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a huge mass of floating plastic in the ocean.
The has also been used for various educational cruises, but lately, it's been moored next to the Nob Hill Foods store in Alameda. And now it looks like it's not going anywhere anytime soon.
"It's been there about five years," said Alameda resident Zoe Corsi. "It's a steel-hulled boat, the kind you can take around the world. But it's been sitting there for five years. It has NOT moved in five years. My partner says, 'They're never going to move that thing, it's going to sink someday.' And here we are."
On Sunday night about 6 p.m., the ship began to take on water and sink. Alameda resident Zph Biggs watched it as it slowly went down.
"I was parked right there," said Biggs, "And it was sinking when I got out. So, I took pictures of it, like, wow. That's interesting!"
The ship now sits on the bottom, fully submerged, its heavy masts slanting toward the shore, which is why the public is being kept away.
"The vessel seems to be fairly stable at the moment," said Lt. Jason Rogers with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. "However, due to the area we're in, with tidal movement going up and down and back and forth through here, it could move at any time."
A diver spent the day assessing the situation despite near-zero visibility, looking for a way to offload the 400 gallons of diesel fuel that may still be aboard. Just in case, a floating boom has been placed around the ship to try to contain any leaks.
"I think it's lost a little bit of fuel, but the majority of it is sealed up," said standby diver Courtney Jensen. "So, we just have to get access to it, not allow any more out. Get that pumped out, that's the priority. Yeah, we have ways of doing it."
Jensen works for Power Divers, the company brought in to handle the operation of getting the Kaisei back on an even keel.
"If you want to get it up and out of here, you'd bring in a crane barge," said Jensen. "And then you'd run rigging up and underneath the sailboat, and then you lift it up freeboard, enough to where you can pump the water out and get it refloating again, basically. This is a really big vessel. This is a 100-foot sailboat with a steel hull. Weighs a lot. It's big."
So how long might it take?
"It just depends," said Jensen. "It could be a couple weeks, could be a couple days."
The U.S. Coast Guard says it is not involved since the ship is not threatening navigation in the channel. But the Coast Guard will be reviewing the salvage plan to make sure it follows regulations.
So far, there is no indication of why the ship sank. The Coast Guard says the responsibility for determining that and raising the ship lies with the boat's owner and the salvage company hired to conduct the operation.
