Super yacht sinking - did the crew bravely survive or did they abandon their the passengers

[mids2019]

So....most of the crew survived this tragedy but the passengers died. Do you think it will emerge the crew should have e done more to alrt the passengers and indeed put their lives in danger to attempt a rescue? Maybe it was all just too fast?

I just think there seems silence from the crew at moment despite being survivors of a sinking vessel who have a story to tell. Are lawyers advising they stay quiet on this?

@HazelPlayer

Yes and if it is a phenomenon like a down surge, it's unlikely another craft would:have fared well either

I don’t want to clog up two threads with downbursts but I don’t think anyone is saying the boat was pushed down by the downburst, a lot of the problems caused by downbursts are due to outflow, not downflow.….

A downburst of air from a Cumulonimbus tends to become a horizontal radial outflow as it approaches the surface, and the horizontal flow (direction but especially the speed) can be different at different distances above the surface, and usually faster as you go higher up.

The very tall mast the accident yacht possessed verses other yachts in the area might be a factor if a downburst was to blame.

I am not a specialist but even away from all of these things, the problem with dragging anchor is that it could hook onto anything? In conjunction with how the weather affecting your path and stability it's potentially quite dangerous if you can't you lose your anchor if you need to?
I don't know but there's a loop on the ship's satellite's path, it doesn't look like a peaceful 15 minutes.

I certainly wouldn’t be putting my life at risk to save guests!!

Sorry, I've wrongly referred to it as a down surge, instead of down burst.

The owner of the yacht did survive. Mike Lynch's wife was the owner.

These freak accidents are seldom caused by just one thing, it looks as if this was a combination of many different factors which all combine to go horribly wrong. It's important to know the cause to stop it happening again, rather than find someone to blame.

I think the migrant drownings should be given much more coverage, it might deter people from risking their lives in the hands of the criminal gangs who run the people smuggling trade. These gangs are responsible for thousands of deaths, and they are getting away with it.

@InevitableNameChanger

"So that means in a crisis there a very few people who are going to be much use to anyone."

Plus it's 4 am, dark, chucking it down with rain, minimal visibility and blowing a hoolie.

MAIB will do a full investigation and the report will be available on their website in due course so no need to speculate, just wait for the facts to be published.

but that it was a warning that something wasn't right and people needed to be woken up and brought to an assembly point.

I have been in a storm on a boat which was anchored (smaller than one but still a big boat by sailing standard. That boat that done a full round the world trip. Just to give you an idea of circumstances).
The storm wasn’t planned either but winds were similar force than the ones you have in a small hurricane. (Mix of the storm plus the environment that accelerated the winds)

1- a anchor doesn’t malfunction. It might rip. It might not be able to allow the boat the stay put but that’s not a malfunction. That’s asking a piece of equipment to go over their capacity.
2- you do not want people outside during a storm. But rather, you want them inside where they are less likely to be injured. Outside, the crew needs space to deal with whatever is happening. They don’t need to also have to think about what the passengers are doing (which will be likely to be something stupid)
And tbh even though it’s a big sailing boat, it’s not big enough to need an assembly point!! A storm isn’t normally a ‘danger to life’ situation.

Im personally struggling to see what could have happened unless it was something very sudden, unpredictable, and localised.

So you think the lateral force from a down burst could 'catch" the mast from the side (with more force than it would a shorter mast) and help push the yacht past a recoverable angle?

Fair enough.

It's just that I've seen yachts recover from extreme angles, as long as the keel was sufficient (none of them had adjustable keels, I don't think) but if it's true when people state the keel wasn't fully down in this situation (?) and the force violent enough; I suppose it might not recover and if one side got flooded badly ....

It's awful, whatever the case.

Nothing will be ascertained clearly until the investigation.

I wouldn’t argue at all with that assessment, but overall I think a sudden and unpredictable weather event is the most likely cause of the sinking. That area of the Med had been experiencing extreme conditions all week.

In a storm, you WANT the anchor to hook onto something, anything.
Because that what’s will stop the boat from crashing into the shore/other boats.

It’s also very easy to lose the anchor if you want to. You just let the rope/chain attached to the anchor go to the end.

I haven’t seen that sate,kite image but if the boat was going round in circle, that’s because the wind was changing direction constantly. A boat on an anchor always faces the wind direction. If the direction isn’t stable, the boat will go from right to left a bit wildly.
There is also a talk that the retractable keel of the boat was up, which would have made it more likely to go from right to left very windy.

That's it, the sideways thing doesn't seem enough for me, normally the keel should do it's job. I 've had some sketchy moments on yachts in storms but always felt confident that that keel was doing it's job.

The mast acting like a sail could have made the yacht harder to handle at anchor though.

I mean it is very strange timing… However it could just be an incredible coincidence. Apparently this movie is about a whistleblower who avoided a failed hit and run on her:

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silkwood

@HazelPlayer

So you think the lateral force from a down burst could 'catch" the mast from the side (with more force than it would a shorter mast) and help push the yacht past a recoverable angle?

I think it might be one of many considerations.

It’s probably more important to just to be aware in the view of today’s comments where the downburst word got used is that a downburst turns into a “horizontal burst” near the surface and can produce some very high horizontal wind speeds.

Like I said previously, the most likely answer in a disaster like this is that multiple factors conspired. The terrible and unexpectedly severe weather being on of them (but other boats, not far away, survived it). The state /set up of the boat and actions of the crew being others.

I agree.
Boats like this are designed to cope with a really sharp angle.

I might be wrong but all the time I’ve heard about a boat ‘going over the recovery angle’, waves have been involved. It wasn’t the wind, esp wo sails, that did it.

Is wind not always horizontal???

Exactly this.

It's not a competition on what is most shocking.

Oh looks like the death was suspicious and resulted in a major payout…

I haven't seen this mentioned yet but presumably Mike Lynch had found out that day about the death of Stephen Chamberlain. So it would have been a sad and difficult day for them and maybe even a late night up having drinks. Not sure if this is relevant at all as it all might have happened so quickly but they might well have been very tired, a little drunk (not the crew of course) and not long gone to bed. The crew would have been mindful of this too. I realise this is pure speculation in terms of what they had been up to that day but timings-wise it would be true to say they had been told about his business partner's death.

Thanks for replying. Do we know if only one anchor was used?
If the anchor failed to keep you in place for 15 minutes, wouldn't you pull it up and start the engine?

Two anchors means the chain/ropes attached to the anchors might get tangled up.
It might be working better if the wind direction is consistent. If not, the ropes with twist around each other making it less efficient.

And you wouldn’t pull the anchor up because it’s likely that the engines wouldn’t be strong enough to ‘fight against’ the wind. So the boat again would be uncontrollable and would end up on the shore.
The talk about using the engine is about helping the anchor do its job.

So sorry - wrong thread.