“It should be closed with the storm” –

A sailing ship, considered unsinkable, sank and now, a week later, we are trying to put the pieces together to understand what the missteps may have been. In short, we are investigating the possibility that the tragedy of the Bayesian, the super-yacht flying the English flag that sank off the coast of Palermo, is based on a chain of errors. There is, among others, an important knot to untie and it concerns the side door of the vessel. It is not yet clear whether, at the time of the downburst (the meteorological phenomenon that swept away the vessel), it was open or not. “The stern hatch is closed, it doesn’t allow any access to the inside. The side hatch, on the other hand, gives access to a huge locker where there are the Scuba, the tanks for diving, the windsurf. Everything that is used to go to sea is kept there because this hatch is 60 centimetres from the water: it is easier to dive in but, if the boat tilts, the water immediately enters inside”, explains Franco Romani, the nautical architect who designed the sailing boat.

But why would the side door have been open? “The passengers could have gone swimming and left it like that when they went to dinner. It’s just one hypothesis and a thousand others could be made because when the weather is good it’s useful and nice to have the side door open but, if you know a storm is coming, you have to close everything”, he explained in an interview with La Stampa. The Bayesian, the architect continued, “is part of the 56-meter series. They were lucky boats: we built 10 of them, 9 of which had two masts. An owner asked us, however, for something different: at that point we kept the basic project and built a sloop with a single mast, with a large cockpit at the bow, a truly spectacular space where the life of those on the boat takes place mainly. It was the most of the boat”. The sailing ship, Romani reiterated, “was born to sail in any weather”. What guarantees this? “The stability of a vessel is regulated by the classification societies, you cannot act as you believe”, he concluded.