One person is dead and there are 15 survivors following the falling of a pleasure yacht off the northwestern coast of Sicily, along with American technology billionaire Mike Lynch and a Morgan Stanley professional.
What we know about the incident on August 19 and what aquatic experts are saying about possible events are as follows.
Violent storm
The Bayesian, a British flagged 56-metre ( 184-feet ) superyacht, sank in the dark shortly before 5 am ( 0300 GMT ) off the port of Porticello, near Palermo, after being hit by a “violent storm”, the Italian coast guard said.
The beach watch claimed that poor conditions had been forecast, but added that it was more severe than expected. Some citizens spoke of a link, or ocean whirlwind, of remarkable force. ” It was a strange thing”, man Andrea Carini told Reuters. The Bayesian was at anchor, its boats over, when the storm hit, with another sailboat moored outside.
The other ship
After its commander turned the 42-meter Sir Robert Baden Powell motor on, the local yacht continued to moor and survive the surprise while avoiding incident with the Bayesian.
The skipper, Karsten Borner, said he did not know if the staff of the Bayesian had managed to change on its vehicles. ” I do n’t think they did things wrong, I think they were surprised by the power of the storm”, he told Reuters.
” I just know that they went straight with the tower on the water and that they sank in two moments”, he said, adding that the wind was “very violent, quite intense”, bringing in” a lot of fluids and I think a turning technique like a tornado”.
Swift capsizing
A ship the size of the Bayesian may only drop so quickly if it took in a lot of fluids, according to Andrea Ratti, a professor of coastal design at Milan Polytechnic University. ” One may create realistic beliefs that leave room for question” about what happened, he said, suggesting that one or more vents, windows or additional opportunities may have been broken or smashed open by the link, letting in water.
Additionally, there has been rumor in the media that an important hatch might have been accidentally left open.
However, a British industry expert claimed that the Bayesian’s rapid demise should have taken hours to fill up with enough water to sink it. I do n’t believe the industry has ever experienced this. It’s a horror story”, he said, declining to be named.
Fire department diver Marco Tilotta told Il Messaggero daily the wreck was “apparently intact”, with” no gashes, no signs of impact”. However, only one half of the hull is visible to divers.
Tallest mast
The Bayesian was built in 2008 by Perini Navi, an Italian luxury yacht maker, and had won awards for its design. According to Perini, it featured the world’s tallest aluminium mast, measuring 72 metres.
Ratti asserted that a mast that is unusually tall does not represent vulnerability in a storm by itself. A second expert, structural engineer Filippo Mattioni, agreed, and also pointed to the possibility of” an open hatch” letting in water. A broken mast, which could have caused significant damage when the hull had been struck, had sceptical of both experts. ” If the mast had been broken they would n’t have capsized”, captain Borner said.
Retractable keel
The hull of the Bayesian had a retractable keel, a fin-like structure underneath the hull that aids in boat stabilization and serves as a counterweight to the mast. Ratti and Mattioni wondered if the yacht had been anchored with the keel raised, which reduced its depth under water by about 10 to 4 meters, making it less stable. Ratti said the boat might have started oscillating wildly, “like a pendulum”, under strong winds, putting exceptional strain on the mast. But even if this had led to its breaking,” this by itself is not enough to justify the sinking”, he said.
Investigation
Prosecutors in Termini Imerese, a nearby town, have opened an investigation into the disaster. It will likely take them several months to finish their case.
