TRAGEDY AT SEA

Shock, grief and fear grip the Tiburon Peninsula after powerful waves swept crewmembers from the Low Speed Chase, sending them into frigid waters off the rocky Farallon Islands. Three were rescued and one Belvedere man was confirmed dead but, as the Coast Guard ended its search Sunday, the remaining four are presumed lost.

The Low Speed Chase heads off out of the Marin Headlands at Point Bonita on April 14 in the last known photo before the accident. (Peter Lyons photo)

The Tiburon Peninsula descended into sadness this weekend as residents and members of the sailing community mourned the loss of one sailor and presumed the worst for four others who were swept from the Low Speed Chase in treacherous waters near the Farallon Islands.

Marc Kasanin of Belvedere, an artist and designer who worked in restaurant design and management, died April 14 in an accident during the Full Crew Farallon Race. (photo via facebook)

About 9:30 a.m. April 14, eight crew members — two from Tiburon, one from Belvedere and three others with strong local ties — boarded the 38-foot racing and cruising yacht, which is based out of the San Francisco Yacht Club in Belvedere. The experienced sailors were setting off to compete in the club-sponsored Full Crew Farallon Race, a 58-nautical-mile run around  Southeast Farallon Island that begins and ends at the St. Francis Yacht Club in San Francisco.

Five and a half hours later, a freak wave in 10-to-12-foot seas battered the boat, washing four sailors into the 54-degree water. Another wave swept most of the rest of the crew into the Pacific and threw the boat into the rocks as they attempted to rescue their shipmates.

The U.S. Coast Guard in Alameda received two distress signals about 3 p.m. — one a voice mayday from someone on the boat, the other from an Electronic Position Indicator Radio Beacon activated automatically when it capsized — and immediately sent a rescue force to the scene. Struggling with choppy waters and winds gusting at 15-25 knots, Coast Guard helicopters lifted three surviving crewmembers from the rocks — James C. Bradford of Chicago, Bryan Chong of Tiburon and Nick Vos of Sonoma.

Bryan Chong of Tiburon was among those rescued.

The Air National Guard recovered the body of 47-year-old Marc Kasanin from the water.

Kasanin, who was born and lived in Belvedere, studied art and architecture at Cornell University and received a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Tufts University. He was an accomplished painter — the Tiburon Heritage and Arts Commission exhibited his art in March 2011 — and worked in restaurant design and management, designing several Bay Area restaurants. He had been traveling between Belvedere and Croatia since 2007 as a designer and artist for First Class Croatia, rebuilding ancient stone homes for rentals.

Kasanin’s mother, Anne, learned about the disaster from one of his closest friends, Chris Povio, who asked if she’d heard from her son. Anne Kasanin, who hadn’t yet heard about the accident, said she and her son were supposed to have dinner together. Povio then told her what little was known at the time and said that crewmembers’ families were gathering at the yacht club. She joined the group.

“We deduced it ourselves Saturday night as we waited,” she said. “The Belvedere police came very early Sunday morning and gave us the … coroner’s report.

“He was the mainstay of my life,” said Anne Kasanin, whose husband, Mark, died in 2007. “He was always there for me when I needed him. It will be a huge gap in my life.”

Belvedere Mayor Jerry Butler described Kasanin as a seasoned sailor who loved life, family and business ventures.

“I was talking to him just last week about a new venture,” said Belvedere Mayor Jerry Butler. “He was very excited about it — but he was always upbeat. He’s a huge loss for everyone.”

Three Coast Guard cutters, two Air National Guard helicopters, and one C-130 aircraft from the Sacramento Coast Guard — along with a contingent of private boats dispatched from the San Francisco Yacht Club — continued the search for the four missing crewmembers, but hope had faded along with the daylight on Sunday.

About 8 that night, the Coast Guard ended its search.

“The decision to suspend a search and rescue case like this is never an easy one to make,” said Capt. Cynthia Stowe, Sector San Francisco commanding officer. “The Coast Guard extends our deepest sympathies to the families and friends of the lost crewmen and the deceased. They will all be in our thoughts and prayers.”

“We’ve saturated the search area, and we have exceeded the window of survivability in that environment,” said Sarah Foster, Coast Guard chief petty officer.

The missing, and presumed dead, are “Irish” Alan Cahill of Tiburon; his friend, Elmer Morrissey of San Francisco; Jordan Fromm, 25, of Kentfield; and Alexis Busch of Larkspur — Vos’ fiancée.

Calling it an unbelievable tragedy, San Francisco Yacht Club Director Ed Lynch said it’s the first accident of this magnitude since the Farallones race began in 1907, and its impact has already sent ripples through the international sailing community.

“We’re a very tight-knit group,” Lynch said. “We’re all racers, we’re all sailors, and this is certainly going to reverberate around the world.”

Stephen Stroub of Tiburon, who built the Lyford Cove home in which Cahill lived with wife Shannon and his two kids, sailed with Cahill for the past decade or so and was in the Farallones race, but was skippering his own boat, Tiburon.

Cahill, originally from Killeens, County Cork, Ireland, fixed boats for a living and was captain of the Low Speed Chase during the race.

“We rounded (the island) half an hour ahead of him,” Stroub said. “Then we heard the distress signal on the Coast Guard radio frequency. We didn’t know what boat it was — then we heard the beacon belonged to the Low Speed Chase.”

Stroub said Cahill was such a good sailor that he didn’t imagine Cahill’s yacht was in trouble; rather, Stroub assumed Cahill had tossed his beacon to whatever boat was in distress. It wasn’t until Stroub and the other boats were back at the finish line at St. Francis Yacht Club that they learned that the Low Speed Chase had wrecked. He and his crew sailed back to San Francisco Yacht Club, where they gathered with Shannon Cahill and their friends and waited for word. They eventually heard what happened. The information came in slowly.

“We sailed down the coast many times,” Stroub said. “Of all the sailors I’ve known, Alan was probably in the top three. It’s a sad, sad day.”

Cahill’s friend Morrissey, originally from Glounthaune in County Cork, Ireland, has been in the U.S. about a year and was a postdoctoral fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley.

Jordan Fromm of Kentfield is among the missing and presumed dead. (Provided by the Fromm family)

Fromm, son of Andy and Lori Fromm, studied at Dominican College in San Rafael and was an instructor at the yacht club’s youth sailing program from 2001 to 2006. He had dreams of building his own shipyard in the Bay Area and was a fabricator and designer for his own small business, Fromm Yacht Services, based in Belvedere.

Busch, a Redwood High graduate who has a master’s in sports management from the University of San Francisco, was a hospitality manager at Western Athletics Clubs and was the founder and director of Lady Baseball. She and Vos went to high school together.

Alexis Busch of Larkspur and Nick Vos of Sonoma, who were engaged, were aboard the Low Speed Chase. Vos was rescued, but Busch was missing and presumed dead. (photo via Facebook)

Twenty-six hours after waves hurled the 38-foot yacht onto the rocks in the Farallon Islands, members of the San Francisco Yacht Club filled the club at 98 Beach Road for an early evening vigil to mourn Kasanin, wait for news of the missing and to celebrate the lives of the survivors.

All three attended the vigil, but declined to speak to the press.

Bradford is the owner of Low Speed Chase, which was lost in the accident, and was in town just for the race.

Chong, who is a member of the Tiburon Design Review Board and a regional vice president of Internap, which provides information technology infrastructure services, lives with his wife, Camille, and their newborn on the Tiburon side of Corinthian Island.

Vos, in his 20s, broke his leg in the accident when he attempted to return to the boat for flares and supplies. He grew up in Marin and graduated from Redwood High School and the College of Marin before heading to Sonoma State University. He started his own company, Vos Yachting Services, in 2007, but has been working with Tiburon-based Celadon Investments since 2010 as a property manager and associate.

As word spread of the vigil, people poured into the yacht club, packing the areas around the bar and spilling out onto the deck for more than four hours. Butler said most of the estimated 500 people who attended were still reeling from the shock of the news, and it seemed hard to put words to their feelings of loss.

Outside, tulips and candles circled the yacht club crest at the front of the club, as friends and family greeted each other with hugs and tears, tried to comprehend the tragedy, and wondered how it could have happened.

 “Ocean racing is dangerous,” Lynch said. “Conditions out there were reported as ‘normal’ for this year by a lot of sailors.”

Coast Guard Petty Officer Levi Read confirmed that, while the water was choppy, there was nothing unusual about the weather conditions or the water on Saturday afternoon.

“They just got caught in a dangerous place.”

Teri Roney covers Belvedere and peninsula police and fire issues, Kevin Hessel is The Ark’s executive editor and Deirdre McCrohan covers Tiburon.