Italy - Sailing yacht sank off Italian coast, 15 rescued, 7 missing, 19 August 2024

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From what I've seen so far this is starting to look like the water version of the Conception fire incident. Even though this was a big expensive yacht with the owner on board the yacht doesn't exactly seem designed to handle emergencies safely if you are below deck at least as far as emergencies requiring you to get on deck. I think those who died might have been the furthest away from the stairs, like it looks like the master bedroom that the Lynches were in was the furthest away from access to stairs and there may have been other safety issues with the master bedroom. There was two sets of stairs but only one was by bedrooms with the other further away in a living room, which is a worse design than the Conception that at least theoretically had two exits in the sleeping area.
 
Yellowbelly said:
Were storms forecast for this area? If they were, how well prepared were the crew? What sort of watch was being kept on the bridge? If storms were forecast, anchoring with the keel up looks like a massive oversight.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Experts says guests on superyacht should have been given life jackets

The luxury sailboat was docked off the coast of Porticello, near Palermo, when a 'whirlwind' hit the area just before 5am on Monday morning. wrecking the boat and causing it to rapidly sink.
www.dailymail.co.uk www.dailymail.co.uk
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The yacht was sunk by a tornado created by the storm, not the storm itself. Other boats were in the area, but none of them were even damaged.

I'm not familiar with yachts, but with other boats you remove the keel when you're in shallow water, where it might be damaged by rocks. They were likely at anchorage there so that people could easily go ashore. IMO, the Captain may have chosen to keep the keel up in case the boat dragged the anchor during the storm and scraped the keel right off on rocks. That is a proper decision to safeguard the yacht.

It was the mast snapping off that made the boat roll, and although the lack of keel made the boat roll even more, IMO no one, including the designer of the yacht, or it's various owners or Captains, could have anticipated the mast snapping in a storm.

JMO
 
SpanishInquisition said:
From what I've seen so far this is starting to look like the water version of the Conception fire incident. Even though this was a big expensive yacht with the owner on board the yacht doesn't exactly seem designed to handle emergencies safely if you are below deck at least as far as emergencies requiring you to get on deck. I think those who died might have been the furthest away from the stairs, like it looks like the master bedroom that the Lynches were in was the furthest away from access to stairs and there may have been other safety issues with the master bedroom. There was two sets of stairs but only one was by bedrooms with the other further away in a living room, which is a worse design than the Conception that at least theoretically had two exits in the sleeping area.
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Good point, no doubt a luxurious amount of space was prioritized over emergency measures, since no one would own a yacht if they believed it could sink in just a few minutes while anchored close to shore in the Mediterranean.

IMO, a cabin isn't necessarily an unsafe place to be during a storm, since you're protected from the wind, unlike on deck. I know someone who survived a hurricane by staying below deck, who would have been washed off if he'd gone above.

JMO
 
bmacmillan1 said:
That would be human error then?
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It could be.

I wonder if there is alot of crew turn over on these super yachts. A high crew turn over rate regarding the "sailing" component of the crew would be especially detrimental.

I was once briefly on a super yacht- not because I knew the owner, but I knew one of the hospitality crew who helped me get on as a hospitality assistant for one short trip. Anyways, that captain seemed extremely competent- had the mannerisms of a naval commander. Key crew members also seemed experienced. But... that was 25 years ago and the super yacht did not have sails.

I get the impression today that there are alot more super yachts out there now. But has the number of crew members available for hire kept place with the increased demand?

This super yacht also had sails. Which, in turn means that the crew would need to know how to truly, well, sail. If there was a crew shortage of key members, or if high turn over kept crew members from becoming truly proficient with the sail configurations etc, I am thinking things could get bad fast.

Another possibility is that the crew was very used to automated systems (including sail configuring??) handling everything. But then they could not react fast enough if automated systems started failing? This has caused more than a few air plane crashes.
 
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Ruthbullock said:
I find it curious the captain from the other boat (the one that caught it all on CCTV, and was relatively close) was awake and had taken action due to the weather.
But then I also think about what logical action you would take- even if the alarm was sounded for the guests (and we don’t know it wasn’t, even if it was a crew member verbally trying to tell guests) and the sleeping guests woke and started putting on life vests- they could still have potentially been in the rooms that effectively got sealed by sliding mattresses as the ship tilted. Even raising the anchor is a slower process than most of us think, so all the crew could have been alert, and it was still unavoidable.

Note to self if I won the lottery and owned a yacht, attach the mattresses with straps to the bed.
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were mattresses blocking their exits??
 
Ruthbullock said:
I find it curious the captain from the other boat (the one that caught it all on CCTV, and was relatively close) was awake and had taken action due to the weather.
But then I also think about what logical action you would take- even if the alarm was sounded for the guests (and we don’t know it wasn’t, even if it was a crew member verbally trying to tell guests) and the sleeping guests woke and started putting on life vests- they could still have potentially been in the rooms that effectively got sealed by sliding mattresses as the ship tilted. Even raising the anchor is a slower process than most of us think, so all the crew could have been alert, and it was still unavoidable.

Note to self if I won the lottery and owned a yacht, attach the mattresses with straps to the bed.
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IMO (I have done a lot of sailing, some of it longer distance around the Bahamas) ... the crew should have been watching the weather forecast. When a storm is brewing you head for safe harbour. They likely should not have been at anchor, ½ a mile out from the port of Porticello.

Docks are very accommodating when bad weather is on the horizon. Even if they are full, they get you in close to shore.
 
Divers searching the wreckage of a superyacht which sank off the coast of Sicily on Monday have found the bodies of five of the six missing passengers, and recovered four of them to shore.

The Italian Coastguard has not formally identified the bodies which have been brought up from the wreck of the Bayesian - but rescuers have spent days searching for four Britons and two Americans.

[…]

Italian authorities have so far declined to identify those recovered, despite reports from local and international media on some of their names.

This is likely because they are waiting to bring back all six bodies before contacting the victims' families and according to Italian law, the deceased must be formally identified by a family member, or a person close to the victims, before the deaths can be officially certified.

www.bbc.co.uk

Sicily yacht divers find five bodies in wreck of the Bayesian

The grim discoveries come two days after the Bayesian sank in a freak storm off Sicily.
www.bbc.co.uk
 
I find it odd that his co defended had an accident (was run over) one or two days prior.

I also wonder, since camera footage has shown the boat sank in less than 60 seconds, with all the panic that must have been going on, and people being at different locations on this large yacht, how 15 managed to get into a lifeboat in less than a minute (mainly staff).

Very sad for all involved and their families.
 
Micheline said:
I also wonder, since camera footage has shown the boat sank in less than 60 seconds, with all the panic that must have been going on, and people being at different locations on this large yacht, how 15 managed to get into a lifeboat in less than a minute (mainly staff).

Very sad for all involved and their families.
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The crew would have been on-deck, securing rigging, securing the boom, trying to batten down the hatches, launching the life boat. All of this takes some time, and is quite normal to do in bad weather.
So they would have been on-deck when the boat rolled. Probably thrown into the sea and made their way to the lifeboat. IMO
 
Micheline said:
I find it odd that his co defended had an accident (was run over) one or two days prior.

I also wonder, since camera footage has shown the boat sank in less than 60 seconds, with all the panic that must have been going on, and people being at different locations on this large yacht, how 15 managed to get into a lifeboat in less than a minute (mainly staff).

Very sad for all involved and their families.
Click to expand...

That's what happened with the Conception. Most of the crew weren't trapped below deck (the only crew member who was below deck died with the passengers), so it was far easier for the crew to escape. With Lynch's wife who did survive it sounds like she went all John McClane, walking through broken glass barefoot to escape. The whole passenger living quarters looked very glassy, so the whole floor would have been a hazard if you didn't have your shoes on. Rather than smoke and fire with Conception, it seems like it was water and broken glass that did it for the Bayesian. Lynch might have thought it his own custom ship was effectively unsinkable so that's why he stayed with his daughter (maybe even telling his daughter to stay in the room), perhaps thinking it was more risky to go through broken glass than to wait for help to arrive.
 
SpanishInquisition said:
Lynch might have thought it his own custom ship was effectively unsinkable so that's why he stayed with his daughter (maybe even telling his daughter to stay in the room), perhaps thinking it was more risky to go through broken glass than to wait for help to arrive.
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It wasn't Mike Lynch who owned the boat, it was his wife Angela Bacares who owned it. It's possible she was up to speak with the captain about the storm. The baby and her parents were up on the deck, probably the baby were fussy because of the storm. I saw a drawing of the yacht, and there were five suits for guests, and a master suit, and as there were four couples besides the Lynches, I would guess that the daughter had her own suit, and not staying with her parents.
 
SpanishInquisition said:
That's what happened with the Conception. Most of the crew weren't trapped below deck (the only crew member who was below deck died with the passengers), so it was far easier for the crew to escape. With Lynch's wife who did survive it sounds like she went all John McClane, walking through broken glass barefoot to escape. The whole passenger living quarters looked very glassy, so the whole floor would have been a hazard if you didn't have your shoes on. Rather than smoke and fire with Conception, it seems like it was water and broken glass that did it for the Bayesian. Lynch might have thought it his own custom ship was effectively unsinkable so that's why he stayed with his daughter (maybe even telling his daughter to stay in the room), perhaps thinking it was more risky to go through broken glass than to wait for help to arrive.
Click to expand...

"Unsinkable". Yes, like the "Titanic".
 
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