On April 10, 1986, 35-year-old Fred Robert Davis of Sitka—also known as Fast Freddy Davis or Fred Robert Edward Davis—was aboard the tugboat Roughneck when it jackknifed while towing the barge Annahootz in Serigus Narrows. Davis was wearing Levi jeans and a gray shirt. The accident capsized the tug; three crewmen escaped but Davis and 55-year-old Clyde Watson of LaPine, Oregon, were lost and never recovered.

Two days earlier the same tug and barge had a minor incident in Wrangell Narrows that caused a small fuel spill. Search efforts after the sinking were immediate and extensive but turned up no sign of Davis or Watson, and the official search was eventually called off.

Did anyone in the maritime community or Sitka remember the Roughneck’s operations around April 1986 or have information about the events that day?