Nikkei Captain Awaits Sentencing in Seamen’s Manslaughter Case

On a stormy night in the fall of 2005, a 38-foot charter fishing boat, the Sydney Mae II, was hit with two breaker waves in the treacherous waters where Oregon’s Umpqua River runs into the Pacific Ocean. When the second wave descended on the boat, Captain Richard Oba, 58, and his four passengers were thrown into the icy Pacific. Some 45 minutes later, Coast Guard rescuers found Oba and passenger James Parker clinging to Oba’s life jacket.

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This is a story we have been following for some time.

Dwayne