SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — Two commercial fishermen described the desperate rescue efforts they undertook after a three-level vessel sank in San Francisco Bay with 20 people on board, leaving several people trapped and others struggling in the water.

Mike Montoya and Justin Marceline said they had not planned to be on the water Tuesday but made a last-minute decision to go fishing.

While out on the bay, they noticed what they described as smoke or steam about two miles away and headed toward it. When they arrived, they found a vessel rapidly sinking and passengers fighting to survive.

“Moments of chaos” unfolded as people jumped into the freezing water, clung to the side of the boat and yelled for help, according to the fishermen.

“She didn’t have a lifejacket, and she was flailing, and I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her up. The imagine is etched in my mind. She had bright blue eyes and she looked up at me and said help, and I was like, ‘You look like my mom. I’m not going to let you go. I promise you.’ She told me she didn’t want to die, and I told her ‘I’m not going to let you die,’” Marceline said.

Crews will suspend search for 3 missing in deadly SF Bay boat sinking Wednesday evening

Montoya and Marceline said they were the first to arrive at the scene and rescued eight or nine people from the water before first responders reached the area.

“The boat was already sinking. It was about halfway in the water. I say they were on their knees in the second deck in the gally. Within a minute they were up to their shoulders,” Marceline said.

Montoya said getting close enough to rescue victims was difficult because of the debris scattered across the water.

“Yes, there was so much debris on the water and people and stuff everywhere. I couldn’t tell what was a person and what wasn’t, and I was maneuvering the boat in and out, and we would grab a person and back up and see who the next person to grab was,” Montoya said.

Within minutes, they said, first responders from across the Bay Area arrived with divers and rescue crews, joining the effort to save those on board. But both men said the most haunting images were of people they could not reach in time.

“There was one window open and when we pulled on the scene, Mike said, ‘There are people in there banging. The window — break the window!’ and like I said, there were mostly older people, and they couldn’t break the window. It was a helpless feeling,” Marceline said.

“Can’t even imagine. We were throwing weights at the window and handed a guy a weight here break the window or kick the window and he looked at us like, ‘I’m exhausted. Can’t do anything,’” Montoya said.

Marceline compared the scene to a maritime disaster.

“It was a scene from the Titanic in real life. Like people banging on the window trying to get out. It’s probably something I will never forget,” he said.

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.

As of Wednesday, dive teams continued searching for three people who remained missing following the sinking.

U.S. Coast Guard crews combed cold, choppy waters in and around San Francisco Bay on Wednesday for the three people missing nearly a day after the 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.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

SAN FRANCISCO – While one person died after a cabin cruiser sank in the San Francisco Bay on Tuesday afternoon, a harrowing rescue near Alcatraz Island saved 16 lives.

The U.S. Coast Guard and the San Francisco Fire Department continue to search for three missing people who went overboard after the vessel went down around 3:30 p.m.

Clifford Joseph Boisa, 79, of Sutter County, was pronounced dead following the incident. However, 16 others were brought to safety, many of them rescued by civilian boaters who rushed to help. Among the Good Samaritans were fishermen Mike Montoya and Justin Marceline, who were aboard the Khea, a 22-foot Boston Whaler.

At a Wednesday afternoon press conference, Coast Guard Incident Commander Jarod Toczko praised the fishermen and a nearby kiteboarder for their heroic actions.

A rush to help

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Montoya and Marceline were on the water when they noticed signs of trouble nearby.

“I turned around and I saw a plume of either smoke or steam,” Montoya said. “I just knew that somebody was in distress.”

Montoya told his partner they needed to move their boat closer to investigate. When they arrived, they found people struggling to stay afloat in the Bay’s frigid waters.

The rescuers began throwing life jackets and flotation devices to those in the water, pulling victims aboard as quickly as possible. Many of the victims were exhausted and unable to pull themselves out of the water.

Witnesses recount people ‘trapped’ inside

What they’re saying:

As they pulled survivors aboard, Montoya said he saw people trapped inside the cabin of the sinking vessel, banging on the windows.

“We were throwing fishing weights at the window, trying to get it to break, and we handed a guy a fishing weight that was in the water, and he didn’t have a life jacket on,” Montoya said.

In total, Montoya and Marceline pulled nine people onto their boat and brought them to safety.

Marceline was prepared to jump into the Bay to help more victims, but Montoya stopped him, warning of debris and other dangers beneath the surface.

“My first thought was to kick my shoes off and get down to my underwear and jump in and start to get the elderly people off the boat, because it was elderly people helping elderly people and it wasn’t going fast enough,” Marceline said.

Memorial service turns tragically fatal

Survivors told the fishermen they had gathered on the water for a memorial service. Authorities later confirmed that the victims and survivors were relatives and close friends holding a memorial when the boat went down.

Toczko said the 50-foot cabin cruiser was capable of carrying the number of people on board, but noted that investigators must consider several factors regarding the boat’s stability.

The investigation into what caused the vessel to sink is ongoing.

San Francisco supervisors authorized a resolution Tuesday urging California lawmakers to expand the city’s automated speed camera program, which currently has 33 cameras operating in the city under a state pilot.

The board’s 10-to-1 vote on Tuesday, with District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton voting against it, will not add cameras immediately, but formally asks the state to explore changes to the program. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency has identified at least 80 additional high-need locations that could benefit from automated enforcement, according to a report filed with the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee.

Richard Zieman, whose son Andrew, a paraeducator, was killed in November 2021 by a speeding driver outside Sherman Elementary School on Franklin Street, told Mission Local that city officials should do more. “They waited for a tragedy,” Zieman said. Parents and school leaders had repeatedly asked the city to slow traffic on Franklin Street, where drivers barreled downhill toward the Marina, said Zieman.

Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who introduced the resolution, has said the city’s first year of automated speed enforcement shows that the technology works. The SFMTA reported nearly an 80 percent reduction in drivers traveling at least 10 miles per hour over the speed limit at camera locations after the program launched in March 2025. San Francisco was the first city to implement the pilot authorized under Assembly Bill 645.

The pilot, however, is capped by state law at 33 camera locations. Tuesday’s resolution asks California lawmakers to consider allowing more, prioritizing corridors on San Francisco’s High Injury Network, including Franklin Street.

Walk San Francisco, a pedestrian advocacy group which spent roughly eight years advocating for the state legislation that created the pilot, called the resolution an important first step toward broader expansion.

“Thirty-three cameras is nowhere near the number of cameras we need for people to realize that San Francisco is a safe-speed city,” said executive director Jodie Medeiros. “This tool is working. People are lowering their speeds.”

District 6, represented by Dorsey, currently has seven of the city’s 33 cameras, most of them in SoMa. The district also records the highest number of crashes involving injuries or fatalities in San Francisco, making it a focal point in the debate over expanding automated enforcement.

The resolution advanced unanimously from the Board of Supervisors’ Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee last week, where Dorsey said the cameras have made streets “feel safer” and argued the early results show “why we should have even more of this life-saving technology.”

Zieman, whose son’s death prompted traffic-calming improvements and eventually a speed camera near Sherman Elementary, said the issue is urgent. 

“There are probably other Franklin streets out there,” he said. “I just hope they don’t wait for someone else before they expand the program. It’s too late for Andrew.”