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?

Yes you are right, I've just found a photo and it does look like in boom furling. Apologies.

We don’t know who got on the life raft first etc - we don’t know if anyone did before the sinking or if all were swept off and the raft auto inflated and some (crew, passengers) scrambled in first. We do know that someone helped Charlotte G and her baby Sophie into the life raft from the water.

The surviving crew and passengers were all involved, I am sure, in sailing the life raft and trying to find missing people in the water and giving first aid to the four injured people in the life raft.

So no need for any talk of “jumping ship” - the ship sank. It wasn’t the Costa Concordia or the titanic, which took a long time to sink. It was all very quick (reports vary but somewhere between 5 and 16 minutes, it seems) and then everyone was either in the water, under the water or on the life raft.

I agree and the only thing I can think of is that, although there was a big difference in keel length/depth depending on whether it was retracted or not, the actual difference in the angle the yacht could recover from with it up v's down was stated (somewhere I read that seemed credible) to be only 10 degrees (70 and 80 degrees approx.) so maybe it was considered not enough of a difference to be worth the possible risks etc of having it down when not sailing or out at sea. I don't know.

Another poster has pointed out that sufficient ballast was thought to be provided elsewhere.

That said, if the vents were open because of the downflooding angle it may have made no difference anyway in such weather.

Yes. What I don't understand is why they'd not have been closed in a severe storm if 40 degrees would cause down flooding (or why that would not have been specified in the instructions for severe weather).

“all the ships in the vicinity are ok.. ”

@Limesodaagain which ships do you mean by “all”? Were other ships than the Baden Powell at anchor near the Bayesian?

We don’t know who got on the life raft first etc - we don’t know if anyone did before the sinking or if all were swept off and the raft auto inflated

All I read was one crew member's account that they were on deck with a mild to moderate heeling angle, then there was suddenly by a severe heel and ended up in the water.

I presume they probably had water activated life jackets on (being in deck in a storm) and I think it's thought no-one managed to launch the raft, it auto launched and the manager to get into it. Not totally sure about that though.

Thanks @HazelPlayer

Thinks the keel wasn't retracted, so when the mast snapped

From anything I've read (from apparently credible sources) the keel was retracted - as was standard procedure when not sailing or out at sea. Furthermore the mast is not thought to have snapped.

(That eSysman channel on YouTube stated that people initially thought it had snapped because it wasn't visible above the water, but that the divers then stated it hadn't snapped and was not visible above the water because the yacht and mast were lying at an angle).

Because without any intake of air the engines won't work properly and you run the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning presumably.

You've lost me. I don't know enough about the engines, generators, vents and when the latter closes (if they do).

If they weren't closeable, why would you put them where a 40 degree heel eg during a bad storm, would flood them..

Or why have them required to be open when the engines are running; which is apparently standard practice during a storm (to get the engines on and try to point into the wind) and therefore open during potential heeling or rocking to 40 degrees.

@HazelPlayer @MidnightLibraryCard I'm not sure why you're thinking a yacht would normally get anything close to 45• of heel at anchor - storm or not. Hold your phone in front of you at 90• to a table or something. Now tip it to 45•. 45• is a hell of an angle of heel. No-one would be able to stay in bed! The guest suites don't have pipe cots on a pulley system like offshore race boats, they're flat beds with luxury matresses (which, evidently, aren't currently required to be secured well enough to their bases on a superyacht).

Most monohulls would normally start putting reefs in to reduce sail area & make the boat heel less once they get to 25• or so. This boat in particular had some very strict rules about when to reduce sail area, to protect the structural integrity of the mast, so probably never heeled more than about 18• or so even when under sail at sea. The picture attached is her under full sail, reasonably close hauled, and I don't think that's even as much as 10• of heel she's carrying.

So having ventilation openings for running ac, as well as allowing the generators to run the ac, and the main engines to be flashed up would be a completely normal anchored condition. You'd really only close them when sailing - and that more for wave action than pure heel angle. (And yes, you do need to design to have ventilation for the main engines too - it's quite hard to burn diesel if there's no oxygen available.)

If you're interested in why the yacht is better off with the keel up at anchor than down, have a read of https://britanniapandi.com/2024/01/dragging-anchor-prevention/ As the wind blows at anchor, it tends to send a boat a bit sideways on to the wind as it pulls at the anchor rode. With a large fin keel down, this would present an angle of attack to the water, and the keel would essentially start making the boat 'sail' up towards the anchor (their figure 6 in link, but with additional lift from a long fin keel). This makes the anchor rode become slacker, then at the extreme end of this arc, windage takes over again & the boat is blown back downwind & the anchor rode loads back up. If this creates a large load difference, the anchor rode will 'snatch' as the load comes back on to it, which makes it far more likely the anchor will be pulled across the seabed. So having the keel down would probably make a yacht with that configuration far MORE likely to drag anchor.

The amount the boat heeled so quickly is most likely to have been a combination of an extreme down draft, then some kind of initial flooding and then free surface effect of water in the hull creating further heel (and then further flooding).

This was a sinking which has absolutely shocked the industry and has sailors all over the world scratching their heads about what happened to make the heel & amount of water taken on to sink happen SO quickly.

Like everyone else, I'm keen to understand what actually happened when the MAIB issue their final investigators report. Whether that will be in 8 or 18 months time who knows yet? If I was the owner, captain, or an MAIB investigator, I would certainly be keen to get as much photographic evidence as possible of the state of hatches, hull structures & appendages while she's still on the seabed though. Raising the hull in too much of a hurry risks loading it in a different way such that any existing cracks or damage may spread - essentially not preserving the 'crime scene'. I hope there will be enough resources at the investigators' disposal to assess the boat properly in situ now the primary objective of recovering those lost has been achieved.

There are a LOT of questions still to be answered. But why the ac vents were allowed to be open in an anchorage with c.40-50 knot winds forecast isn't really one of them.

@MeandT
Thank you for another good explanatory post.

I have thought about the degrees of heel when reading about this tragedy. These super yachts are obviously kitted out for luxury for the enjoyment of guests, rather than the actual “proper sailing experience” that other yachts would be.

You mention mattresses not being secured which I was surprised to read. But when you think of all the other things that would not be secured it’s just enormous isn’t it. Lamps, occasional tables, furnishings etc etc. It’s a super pleasure boat really on the most enormous scale presumably? But one that could sail in a traditional style, but not really to its fullest when kitted out with all the mod cons.

Obviously I’ve put this in layman’s terms but I think you will understand the gist.

I am re-posting @oakleaffy link below to the luxurious interior of the Bayesian (previously named Salute) as it looked 15 years ago. You can see how much furniture, objects and artefacts there are which would have impeded the escape.

About 3.5 minutes in, it shows the narrow staircase which leads to the cabins in the lower deck. The bed takes up a significant part of the relatively tightly spaced cabins. Escape would have been close to impossible with water pouring down the staircase and the hull flipped 90 degrees.

The amount the boat heeled so quickly is most likely to have been a combination of an extreme down draft, then some kind of initial flooding and then free surface effect of water in the hull creating further heel (and then further flooding)

Thanks for all the information Me.
So many commentators online (who seemed knowledgeable) were questioning the vents and their down flooding angle, that I presumed that heel might be expected to happen in a severe storm.

It would seem then that a down burst hit is the explanation, though the manslaughter charges against the Captain and another member of crew following several interviews suggest something else as well. Unless they are "default" until disproven, as such.

Yes, I was also wondering how investigators would raise the wreck without affecting evidence.

I would imagine they will send a submersible down to record the current condition if they haven't already. I'm sure the technology exists to send a robot recorder into the wreck.

@HazelPlayer they are NOT charges

The Italian legal system is different. They have announced that the captain and two other (sailing) crew members are under investigation for manslaughter. AFAIK the men are still able to leave the country as long as they make themselves available for questioning. They are certainly not under arrest. It is NOT the same as here.

That ^

The Italian authorities are investigating a number of possible offences one of which is equivalent to manslaughter in English law.

That's how things work in their system; Judges etc are involved from the get go.

There was definitely at least one robot involved in the search efforts and I assume also doing filming etc now

the manslaughter charges against the Captain and another member of crew

Nobody has been charged with anything. A manslaughter investigation is a standard thing to happen in many European investigative systems when a disaster occurs. For all we know the expert evidence may show that the boat's designer or builder or maintenance company will be the one ultimately responsible.

This shows the level of unsecured furniture and the damage it can do when a ship lists. {Cruise ship}

thats terrible with really inappropirate music

I’ve got some pushback for this and I just want to clarify that I wasn’t saying the captain is “guilty” of anything. Obviously we don’t know .
But so many posters were excusing the fact that nearly all the crew survived when the passengers didn’t I just thought I’d point out that the Captain is responsible for the safety of all those on the boat - including the “wealthy passengers”

Is it a bit like being interviewed under caution in the UK? So it can be used as evidence if charges are later brought?

I mean - I cannot see how anyone can be charged until the vessel is examined by experts to look for some sort of design fault, catastrophic failure or cascade of failures that may have caused the sinking.

Agreed. In some countries in Europe you can easily end up being under investigation for manslaughter if you have any significant involvement in a fatal RTA.

Yes - this video shows that it is very tight below decks and more like a hotel than a yacht. Things that I noticed were

• the staircase was very narrow, tight and steep - there are no rails or handholds to pull yourself up the stairs if the boat is listing - nothing to get a grip on.
• There is a lot of glass, art statues, decor such as plant pots and boxes and freestanding furniture (chairs, lamps etc) that may have blocked exits once the boat started to list and been a danger to sleepy/possibly drunk evacuees.
• The cabins were very tight space wise as they were double bedded - mattresses were not secured and shifted off the bed and floated blocking exits (something that the rescue divers stated impeded their search in the article I posted above)
• I also noticed in the video that some of the below decks doors seemed to be mostly automatic, glass, sliding doors - but how easy would it have been to get through an electric sliding door when the boat lists, the power goes down and water is rushing through the narrow corridors and you need to climb over debris?