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?

It’s an accurate representation of what happens when a vessel lists with unsecured furniture.

Furniture flying about is a serious hazard.
People were knocked unconscious and had other injuries because the ship owners treated their vessel like a floating hotel, not something that travels on a capricious element like the Ocean.

I didn't have the sound on but it looked so dangerous, poor people

Apologies, I shouldn't have used the word "charges", they are under formal investigation for manslaughter.

Disappointing that crew's witness statements (which presumably should be subject to legal privilege?) have already been leaked (by someone connected with the legal investigation team, presumably) to the Italian media and the world.

I find it harder to put faith in the integrity of another country's legal system if they can't even keep the paperwork to themselves for a week. I do hope they don't cut corners!

There's still a lot of talk about hatches, and not much about what else could potentially have led to that much water ingress that quickly. I seems that the 'downburst event' or whatever it was smashed the glass surround of the foredeck 'veranda' area. If it was strong enough to go that, who knows what was going on below the waterline?

This video shows the damage and sinking caused by a broken rudder shaft on a smaller yacht earlier this year. Fortunately they were sailing in company and everyone was recovered to another boat. It's a sobering bit of footage in otherwise benign weather conditions though! If the wind did that much damage to the topsides (and I'm not talking about the 20knots reported in the leaked statement when the captain & rest of the crew were woken up, I'm taking about whatever smashed a massive structural glass screen & tipped 450 tonnes through 20 degrees or more) what happened under the water at the same time?

In an isolated patch of weather that extreme, it's entirely possible a boat that was well built & well maintained still came a cropper. It's all immensely sad. It is also possible it was an accident & not negligent on anyone's part - although I'm sure plenty of safety improvements can be suggested to try to reduce the risk of there being a 'next time' 🤞

m.youtube.com/watch?v=2Rh7piQzpAQ

@MeandT It is terrifying how quickly that Arcona yacht in the video went down. The broken rudder punched a hole in the hull.

I seems that the 'downburst event' or whatever it was smashed the glass surround of the foredeck 'veranda' area. If it was strong enough to go that, who knows what was going on below the waterline?

Can you explain what you mean by what is going on below the waterline. I thought the force of a storm or downburst is at the surface and not below the waterline? The divers seemed to suggest that the hull was intact. Mixed reports about whether the mast had broken.

@blueshoes The energy of a storm travels far below the surface of the water (anyone who's ever tried snorkelling or diving along a rocky shoreline in wind driven waves can testify how dangerous that can be with the power of the waves!)

This boat had 2 propeller shafts from the main engines, the rudder & I think at least 10 water hose connections in the engine room (cooling intake & outflow for each main engine + 3 generators, plus probably assorted pumps & plumbing with through-hull fittings as well). If the anchor chain had caught on something as the boat initially span in the wind direction change, or a pipe shook loose, or the propellers hit something else adrift in the water, it could have resulted in a hole in the engine room hull with water coming in. (Potentially either aligned with a propeller shaft, or just a crack, so maybe not obvious to divers' initial checks?)

If the keel shook in the keelbox enough to crack a weld, that may have led to water entering forward of the engine room watertight bulkhead. Same problem if the mast movement caused a structural crack in the starboard shroud connection to the hull (which she's lying on, so not currently visible). But once any sloshing water & piled up furniture had shifted to the starboard side to add to the heeling moment of the down burst & any rain on the rig & deck (and giant foredeck veranda canvas, now loose?) - as soon as the heel angle reached 45• and vents were flooding too, it wouldn't take a great amount of time to sink enough that the main accommodation hatch at the centreline then had water pouring in too.

There wouldn't be enough buoyancy left in the forward crew area to keep the rest afloat, even if that was perfectly closed up & watertight.

There seems to be a (leaked) report that the engineer had left an engine room access open at some point - it's not clear if that was while they were trying to start engines, or once flooding had already been identified or what. I have to say I wouldn't be that keen to lock myself IN to a flooding compartment while trying to sort out any power systems! It takes next-level training to do that, even for our military... If he'd been called on deck without closing it back up, that will undoubtedly be identified as a contributing factor (as the watertight compartment aft of the engine room could also have flooded then) - but it's hard to know what may have contributed to that chain of events (if it happened) without being there at the time.

If an engine room hatch was left as he tried to exit the boat once the engine room was very flooded, in isolation, in the back of the boat with the most water in it, the prospect of trying to close a hatch that could knock you out or amputate an arm may have felt pretty futile & the natural decision may have been to try to get up to deck level while possible - with no knowledge that others still hadn't escaped from accommodation further forward?

One final potential cause I've seen discussed elsewhere is whether the impact of the downburst actually made the water less buoyant & that's why she sank so fast? It doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, but if the air was being pushed down from the atmosphere into the water so hard that it made it bubbly, there's less water for a boat to float in. This means any part of the boat touching a section of water this had happened to would instantly float lower. There's a short example of what happens to a floating object in aerated water here Swimming Object Sinks in Bubbly Water - YouTube
and a 3 minute summary of a scale test which was run to look at a 'Bermuda Triangle' hypothesis here Sinking a Ship with Bubbles | Bermuda Triangle | BBC Studios - YouTube If a downburst, low pressure area or waterspout had created this aerated effect near Bayesian & she partially 'fell' into less buoyant water & floated lower anyway, I think it's probably the most frightening prospect of all!

Now arguably the captain should still have been up earlier with the engines on to take the strain off the anchor chain like the Baden Powell (he may have actually done this, although I think the consensus based on the AIS ship's track seems to be that it's less likely).

But then, the skipper on the Baden Powell would not have been required to be 'on show' at 7/8am the next day, bright eyed & bushy tailed & ready to ferry the boss & his guests to lunch at a restaurant, or to sail to Sardina, or whatever was on the agenda in the absence of this tragedy. The other skipper would have had an easier time saying to his 1st mate 'you've got the watch, I'm going below for 4 hours to sleep'. The pressures are a bit different on superyacht captains - particularly when it's the boss & his closest guests on board. No human can be 24 hour alert. The rights and wrongs of that in this industry will hopefully be reassessed a bit harder in light of this incident!

. I thought the force of a storm or downburst is at the surface and not below the waterline? The divers seemed to suggest that the hull was intact. Mixed reports about whether the mast had broken.

@blueshoes

If you mean the divers undertaking recovery of the bodies (and I don’t think there has been any dives since) - I think the observations they made about mast or hull etc would have been secondary to their mission to recover passengers, given the ten minute window of air, the dark, the pressure, floating debris etc. So their reports may well be subject to change as the investigation progresses

@MeandT

Disappointing that crew's witness statements (which presumably should be subject to legal privilege?)

It is, very..

I’ve had to give evidence to two accident investigations (one a fatal, neither of them maritime) and at both got a very strong worded warning that everything was legally privileged and not to go blabbing to third parties…but both were investigated by UK authorities.

There’s not just the problem with possibly prejudicing the investigation, there also other problems with a drip feed on info into the public domain.

I know of at least one accident where rampant (and as it turned out when the investigators published, massively inaccurate) speculation based on selected/partial witness comments were almost career and marriage ending for an individual.

If it wasn’t then IMHO there should have been a strict STFU order issued to all potentially involved, and not just to those on scene on the night. For example anyone associated in any significant way with building or designing the vessel should have had similar instructions.

I find it harder to put faith in the integrity of another country's legal system if they can't even keep the paperwork to themselves for a week.

Agreed.

@MeandT your detailed explanation is so great. Appreciate your typing that. Violent movement by the downburst could very well have caused a hole or crack in the structure. @SheilaFentiman I agree that the visual observations by the divers in what is probably low visibility at 50m depth are not reliable and we have to wait for the results of the investigation.

The experiments with objects sinking in bubbly water is kinda scary. It looks like a drop you get with clear air turbulence but the physics is probably very different with both phenomenon.

@notimagain I agree it is poor form for leaks to occur prior to the investigation being complete. Does not inspire confidence in the legal process. Cannot say I am not lapping it up!

@blueshoes

. It looks like a drop you get with clear air turbulence but the physics is probably very different with both phenomenon

I'm afraid it's nothing like CAT..sadly there's a lot of missunderstanding about turbulence in terms of aviation - you certainly don"t get places/pockets where there is no lift.

Air in water is another matter and what is being described is an interesting theory.

Someone who works on a boat explained it to me as - if you invited a load of people into your house for a party, and there was a fire, realistically it would only be you and your family that knew the best way of escaping. I'm guessing due to the design of the boat and location of the passengers that this is the unfortunate case.

Sorry @blueshoes I owe you a better explanation than that.

Turbulence in flying is due to airflow being non-uniform over short distances…it is not down to a sudden absence of air or holes in the air..that doesn’t happen.

In the case of the yacht it’s very different - it is supported by the water and some of the theories seem to be that if somehow you can get holes in the water by getting air bubbles into it the yacht will loose buoyancy (because it is displacing a reduced mass of water) and will possibly sink.

I have come across the air bubbles thing in relation to the missing Hull trawler Gaul; one theory that was advanced at one point was that it was sunk by a North Sea gas plume causing a sudden area of low buoyancy.
In that scenario the air is coming up from below the sea; I had no idea the phenomenon could be caused by air from above, but it makes sense. The sea is a dangerous place.

Countess. It is indeed! Always pays to respect the power of mother nature (especially now climate change has put her extremes on steroids!)

There are some interesting & frightening possibilities. However it seems the thinking among those from the industry is going along the lines of:
no major hatch error
no major hull breech
simply an enormous single initial impact (enough to throw deck crew off the boat, so 45-70 degrees or so heeled)

Once the boat is over 45•, the major openings for the main engine vents are submerged (in the white superstructure behind the main saloon windows). There's additional stability problems because the cockpit is awash & that impacts stability & heels the boat further (and may have flowed below if the stupid patio doors had slid open too). A ton of crap in all the cabins has been thrown to leeward too, so that's another factor in the boat remaining more heeled after the initial impact (as well as potentially preventing stateroom doors from being opened where items have piled on top of inward opening doors).

Whatever happened next, whether it was the anchor catching again but with the chain wrapped under the hull, or just sustained winds & existing water shipped onboard keeping the boat heeled, or a second large gust heeling her over again. Undoubtedly what happened was she ended up in a position where she was pinned beyond the downflooding angle long enough that the pumps couldn't keep up & eventually power was lost as generators cut out & it was only one or two minutes after that that she was completely sunk.

It must have been hellish. I rather imagine the MAIB will recommend all UK flagged superyachts do a calculation to determine what wind strength at 90• on with no sails up would be enough to knock each yacht down beyond their downflooding angle. It seems to be a gap in the regs which has grown up over time & now been exposed.

Even keeping an active watch at night is not going to be enough to prepare if what arrives out of the next cloud is something like this. The power of mother nature is sobering indeed!
https://vimeo.com/741464037

@MeandT

I rather imagine the MAIB will recommend all UK flagged superyachts do a calculation to determine what wind strength at 90• on with no sails up would be enough to knock each yacht down beyond their downflooding angle. It seems to be a gap in the regs which has grown up over time & now been exposed.

I’ve been assuming, especially given the mast height, that some sort of wind tunnel as well as tank testing would have gone on during the design of this vessel….

Am I being naive in thinking the builders/designers would have done that, or is all done by computer modeling these days?

@notimagain probably mostly modelled/calculated.

There seems to have been a gaping hole in the approach where it was known & discussed all through the boat's stability book that the key downflooding angle is 43• while the capsize angle with keel up is 77•.

Lots of instructions about adding storm shutters to main deck windows for ocean passage making, closing off air vents which would downflood when sailing, limits of angle of heel while sailing, when to reduce sail area etc.

No assessment of how MUCH wind would be needed to roll the boat to the downflooding angle in the bare poles condition.

Undoubtedly this was one of the most vulnerable boats out there with her huge mast. But with stronger, short-lived, squall events becoming far more frequent now, it does seem like an embarrassing chink in the amour which has been allowed to develop with the way this style of yacht is currently assessed!

@MeandT

Many many thanks….

@notimagain that makes total sense. Appreciate the careful explanation. There cannot be holes in the air lol (much as CAT feels like it) nor can a difference in buoyancy in the air have a discernable effect on a heavy object like a commercial airliner, whereas buoyancy in the water due to bubbles could re: a large vessel.

@MeandT it is truly a sobering thought if a yacht can do everything right in terms of closing hatches etc whilst at anchor in a relatively safe location (IF that is the outcome of the investigation) yet sink in a matter of minutes due to freak weather. If the focus was on staying afloat whilst sailing but not enough whilst stationary with sails folded away, this is the sort of accident that MAIB would, sadly in hindsight, now need to give more safety guidelines for.

The Bayesian was such a beautiful yacht.

There is an article in the Times saying that autopsies have reported that 4 have been confirmed as not drowning but suffocating in air pockets. This is more horrendous by some way for the families but I will say no more as it’s too distressing.
The final two autopsies are yet to be held.

https://news.sky.com/story/bayesian-superyacht-sinking-post-mortems-carried-out-on-lawyer-and-wife-13208736

There are 7 victims, not 6, @NOTANUM

Could you link the Times article? The above from Sky News states drowning for the first two autopsies.

I assume that suffocation would arise if the air pocket had too much CO2 and not enough oxygen.

Ok, I have now found a Daily Mail reference, which reports on reports in La Repubblica, which say that the second two (not all four) autopsies show no water in lungs/trachea.

It is very much “sources indicate” rather than anything official or confirmed, and it also mentions that any air pocket may well have been tiny and become toxic quickly ie that this was not necessarily a prolonged situation.

I think at depths of 50 metres there can be possibly be toxity problems breathing air at ambient pressure, one of the Scuba divers will know.

Quite right to correct me on the number who perished. I was thinking of those who were recovered from the boat.
The Times article is also quoting La Republicca which I hadn’t realised late last night. It’s quite risky journalism for the Times if their sources aren’t solid.
It also distresses the families if unconfirmed.

I am hoping that the families are hearing the official outcomes of the steps in the process before anything gets to the press.

The autopsies on the chef, Mike Lynch and his daughter will be tomorrow, I believe.

It is absolutely horrible and terrifying, but probably "better" than drowning. They would likely have passed out with the carbon monoxide poisoning.