The city of San Rafael, California, purchased a fireboat, they named Confidence, in 2016.[1][2] The 27 feet (8.2 m) boat, built in 2003, was purchased for $50,000, from San Juan Island, Washington, by the San Rafael Fire Foundation, a local charity.[3] The Foundation then donated the vessel, to the city.
In 2020, San Rafael purchased a new boat Fireboat San Rafael and Confidence was sold to the City of Berkeley Fire Department as the agencies first fully equipped fire suppression watercraft.[1]
She was built in 2003, arrived in California in October 2016, and underwent maintenance.[2] Testing and training began in March, 2017 and she first went into service in May of 2017.[4] She is currently in service out of the Berkeley Marina as a resource of the Berkeley Fire Department performing search and rescue, as well as fighting fires.[2]
The Confidence was deployed on December 11, 2018, following an industrial accident on East Marin Island, part of the Marin Islands National Wildlife Refuge, located off San Rafael Bay.[5] Construction worker Shawn Frederick Moore was buried in rubble when a retaining wall collapsed. Firefighters were able to unearth his body, but he had already died.