UP man recalls role in 55-year-old mystery — a boat gone missing with 7 aboard
When Ken Thiemann learned his two fraternity brothers disappeared while sailing on Puget Sound, he sprang into action.
Thiemann and a few peers from Washington State University made the nearly 300-mile trip from Pullman to Tacoma in hopes of finding the two men and five other people who were on the boat.
That was 55 years ago, and the sailboat and its passengers would not be recovered.
The passengers, Brian Williams, 23; Gary Oman, 19; James Dickinson, 21; Brian Wilson, 20; Robert Sherwood, 20; Dennis Newton, 19; and Barbara Komorek, 22; were attending the Convention of the Intercollegiate Knights in Seattle on April 14, 1971.
Williams, who was from Tacoma, decided they would take out his family’s 22-foot Catalina type sailboat that day on a short cruise. He called his mother, and she agreed to let him take the boat out. The boat had no name or hull number, was blue and white and carried the number “192” on the sail, according to archives from the Tacoma Public Library’s Northwest Room.
Williams and his friends went to his north Tacoma residence for the boat’s keys. There, Williams told his brother they’d only be out for an hour to an hour and a half, Tacoma Police Department detective James Buchanan told The News Tribune in a 2025 interview.
The sailboat left the Point Defiance area near the Tacoma Yacht Club. Coast Guard officials said the boat departed for a cruise of Commencement Bay, Dalco Passage and might have been en route to visit Williams’ family in Seattle, according to archives.
The boat and its passengers did not come back.
Coast Guard officials did an extensive search, but the boat was not found. A Coast Guard duty officer was quoted in an April 19, 1971 story saying if there had been an accident, there would be wreckage such as floating life jackets. The Coast Guard could not find anything from the missing boat.
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It was the largest sea and air search in the Coast Guard’s history at the time, according to archives. Forty vessels and four planes were used to search the coastline from Olympia to Canada.
Five of the passengers were WSU students. Komorek, according to archives, was a registered nurse and student at Columbia Basin College in Pasco. Newton attended Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston, Idaho.
Fraternity brothers
Thiemann, now 76, graduated from WSU in 1972. Today, he is a real estate specialist and lives in University Place.
Thiemann said he was fraternity brothers at WSU with Williams and Dickinson. They were part of Alpha Kappa Lambda.
Thiemann pledged the fraternity in 1968 when he was studying communications and journalism. He believes Dickinson, also known as Jim, pledged in 1969 or 1970.
“James was such a good-looking, quiet kid,” Thiemann told The News Tribune in a recent interview.
He said Dickinson was very studious. An obituary for Dickinson said his father, Dr. John Dickinson, was a professor of veterinary medicine at WSU.
“Brian was a tall man, maybe 6-4, dark black hair,” Thiemann said. “We didn’t converse that much, but I knew he was just a nice guy.”
‘We just wanted to help’
Thiemann said when he learned the sailboat went missing, he had a deep sense of concern. He and a few people decided to take Thiemann’s car to Tacoma to help.
“Our attitude was we wanted to help. It wasn’t that we felt any fear, or dread or anxiety. We just wanted to help,” he said.
Thiemann said he doesn’t remember about the trip from Pullman to Tacoma.
“When we got here, they took us out to Vashon beach, and we started combing the waterways. Even at that time I don’t think we knew what people thought had happened,” he said.
A photo from The News Tribune’s archives captured a moment in which Thiemann and two other WSU students, Len Montague and Jerry Snodgrass, discussed possible search areas with a Tacoma Yacht Club member.
The clipping said seven other students helped with the search in an attempt to solve the “nine-day old mystery.”
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Thiemann said the search was uncoordinated at times.
“On the first day we went to Vashon Island to walk the beaches. On the second day we were on a sailboat, and the third day we were on an airplane going back and forth over the waters,” he said.
On the last day in the airplane, they flew several hours. As they headed to the airport, the pilot, who was in the Navy, said the front landing gear would not go down.
“And he called the airport, and the first thing they said was ‘How many ambulances do we need?,” according to Thiemann.
Thiemann said the pilot started doing deep dives and pulled the plane back up, which went on for several minutes.
“The gear didn’t come down. I remember the guy in front of me opening his door and trying to reach out,” he said. “I don’t know how the gear was ever [reengaged.]”
Thiemann said they landed safely and decided to go home.
“We’d done everything we could,” he said.
Theories without merit
Thiemann said he has always wondered why no one picked up or researched more about what happened to the boat.
“My thought was that at some point in time, there’s got to be something from that sailboat that would break off or would appear, that would at least identify where [the passengers were],” Thiemann said.
A News Tribune story from April 26, 1971 reported a number of pieces of debris were turned over to the Coast Guard, but they were confirmed not to be connected to the missing sailboat.
In 1980, nine years after the sailboat disappeared, a sunken boat hull was found by a fishing crews out of Gig Harbor west of Vashon Island. The hull snagged in a net before it dropped back into the murky waters of the Sound. This led to a search of the water.
“The submarine crew’s chances of finding the boat immediately are few, especially with the murky conditions of the Sound bottom,” according to a Jan. 9, 1980 report from WSU’s student newspaper, The Daily Evergreen.
Thiemann recalled being told during the search that around 10 p.m. there was screaming from the water near Dash Point.
“I know one of the rumors that they talked about was that somehow [the boat] got in front of or between a tugboat pulling logs,” he said.
Thiemann said the theory was the tugboat took the sailboat down.
“If that was the case, there would be debris,” he said.
Thiemann heard from one person that the passengers were picked up by a Russian boat.
“Nothing that I ever heard had any merit,” according to Thiemann.
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In another 1971 archived story, some speculated the boat simply might have sunk because there was extra weight on the boat.
“Seven was just too many on that boat,” a veteran sailor told The News Tribune at the time.
The sailor speculated the passengers might have “heeled” so far over that water entered the cockpit and cabin. The boat, which might have filled with water, would have sunk.
Thiemann said none of his peers thought the passengers were gone for good right after the boat went missing.
“It was simply a search to be able to find them,” he said. “I don’t think there was anything abnormal. It was an event. Similar to when somebody gets lost in the forest.”
Thiemann said in his life now he is thankful for every new day.
“While we can’t understand what happened here, we can use it as a reminder that we need to enjoy our life. Be happy and be fulfilled in what you do,” he said.
