Sinking of Yacht off Sicilian Coast

[Cesarina]

This is of course an absolutely tragic event.
I'm feeling a bit mean by saying this.........but why is it the headline topic on BBC news?
I genuinely feel sorry for those involved, but don't understand why it's the dominant news story?

Billionaires haven’t change though. Rich people don’t hire superyachts because they want to sail but because they want to show off hopping up and down the coast of Italy or Spain, sunbathe, eat fantastic meals, use water toys and do a bit of shopping.

In a sailing yacht the husband might want the crew to do a bit of sailing, but on motoryachts - you’re just going from a to b.

That being the case passengers are not intrepid about choppy water and storms. It’s nobody’s idea of fun to spend a day vomiting when they’re paying 300k per week for a holiday. Captains don’t take risks - well, some do - and things are more relaxed when the owner is on board - that may be partly what went wrong here.

Good article. Interesting that the wreck won’t be raised until October at the earliesf

www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/26/captain-mike-lynch-yacht-investigation-manslaughter-bayesian

The best commentary on the disaster is by eSysman SuperYachts on YouTube, and the piece by Chris Freer, yacht designer.

I found this X response to the CF post better:

Abhay
@AstuteGaba
While Chris Freer is a yacht designer and everything he says about righting moment in yachts speaks sense, this channel and Chris focus on a keel setup said to be a ballast bulb of some 200T at the base of the lifting keel.

This is incorrect. Bayesian, formerly Salute is well photographed on the hard prior to launching.

As per the designer Ron Holland, Perini and photo evidence, the keel design contains the essential righting moment within a long relatively shallow draft (4.05m) stub keel.

The keel "extension" rotates down in plate form to 9.83m draft. No possibility of a 200T bulb.

The real issue is why Bayesian took on so much water in so little time.

Divers report she lies on her starboard side and is intact.

They had no easy points of access, which suggests the large lazarette / garage transom door was closed as was the port stern quarter door used as an access ramp for guests. Many an ocean racing yacht has lost its keel, turned turtle and not sunk quickly. Drum in the Fastnet was towed back to shore and refitted for the Whitbread.

Numerous Vendee Globe sailors have lost keels, some sailed back to shore, others were rescued from their yachts that were still floating.

Where I agree with Chris Freer, is that modern super yacht design is possibly lacking some important safety aspects.

This #yacht should have been able to roll on her side pinned down by wind and not sink so quickly.

That is what most ocean yachts are designed to do. With hatches closed, most ocean yachts have a near central companion way that floats above the water line when they're pinned down on their side.

If multiple companion ways on super yachts are off center and closer to the gunwale, this may be the Archils heel as well as the large windows in the superstructure.

This is the question that needs answering as Perini also says there are mandatory watertight bulkheads.

Prayers for the lost soul ! Rest in Peace !

He agrees with CF, corrects a detail about the keel, and emphasises water ingress. Which is all part of a discussion of the disaster.

The point being that the channel is much more informative, including the commentary, than mainstream news.

Mainstream media is properly useless.

Water ingress is going to be key.

ChrisF (I felt the need to change the acronym) isn't quite correct re pressure coefficients on rigs without sails up either. In addition both a downburst and tornado wind would give pretty much unpredictable pressure distributions.

If the garage was open, and, the engine room door, and the main companionway then perhaps there wouldn't be enough reserve buoyancy. But that is still a lot of water to get into the boat in a very short period of time.

@Daftasabroom

Mainstream media is properly useless.

Very much agreed, and as has been noted upthread you have to be cautious about taking at face value some of the SMEs with their own YouTube channel….

They often mean well but sometimes unknowingly get outside their specialist aisle.

There’s been so much discussion about the tender garage - I think it’s unlikely to have been left open at 4am with a storm forecast. When the tender is put away for the night you lock the door. Anyway, they must have CCTV.

You may have seen Liberation yachts YT piece on the sunken foredeck seating area under the mast - with windows and a tent roof. There’s speculation as to whether the area may have acted like a pool and filled up with water in addition to water ingress in other areas.

Even so, the boat would have to take on a large amount of water fast to sink so quickly.

I've had a quick look at the deck plans, there are two tenders stored fwd under the deck which reinforces the idea that the garage shouldn't have been open.

The deck seating should be self draining. The free surface should have been accounted for as there would be the possibility of green water at sea e.g. delivery.

The side windows along the saloon appear fixed with just the patio doors to the rear. Forward facing and side structures including doors are required to withstand green water pressures, to the rear not so much.

Just read this timeline:

"Data from the superyacht shows it was hit by a violent storm downburst at 3.50am and sank 16 minutes later, at 4.06am. But it was not until 4.34am that the crew fired a red flare from their life raft, according to local reports."

For those of you knowledgeable and experienced, does that sound right? I'm trained in a different type of emergency evacuation and although that's without the might of the sea to contend with, raising the alarm seems to be very late.

I suspect it took half an hour for them to find and get in the life raft and pick up people in the water. That may have been their primary concern.

And I am sure they looked for a while for the people they couldn't find too - plus another report (which I linked above, I think) said four of them had serious injuries, so there may have been some first aid happening too.

Things are definitely not more relaxed when the owner is on board, on the contrary, it's a helluvva lot of work keeping guests happy, route planning, prepping toys, and generally cleaning and maintaining which is a neverending story on any yacht.

Was referring to safety.

www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2024/08/27/former-bayesian-captain-offers-insight/?fbclid=IwY2xjawE8bytleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHckVYaarz9gxBEz-x3E5KMROcbs9tTKhjTuz7Xni8FbVkcUiyWVmHUdNKw_aem_f8dWusmkB9PDjjhptFEJdg

This is a really interesting article by a previous skipper of the yacht. It offers an insight into what could have happened.

@elastamum Interesting read, thank you for the link.

It doesn't sound right that a yacht would be able identify a downburst, anemometers are setup to read horizontal wind not vertical., There is the assumption there that it was a downburst.

I'm also a little sceptical that the data recorders have been recovered, fully analysed, and the findings released. Depending on the vessel management system this may have everything from engine logs to access, entry and security cameras.

AIS data is publicly available but doesn't give much detail. This could well be the black box data that the media are referring to.

I read a plausible explanation which was that there are large, very heavy sliding watertight doors between the deck and the saloon. These may have been shut but not locked so when the boat heeled over the sheer weight of one of the doors would have caused it to slide open thus allowing substantial inflow of water through the wide gap.

I believe the flare was fired from the life raft, not the yacht.

So the delay was probably scrambling into the yacht, rescuing people from the water, first aid on any injuries etc.

@Barbadossunset do you mean the patio doors aft end of the saloon opening onto the after deck?

@Daftasabroom

It doesn't sound right that a yacht would be able identify a downburst, anemometers are setup to read horizontal wind not vertical., There is the assumption there that it was a downburst.

Generally, yep...

For info generally at ground level/sea level a downburst is going to manifest itself by causing a rapid change in horizontal wind velocity (direction/and or speed), and the clincher is that the magnitude of any change varies spatially.

Some airport systems detect downbursts/windshear by having a mesh of anemometers spread across the airport and a central system monitoring all the wind velocities in real time, watching for significant and rapidly developing discrepancies across the airport.

For example if you have a cumulonimbus overhead and suddenly you get a westerly wind of 30 knots on one side of the field yet only a mile or so away, perhaps at the other end of the runway, you have a easterly of 40 knots you are almost certainly looking at the product of a downburst.

You can’t really confidently come to the same conclusion if you are only measuring the wind velocity at one point.

Not sure if you are monitoring the other active thread but agree with you on data recorders and AIS.

https://ral.ucar.edu/solutions/products/low-level-wind-shear-alert-system-llwas

Yes but I am fully prepared to be corrected - especially by you who knows what they’re talking about - as I don’t know anything about sailing and I’m just repeating what I read.

@notimagain there are also LIDAR and RADAR wind field systems, they're not highly developed as they are banned from most race classes and just not needed otherwise. I believe these have been used in AC sail development - but that's pretty irrelevant here.

FLIR systems are used for picking up debris and obstructions in the water, and for security. A very well trained eye may be able to tell you wind direction from FLIR and possibly spot strong wind strength deltas as well.

The Scuttlebutt article clarifies some of the limits and vulnerabilities to water ingress but doesn't address how so much water was able to get into the vessel so quickly.

Downburst info came from Italian air force I believe.