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With Leipzig and Fregattenkapitän Haun finally on the scene, the pair of formerly British ships were completely brought under new ownership. Haun was elated to have captured such a bountiful prize but a prickling sense of anxiety had washed over him when he observed the scene. A group of four ships sitting a few miles offshore was impossible to miss and all it would take is a single inquisitive local to cause them to lose the element of surprise. Refueling at sea was never ideal but Leipzig could not afford to pass up the opportunity to prolong her mission, there was also no suitable protected anchorages in this area to utilize. A skeleton crew from Seelöwe had found just enough coal to raise steam aboard Algerine who alongside River Forth, was moved out of visual range of the shore as quickly as possible. Once the newly formed flotilla had found a suitable patch of sea roughly 8 nautical miles off shore to conduct it’s refueling operations, the severity of the situation the Germans had found themselves became fully apparent. While the cruiser was being coaled, the German officers once again met in order to discuss the situation. The captured British and Canadian sailors watched with amusement as their former captors engaged in one of the dirtiest and most laborious tasks a sailor could be put to. All possible crew was diverted back from the Seelöwe and the captured vessels to assist in the fueling, although such micromanaging was already beginning to grind the nerves of Haun and Hartkopf. The issue of manpower was front and center as Leipzig’s 261 strong crew was meticulously picked through in order to see what could be accomplished with their ragged little armada.

All four ships would be impossible to properly crew with the men they had, the idea of operating with skeleton crews though was not especially welcome given the already stretched limits of Leipzig herself. It was agreed that the collier would need to be retained, as its cargo was far too valuable to scuttle and its overall compliment would be rather small. As the rest of the units would transit the Juan de Fuca Strait, the River Forth would make its way up the outer coast of Vancouver Island and find a safe anchorage somewhere in Queen Charlotte Sound to the North. There the ship would hopefully await the arrival of their successful allies as they made their way back out into the Pacific. It was decided to transfer the prisoners into the multiple empty cargo holds of River Forth alongside the injured and accompanying supplies from Seelöwe, including a pair of pom poms and all small arms. If a suitable settlement could be found on the way, the prisoners could potentially be offloaded as well, although only if the ship itself was not put at undue risk in doing so. All transfer operations would have to wait until the next day in order to have Leipzig fully fueled and to allow her crew some rest. It was incredibly tempting to put the 226 strong prisoner compliment to work in moving the equipment and coal however in accordance with the Hague Conventions of 1899, Ch. II Art 6, prisoners of war could not be used as labor in relation to military operations. Algerine was rated for a 106-man crew nominally compared to the 62-man crew of the armed Seelöwe. In traditional raiding operations, Seelöwe would be rated as the more capable vessel given her immense speed and range advantages over the old sloop however, the Germans were no longer undertaking what could be considered traditional raiding. While Algerine was glacially slow at around 13 knots and somewhat personnel hungry, her armament of six 4”/40 guns and protective deck was viewed as an excellent secondary raider for demolishing assets up and down the coast of British Columbia. This would leave Seelöwe as the odd one out so to speak. Scuttling her was the most practical option as having a fast vessel like this returned to service would be a boon for the Canadians.

Whatever was to be done, it would have to wait until next light. The crew of the cruiser worked tirelessly at the filthy job of coaling, burning through all of the available daylight and even into the early hours of the night sky but in the end, the treacherous task was completed and the men were released for a nights rest. All hands were back to work at first dawn on August 15 but as the winds began to kick the sea into a swirling chop, the tasks at hand turned increasingly difficult. By 1729 hours, Seelöwe had been cleared of all supplies, weapons, men and other valuables while Algerine and River Forth had been fully coaled and prepared for sea under new management. The most valuable of this equipment was her wireless set which was very quickly put aboard Leipzig to allow her to communicate with River Forth or any other German vessels after the fact. Lieutenant Hartkopf was placed in command of Algerine while Lieutenant Ritter would be in command of River Forth. Scuttling charges were placed aboard Seelöwe and at 1823 hours through a dull sounding explosion and cloud of debris, the former liner slipped beneath the waves. In a bout of shared sailors superstition, the commanding officers of the three vessels agreed to leave the names of their ships be for the foreseeable future, hopefully to bring them some better luck. The wreck of Seelöwe was located in 1987 by the US Navy and is laying on her port side in 63 m of water.

Fregattenkapitän Haun would later state regarding the scuttling of Seelöwe, "It was rather unfortunate that such a fine vessel had to be sunk however, we had few options open to us. While I appreciated the cunning idea to attempt a ramming of the drydock in Esquimalt, I was not particularly enthused about wasting the lives of my men on what could have largely amounted to a fools errand, the few men we had were irreplaceable and the very life blood of our operations. Lieutenant Hartkopf seemed somewhat dejected initially at the prospect of turning in his greyhound for an old warhorse but in the narrow, target rich confines of British Columbia, such speed is wasteful in comparison to firepower."