 "4 things about the sinking of Mike Lynch’s superyacht – Firstpost")
Seven people were killed when a luxury yacht sank off the northern coast of Sicily on August 19, including British technology magnate Mike Lynch, his daughter Hannah and Jonathan Bloomer of Morgan Stanley.
Here’s what we know about the incident.
Heavy storm
The Bayesian, a 56-metre (184-foot) British-flagged superyacht, was anchored off the harbour of Porticello near Palermo when she sank during a severe and sudden weather event.
Prosecutor Raffaele Cammarano said the event was most likely a “downburst,” a violent downward wind that occurs relatively frequently at sea, rather than a waterspout with rotating winds like a tornado.
The Coast Guard said it was not unusual, given the weather forecast, for the Bayesian to have moored offshore rather than seeking shelter in port. Another yacht anchored nearby emerged from the storm unscathed.
There were 22 people on board, 15 survived, including Lynch’s wife, whose company owned the Bayesian. Survivors were found on a life raft.
Three crew members are under investigation
The public prosecutor’s office in the town of Termini Imerese near Palermo has so far launched investigations against three crew members: Captain James Cutfield, ship’s engineer Tim Parker Eaton and sailor Matthew Griffith, who is on night watch.
They are suspected of manslaughter and shipwreck, but the fact that they are under investigation in Italy does not mean they are guilty, nor will they face formal charges. Prosecutors have said the investigation will take time and require the wreck to be recovered.
According to the MarineTraffic website, the Bayesian transmitted its last signal before sinking via the automatic identification system (AIS) at 02:06 GMT. It is now lying on its right side at a depth of approximately 50 metres (164 feet).
Termini Imerese Attorney General Ambrogio Cartosio said a red flare was fired into the sky at 02:38 GMT, more than 30 minutes after the boat sank, to alert rescue services to the emergency.
Enigmatic
The rapid descent of the Bayesian underwater ship has puzzled sailors and marine engineers, who believe it would have taken hours for the ship to take on enough water to sink.
There is speculation that one or more portholes, windows or other openings may have been left open or broken or destroyed by the storm, allowing water to enter.
The yacht could tilt about 75 to 90 degrees, depending on whether its keel was up or down, and still return to the upright position, former captain Stephen Edwards wrote on his Linkedin profile.
He said the “washdown angle” at which water could enter the ship via the engine room or ventilation shafts was 40 to 45 degrees, and had that angle been exceeded, the yacht would have been in “serious trouble.”
Experts wondered whether the yacht was moored with the keel up, which might have compromised its stability, but Edwards explained that the boat’s operating regulations do not require it to keep the keel down while at anchor.
The keel is a fin-like stabilizing structure beneath the hull that can be raised to reduce the depth of the boat in shallow waters or harbors. In the Bayesian model, this could reduce the yacht’s underwater surface area from about 10 to 4 meters.
Unsinkable
Bayesian was built in 2008 by Perini Navi, an Italian luxury yacht builder, and featured the world’s tallest aluminum mast at 72 meters (236 feet).
Giovanni Costantino, CEO of the Italian Sea Group, which owns Perini, said the yacht was “one of the safest boats in the world” and virtually unsinkable.
He claimed the sinking was due to a chain of human errors, as the storm was expected. He based his claims partly on data from the automatic identification system.
If the crew had closed all doors and hatches, started the engine, raised the anchor, lowered the keel and turned the yacht against the wind, no damage would have occurred, said Costantino.
Reuters could not confirm his statements.
The captain and other crew members have not commented publicly on the disaster and Reuters’ attempts to reach them were unsuccessful.
