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

[Chimera]

No warnings?
With weather conditions there?

"Other experts questioned
why the crew wasn’t paying closer attention to various weather warnings ahead of the tragedy.

'I don’t know if there was anyone on board consulting the radar.

Let’s say that if I had been on board, at the first sign of a thunderstorm, I would have woken up all the occupants and been ready and alert with lifejackets on until the storm was over',
one of Italy’s leading climate experts said."

‘Black swan’ weather phenomenon may have sunk Bayesian yacht, experts say

A rare and unexpected “black swan” weather event may have led to the luxury Bayesian superyacht’s speedy demise, maritime experts claim.

nypost.com

Yes, well -- I was referring to your own attached link from the NYP; that described the 'black swan phenomenon' , and how quickly it can overtake a boat of any size....regardless of the cloudy weather.
Basically the wind whipping up and behaving differently over a body of water ?

Described as rare, unexpected, and without warning :

‘Black swan’ weather phenomenon may have sunk Bayesian yacht, experts say

A rare and unexpected “black swan” weather event may have led to the luxury Bayesian superyacht’s speedy demise, maritime experts claim.

nypost.com

"....The spontaneous formation of a tornado-like waterspout would have given the 22 passengers and crew aboard the luxury vessel little to no time to react..."

Swift and deadly.
I was with friends on a smaller boat on just a lake (lake Superior), & not the ocean ; and the waves came up on a fairly sunny day.
We were tossed all over the place, and that is not something I want to repeat.
Eek.
Omo.

 

[Cryptic]

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.

The crew probably knew the ship better than the passengers. And.... there can be multiple ways to move around a super yacht- if one knows the "secret passages".

The one I very briefly worked on had a series of hidden passageways that allowed crew to move around the yacht with out being seen by the owner or guests.

Rather, we could suddenly "appear" in an area to take care of owner or guest requests, set / clean tables etc. Then, quickly "disappear" with out having to cut through VIP areas. The designer's intent was to give the VIPs the hour by hour impression that they were alone on the super yacht.

Neat design features aside, If the yacht had such passage ways, they would give crew other escape options if the main routes were blocked. Heck, even some owners might not even be aware of the full extent of the passageways- especially if they viewed the super yacht as an occasional "toy" among many super toys.

 

[Rikissa]

Oh I think I have that wrong. I think it was five couples (including one with the baby) and Hannah, occupying the six rooms.

There were five couples onboard, a baby, and a teenager (Hannah). Three of the couples were middle aged/older, and two were younger (in their 30s?), both the younger couples survived, as well as Angela Bacares. Hannah would have had a suit on her own.
Here's a list of the guests, and some of the crew onboard.

Who was on Bayesian and how they were celebrating end of Mike Lynch’s court battles

The five bodies recovered from the wreck have now been identified, with Mike Lynch’s teenage daughter still missing

www.independent.co.uk

 

[mickey2942]

Interesting that the yacht manufacturer, states that the boat should not have been at anchor. I am just surprised that every single crew member, aside from the chef was on the deck. It sounds like the passengers were not given information about how severe the storm was.

Sicily Yacht Sank Due to ‘Endless Chain of Errors,' Claims Ship Maker's CEO: ‘Everything Was Predictable’

The luxury yacht that sank off the coast of Sicily this week was the result of an "endless chain of errors," Giovanni Costantino — who is the CEO of The Italian Sea Group, the company that now owns Perini Navi, which built the Bayesian in 2008 — asserts in a new interview

people.com

 

[Cedars]

Interesting that the yacht manufacturer, states that the boat should not have been at anchor. I am just surprised that every single crew member, aside from the chef was on the deck. It sounds like the passengers were not given information about how severe the storm was.

Sicily Yacht Sank Due to ‘Endless Chain of Errors,' Claims Ship Maker's CEO: ‘Everything Was Predictable’

The luxury yacht that sank off the coast of Sicily this week was the result of an "endless chain of errors," Giovanni Costantino — who is the CEO of The Italian Sea Group, the company that now owns Perini Navi, which built the Bayesian in 2008 — asserts in a new interview

people.com

IMO everyone is lining up their 'pass the buck' strategy, because the weather forecast is calling for heavy lawsuits.

JMO

 

[Dotta]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1826722990421094733

 

[BenjaminJAndersonAlly]

The crew probably knew the ship better than the passengers. And.... there can be multiple ways to move around a super yacht- if one knows the "secret passages".

The one I very briefly worked on had a series of hidden passageways that allowed crew to move around the yacht with out being seen by the owner or guests.

Rather, we could suddenly "appear" in an area to take care of owner or guest requests, set / clean tables etc. Then, quickly "disappear" with out having to cut through VIP areas. The designer's intent was to give the VIPs the hour by hour impression that they were alone on the super yacht.

Neat design features aside, If the yacht had such passage ways, they would give crew other escape options if the main routes were blocked. Heck, even some owners might not even be aware of the full extent of the passageways- especially if they viewed the super yacht as an occasional "toy" among many super toys.

Thanks for sharing your insight. I found this all very interesting. Nice to see things from more of a “crew” perspective & consider these possibilities w/regard to the passages & such.

 

[SouthAussie]

Interesting that the yacht manufacturer, states that the boat should not have been at anchor. I am just surprised that every single crew member, aside from the chef was on the deck. It sounds like the passengers were not given information about how severe the storm was.

Sicily Yacht Sank Due to ‘Endless Chain of Errors,' Claims Ship Maker's CEO: ‘Everything Was Predictable’

The luxury yacht that sank off the coast of Sicily this week was the result of an "endless chain of errors," Giovanni Costantino — who is the CEO of The Italian Sea Group, the company that now owns Perini Navi, which built the Bayesian in 2008 — asserts in a new interview

people.com

IMO usually the safest place in a storm is below deck, lying on your bunk so you don't get tossed about and sustain injuries.
The crew would likely have been working hard to secure everything on the deck, so they were on-deck. Trying to keep the yacht as safe as possible.

Whoever made the decision to not come in close to shore made an unwise decision. This might have been the crew's captain, or it might have been the boat's owner - sometimes an owner overrules the crew.

imo

 

[BenjaminJAndersonAlly]

Mike Lynch: Body of British tech entrepreneur recovered from yacht, Italian official says, as divers search for his daughter | CNN

The body of British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch has been recovered from the sunken Bayesian superyacht, Italian interior ministry office Massimo Mariani told Reuters Thursday.

amp.cnn.com

CNN updates w/regard to ongoing investigation and the 6th body having been recovered.

 

[al66pine]

*************************Post of the Day********************

IMO everyone is lining up their 'pass the buck' strategy, because the weather forecast is calling for heavy lawsuits.
JMO

@Cedars You nailed it.
The local forecast is now calling for HEAVY LAWSUITS.
Time for everyone involved to don HazMat suits &
ready the Personal Protection Equipment.
imo
(added to my post)

 

[Cryptic]

The local forecast is now calling for HEAVY LAWSUITS.
Time for everyone involved to don HazMat suits &
ready the Personal Protection Equipment.
imo
(added to my post)

Some weather forecasts are restricted to local areas.

The owner of the yacht was British and the yacht was built in Italy. I guess lawyers could target the crew staffing company (if one was used)- but that is probably largely an internet site and could be anywhere.

I dont know what kind of weather for lawsuits British and Italian legal systems offer. Evidently, the Japanese weather for law suits is.... frozen into a solid "no" with no hope for thaw. Likewise, the Irish government / courts once declared that they will not cooperate in anyway with facilitating US based lawsuits (think it had something to do with freezing a US businessman's assets).

The British and Italian lawsuit forecasts might be warmer- by how much, I have no idea. But.... I doubt that they are anywhere near as hot as the US lawsuit forecast.

In short, it could still be smooth sailing.....

 

[mickey2942]

IMO usually the safest place in a storm is below deck, lying on your bunk so you don't get tossed about and sustain injuries.
The crew would likely have been working hard to secure everything on the deck, so they were on-deck. Trying to keep the yacht as safe as possible.

Whoever made the decision to not come in close to shore made an unwise decision. This might have been the crew's captain, or it might have been the boat's owner - sometimes an owner overrules the crew.

imo

Interesting. Possibly. However, at sea the captain is supposed to be in charge of the ship.

 

[SouthAussie]

Interesting. Possibly. However, at sea the captain is supposed to be in charge of the ship.

Definitely. But speaking from an experience I have had, I have seen a boat owner argue with the crew's captain, and win.
There was an ongoing argument about 'who' was the captain. The chief crew member or the owner. It was horrible for those of us on board.

Not saying that this happened in this case, but it is bewildering why an experienced captain would not have taken the yacht closer to shore with a storm approaching.

imo

 

[JennieM]

The search for Hannah, a bright student who recently secured a place to read English at Oxford, is said to have been hindered by debris blocking accessibility to all areas of the yacht.

[…]

Luca Cari, a spokesman for the fire rescue service, told Sky News: ‘It’s very difficult to move inside the wreckage. Moving just one metre can take up to 24 hours.’

[…]

‘We have not yet inspected the entire boat, so we think it is possible that the body is still inside. These operations are proceeding slowly, because we must first preserve the health of our operators. It is a difficult job – there are about 40 divers.’

It comes as Italian media reported that the victims were found on the opposite side of the yacht from their cabins, suggesting they may have been trying to escape the incoming water.

‘We found them all on that side . . . we had maps with the layout of the cabins and the positions of the guests, and that’s not where we recovered them,’ a source said.

A decision on whether to raise the sunken yacht from the seabed is ‘not on the agenda’, but will be in the future, Vincenzo Zagarola from the Italian Coastguard has said.

[…]

Italian authorities issue update on search for missing Hannah Lynch

Divers are scouring the wreck of the 184ft vessel for any sign of 18-year-old Hannah Lynch, who is the last of six passengers still missing from the sinking off the coast of Sicily on Monday

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[SouthAussie]

It comes as Italian media reported that the victims were found on the opposite side of the yacht from their cabins, suggesting they may have been trying to escape the incoming water.

‘We found them all on that side . . . we had maps with the layout of the cabins and the positions of the guests, and that’s not where we recovered them,’ a source said.

Could be why the hatch was open. They were trying to evacuate when the yacht rolled over.

imo

 

[Rikissa]

IMO usually the safest place in a storm is below deck, lying on your bunk so you don't get tossed about and sustain injuries.

I wouldn't stay below deck in a bunk in a storm anymore, without any access to a way out, be it on a smaller boat or a large ferry, not after the sinking of Estonia in 1994. Most of them died in their cabins, or when trying to find a way out.
I like travelling by boat, it's a relaxing way to travel, but I'm not staying below deck in a storm anymore.

Sinking of the MS Estonia - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Ruthbullock]

Definitely. But speaking from an experience I have had, I have seen a boat owner argue with the crew's captain, and win.
There was an ongoing argument about 'who' was the captain. The chief crew member or the owner. It was horrible for those of us on board.

Not saying that this happened in this case, but it is bewildering why an experienced captain would not have taken the yacht closer to shore with a storm approaching.

imo

The Baden Powel a smaller ship that rescued the survivors- was also still out in close vicinity. The captain aboard the second craft was aware of the storm, but also stayed in the area- but he readied his ship to brace for the storm.

It will probably be argued that there wasn’t enough time to start moving closer to the shore, and the other ship made that same decision.

 

[branmuffin]

Clearly, the designers are throwing the crew under the bus in that article. It'll be interesting to see what the crew's take on things is when they speak to the media.

The Italian authorities will investigate to see if criminal charges should be brought against anyone, but under international maritime law responsibility for determining why a ship foundered rests with the country of registration, so even though the Bayesian sank in Italian waters, it's the UK's Marine Accident Investigation Branch that should lead that part of the investigation. The MAIB have announced that their invesigation has started.

Marine Accident Investigation Branch: current investigations

www.gov.uk

I don't think they are throwing them under the bus. The captain of the boat is responsible for what happens when a storm comes up. They list the processes one goes through when caught up in a freak storm. You keep the engine running. You have the keel lowered to provide ballast for the mast. (I think the mast was an issue since it was manufactured to be more than the acceptable ratio of mast to ship length.) That's all fine and dandy if you are treating it like a racing yacht where the crew is actively sailing it, not when the sails are furled, the keel is up and all your passengers are sleeping. The passengers on a private vessel should be ordered by the captain to get themselves up on deck, never mind that they are billionaires celebrating a win in court, he's responsible for their safety and that of his crew. As much as the design of this vessel could have ultimately played a role in its sinking, the captain should have been monitoring the radio and been familiar with the types of storms that come up quickly in that area. That did not happen.

 

[Dotta]

I know that it is a superstition
but
we all have heard that renaming a boat is bad luck
It was built as Salute by Perini Navi at Viareggio, Italy.

Bayesian (yacht) - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[SouthAussie]

" Gabriele Bruni, a sailor who has twice participated in the America’s Cup and has coached the Italian Olympic team ..... said

“The captains and crew of a vessel like the Bayesian are not chosen at random. We are talking about the best professionals in the world. If there’s a storm, the captain must first call the crew to try to right the vessel and take all necessary measures to avoid a shipwreck.

“The sudden storm or mini tornado would have caught them off guard while they were attempting to do what was necessary to ensure the safety of the passengers.

“Unfortunately, they didn’t make it in time. But these are all speculations for now. We’ll have to wait for the end of investigations to understand the causes of the incident.”

“I am incredulous about what happened to a yacht like this,” he added. “If they had asked me that night, in a stormy day, in which sailboat in the world I would have wanted to be, I would have chosen the Bayesian.” "

Italian investigators trying to establish why Bayesian superyacht sank so quickly

Bodies of missing people recovered as experts and witnesses ponder fate of vessel struck by localised storm off Sicily

www.theguardian.com