A boat crashed into a rock jetty in shallow water near Brooks Island Regional Preserve off the Richmond Marina Saturday night, October 3, injuring four adults and setting off a multi-agency rescue effort that stretched across the Bay. The crash happened at around 8:30 p.m., sending emergency crews scrambling into the dark, hazard-strewn waters off Richmond's shoreline.
According to SFGATE, the vessel struck the rocky structure in shallow water near the preserve, leaving four adults with injuries described as serious to moderate. The U.S. Coast Guard requested mutual aid from the San Francisco Fire Department, which according to a Facebook post from the San Francisco Fire Department, described the response as a mutual aid request for a boat crash involving four injured individuals.
Crews arrived to find the vessel perched on the jetty-style rock structure in shallow water, per the fire department's account. A Coast Guard helicopter airlifted one adult to a trauma center, while the other three injured adults were brought to the City of Richmond Marina Yacht Club for ground ambulance transport to local hospitals, as reported by Local News Matters.
A Cross-Bay Response to Reach the Wreck
The fire department deployed two specialized vessels, Rescue Boat 35 and Rescue Boat 2, crossing county and bay boundaries to answer the Coast Guard's call for help, the department's Facebook post states. A Coast Guard rescue boat and helicopter also responded to the scene near Brooks Island and Richmond Marina. The fire department said further media inquiries should be directed to the Coast Guard, noting that it has the capabilities to respond to emergencies within its communities.
San Francisco's Rescue Boat 35 routinely monitors Coast Guard distress frequencies for emergencies across the Bay, a role it played again just two months earlier when it responded to a vessel rescue off Treasure Island during a routine training exercise, according to the San Francisco Fire Department. Richmond Marina itself has long served as an East Bay staging ground for Coast Guard operations, including a July 2020 rescue in which three people were pulled from the water near Treasure Island after their boat capsized and were brought ashore there, per the U.S. Coast Guard.
Why the Waters Near Brooks Island Are So Treacherous
The rock jetty the vessel struck is no small obstacle. It's part of a roughly two-mile-long, 10,000-foot man-made training wall built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers starting in the 1920s to protect the shipping channel into the Richmond Inner Harbor, according to background compiled on Wikipedia. The breakwater runs along waters that navigational surveys describe as extremely shallow, with low-tide soundings under three feet and hazards including submerged rocks, mudflats, and pilings lurking just outside the dredged channel, per guidance from the U.S. Coast Guard.
Brooks Island itself, the 75-acre preserve above low tide surrounded by 300 acres of protected bay habitat, has been owned by the East Bay Regional Park District since 1968, with public access restricted to ranger-led tours. The stretch includes a rock barrier and shallow water.
A Reminder of Boating Risks
The Richmond-area collision injured four adults when a boat struck a rock structure in shallow water.
It remains unclear what caused Saturday night's vessel to run aground on the rock structure near Brooks Island. The extent of the injured victim's condition and the process for removing the stranded boat from the protected preserve waters had not been detailed as of Saturday.
