Sunk

Alamed, California (KGO) – Researchers try to find out why a ship that has held more than 40,000 nautical miles, sank when it was moored in the estuary of Oakland.

It happened on Sunday evening near Cal’s Rowing Facility in Oakland and the NOB Hill Foods in Alameda.

Previous story: Big sailboat sinks in Oakland Estuary

It is an old research ship that once sailed to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and collects data to help our oceans understand.

“We come home from the airport and my wife said the ship was dropping, and I am like what?” said Jon Michels, resident of Alameda.

“That boat is still immersed and sits on the floor floor, it has quite long masts that are still leaning,” said Kevin Tidwell of the Alameda Fire Department.

Tidwell was there on Sunday evening when his crew and the American Coast Guard responded.

Nobody was on board the ship, called Kaisei, when it was sunk. In fact, the Coast Guard tells us that it has not moved in eight years.

Sixteen years ago, former ABC7 news reporter Wayne Freedman toured the inside of the ship, for the trip from the crew to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Regarding the current worries.

“So there was a slight visible shine after the ship has been sunk, which is now suspected that it comes from a container with engine oil that was on board the ship, but not actually from the fuel tanks. At present, two of the accessible fuel tanks have been controlled by Salvage diverse of one of the responsible party of the vent; and those two.

Sappey says that there are still three fuel tanks that could not have reached divers, which could wear up to 400 gallons of diesel.

It is not assumed that those leaks and there are now booms around the ship.

The owners of the ship told ABC7 News that the Coast Guard told them that it seems that something big has hit the ship that sinks.

“There was a current, a pretty strong current at the time of this incident because of the changing tides,” Tidwell said.

But what the ship could have hit specifically and had damaged it sufficiently to sink, that is at the moment unknown.

Ocean Voyages Institute owns the ship and says that as soon as environmental problems have been tackled, they will work on saving the ship.

Ocean Voyages Institute sent us this statement on Monday evening:

Ocean Voyages Institute confirms that the Kaisei sailing vessel dropped on 25 May 2025, while it was moored in the estuary of Oakland.
The Coast Guard believes that sinking may have been caused by something that touches the ship.
Our first concern was to ensure that this tragic accident did not cause environmental damage.
Ocean Voyages Institute, the Executive Board and the entire team, want to thank the Alameda Fire Department, the American Coast Guard, the State of California Fish and Wildlife Division, the Alameda Police Department and Stones Boatyard enormously.
The Alameda fire brigade released the first flowering around the ship to ensure that no fuel or oil escaped from the area.
We have invoked Parker Diving, who released extra blooms. Then NCR Republic worked on removing oil recorded by the booms. Power Engineering removes all fuel from the ship.
We are happy to be able to report that all these operations have been successful at the moment. We continue to pay our full attention to ensure that all fuel and oil is removed on the ship, so that it does not cause pollution in the waters.
Once all the environmental problems have been tackled, we will have to deal with saving the ship.
Kaisei has served since 2004 as an essential platform for global sailing training, and ocean research since 2009, including expeditions to the North Pacific Gyre in collaboration with Scripps Institution of Oceanography and California EPA. The groundbreaking work of the ship laid the foundation for the record setup of Ocean Voyages Institute, including the use of satellite-gemensized “ghost nets” restored by windstrures.