Giovanni Costantino, founder and CEO of The Italian sea group “the listed company that owns the assets of Perini navi of Viareggio, which built the Bayesian in 2008, who describes it as “one of the safest ships in the world”, “practically “unsinkable” spoke to Corriere della Sera about the causes of the maritime tragedy in Palermo.
“Everything that has been done reveals a very long list of mistakes. People were not supposed to be in the cabins, the boat was not supposed to be at anchor. And then why didn’t the crew know about the incoming turbulence? The passengers reported something absurd, namely that the storm arrived unexpectedly, out of nowhere. This is not true. Everything was predictable. I have the weather maps right here in front of me. Nothing came suddenly,” said the businessman.
“Ask yourself: why weren’t any Porticello fishermen out that night? A fisherman reads the weather and a ship doesn’t? The weather disturbance was fully recognizable on all weather charts. It was impossible not to know,” concluded Mr. Constantino.
Five bodies out of a total of six missing have so far been recovered by underwater searches of the hull of the yacht Bayesian which capsized and sank near Palermo in Sicily during a severe storm on Monday
According to the Daily Telegraph, citing the head of the Sicilian Civil Protection Service, two of the bodies found on Wednesday, August 21, belong to British tycoon Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter.
Mike Lynch, tech guru and software sales millionaire. The ultra-luxury yacht belonged to him and is registered to one of his companies. Along on the boat were his daughter Hannah, who lost her life, and her mother, Angela Bakaris, who survived.
The rest of the bodies recovered belong to Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Blumer, Leeds’ US lawyer and partner at Clifford Chance in New York. Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda, a jewelry designer in New York.
Finally, Judy Bloomer, wife of Jonathan Bloomer and former director of the real estate development company Change Real Estate, remains missing.
It is recalled that the yacht’s chef, Ricardo Thomas, was found dead a few hours after the yacht sank. The search for her continues today by cave divers and with the help of a specialized underwater robot.
Shipwreck in Palermo: Is the secret of sinking hidden in the yacht’s keel? – What experts say at Eleftherostypos.gr
It thickens the mystery surrounding the sinking of the Bayesian luxury vessel in its open air Palermo in Sicily, as even experts struggle to explain how a large luxury yacht sank in a matter of minutes.
The fact that another yacht moored near the superyacht just off Sicily was unscathed by the storm raises even more questions. According to the BBC, four British inspectors from the UK Maritime Accident Investigation Agency have arrived in Sicily to conduct a preliminary assessment of the circumstances of the sinking.
The team of British experts is working closely with the Italian authorities, who for their part are determined to discover the causes of the rapid sinking of the Bayesian, although of course the priority at the moment is to locate all the missing persons.
How the Bayesian sunk
Experts speak to Eleftherostypos.gr and they are trying to provide answers as to how the luxury yacht disappeared to the bottom within a few minutes. As they point out the causes of the Bayesian’s rapid sinking are very likely to be in the keel of the boat.
Such a vessel, experts say, has a keel of about 3.5 meters when closed and running its engines. But when it wants to travel under sail, the boat opens its keel, which can reach 9 meters, which perhaps did not happen in this particular case.
“The captain of the vessel may have ignored the weather warnings and proceeded with the keel closed. This may have created instability in the vessel, which has a 75-meter mast, the tallest in the world, when it was hit by a wave or a very strong gust of wind,” the experts point out in Eleftherostypos.gr.
“While yachts are generally more difficult to capsize than other vessels, this can happen when the vessel is hit by wind or waves with enough force to push the mast parallel to the water. The most dangerous situation is when the mast sinks below the surface of the water,” the experts conclude.
And here comes the pivotal role of the open keel which is the underwater structure of the boat that extends below the waterline. It serves two main purposes: a) neutralizing the force of wind and waves to prevent the boat from capsizing and b) providing lateral resistance to help the boat sail against the wind. When she is closed in extreme bad weather the yacht becomes more vulnerable.
Based on the evidence so far, the wave that hit Bayesian appears to have been a hydro-turbine caused by one of the many storms that have swept through Italy in recent days, with floods and landslides causing severe damage in the north of the country after weeks of heatwave . Since the mast was found intact on the seabed, the theory of a fault with the keel becomes more likely and this is what the divers investigating the wreck will try to establish.
The scenario with the portholes
From there on to a more detailed recording of the event from the specialized channel on you tube
eSysman SuperYachts is also presented as a possible cause and the failure of the crew to close the portholes. According to experts, the time that elapsed from the moment the 56-meter sailboat was hit by a sudden and very strong storm to its complete sinking was very short. In fact, this element led the Italian authorities to consider the scenario that the portholes of the boat had been left open.
Sam Jefferson, editor of Sailing Today magazine, also said he believed open hatches, portholes and doors could have contributed to the superyacht’s rapid sinking. .
Andrea Ratti, a professor of naval design at the Polytechnic University of Milan, said a boat the size of the Bayesian would only sink so quickly if it took on a huge amount of water. He characteristically stated: “I would say the boat was hit very hard by the wind, it tipped to the side and I imagine because all the doors, portholes, hatches were wide open because of the heat, it filled with water very quickly and sank.”
The temperature, that evening in the area fluctuated around 33 degrees Celsius. Luca Mercali, president of the Italian Meteorological Society, said that due to the storm, the crew should have made sure that all visitors were awake and wearing life jackets.
Gavin Prichard, a former investigator with Britain’s Maritime Investigation Agency (MAIB), told the Telegraph newspaper that “MAIB will want to examine the vessel using a remote-controlled underwater vehicle and divers to see where the watertight doors were, the hatches and windows” and added that “I honestly cannot think of any similar incident in naval annals”.
What is Bayesian sailing
Bayesian is a 55.9m overall sailing yacht built by the Italian Perini Navi in 2008 and last refitted in 2020. The superyacht has a beam of 11.51m and a mast of 75m, the tallest in the world. In the world ranking of the largest yachts, Bayesian is at number 677. It is the 17th largest boat built by Perini Navi.
Prosecutorial investigation and interrogations
At the same time, the preliminary investigation began as part of the public prosecutor’s investigation into the causes of the wreck and a parallel one to establish whether all the necessary safety measures had been observed on the boat. The Bayesian’s captain, James Catfield, stayed in the Port Authority investigator’s office for more than two hours.
All survivors, passengers and crew will testify.
A team of inspectors will be sent to Palermo by the British Coast Guard’s Investigative Authority (MAIB), who will study the evidence and the site of the incident to make a first assessment of what happened.
Search for 6 missing people in yacht wreck boosted with high-performance ROV #Bayesian in Porticello by the Subs #GuardiaCostieraThe Robot can operate up to 300 meters deep and record videos and images to reconstruct the dynamics of the event for the Prosecutor’s Office. pic.twitter.com/31MGGxc7N5
— Coast Guard (@guardiacostiera) August 21, 2024
Bayesian’s latest moves
The BBC searched and found through the networks that monitor the movement of coastal shipping the last movements of the yacht, before it was hit by the extreme weather phenomenon that led it, in just 60 seconds, to the bottom of the sea, while it was at a distance of less than a kilometer from Porticello port.
According to data from Marinetraffic.com, shortly before 4am (Italian time) on Monday 19 August, the ‘Bayesian’ and another nearby yacht, the ‘Sir Robert Baden-Powell’, began to move, increasing their speed, towards the open seaand they move away from Porticello.
CCTV captures £30m Bayesian superyacht sinking “in 60 seconds” off #Sicily coast during storm
6 missing, including British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, his daughter & Morgan Stanley boss
Yacht struck by waterspout at 5am Monday. Rescue efforts hampered by depth & debris pic.twitter.com/NKhRg4md0z
— True Crime Updates (@TrueCrimeUpdat) August 20, 2024
Less than 15 minutes later, the ‘Bayesian’ appears to come to an abrupt halt, while the ‘Sir Robert Baden-Powell’ stops shortly after, just 200 meters away.
Afterwards, ‘Sir Robert Baden-Powell’ is seen moving slowly around the area. He had already started looking for shipwrecked people to rescue them. “Bayesian” has stopped moving. This is his last recorded position.
#Boats #Bayesian #unsinkable
