www.9news.com.au/world/seven-people-missing-after-tourist-sailboat-sinks-in-storm-off-sicily/92b9f2cd-a6fc-43da-9f6d-a336d4f9dcae?ref=BP_RSS_ninenews_0_british--king-of-tech--among-six-missing-after-superyacht-sinks_190824

Beat me to it, I just came here with a link ready to paste.

Seems mind boggling that it could happen to a boat like that. I always thought that storm scene in the wolf of Wall Street was far fetched (it was in the Med) But maybe not!

My first thoughts was the keel as up but seems it is fixed keel drawing 9m.

Sounds like it got hit by a water spout or mini tornado. Some reports say the mast broke in half. Some how got layed over on her side. It's scary how fast it sank.
Can't even imagine the forces involved.
Unfortunately sounds like the missing people are still inside.

What are the chances a boat like that would've been all closed up tight with A/C running, sounds like she sank like an open dinghy

From the channel 9 news coverage the whole episode was less than a minute. It is thought the furniture moving around in the rough weather jammed against doors that stopped the people who were sleeping at the time escape.

Saw some dummy on Sailing Anarchy ask why the woman with the baby was on deck at 5am... durrr......

Looks like the baby waking hungry up saved mums life!

There was good webcam footage on SA of the town when it hit - pretty windy!

I would be interested to see the stability curve for the design. Narrow side decks. Looks like the coach house is well under water when heeled 90 degrees. Modern design relying on form stability to not get as far as a 90 degree knock-down?

Very good article here. It appears the mast is actually intact (from divers) and one theory is that it was a 33 Deg hot day prior so they had all the hatches and windows open. The tornado tipped the boat on her side and it filled with water. Looking at how many big open windows and hatches there are in the first photo its quite possible. Here's the story

www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy0nwe4d7k5o

I saw a photo supposedly of the water spout. When I read the story I was sceptical but if the spout in the photo I saw was the one or similar it could well have done great damage leading to the sinking.
I've seen a few water spouts when flying in the tropics, and a couple off the NSW south coast. The one in the photo was a very powerful one indeed.

Report in news .com.au mast intact keel up. "It comes after divers found that the keel, a crucial part of the boat's structure which helps keep it balanced, had been raised when the yacht was anchored off shore."

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Bananabender said..
Report in news .com.au mast intact keel up. "It comes after divers found that the keel, a crucial part of the boat's structure which helps keep it balanced, had been raised when the yacht was anchored off shore."

The Channel 9 news feed is similar though they are not sure whether it's a lifting keel or not! I would have thought that would be easy to research. Even so there must be ample form stability and ballast still with the keel up. The speed this happened is enough for them to start a criminal investigation. The skipper of the other yacht said there was plenty of warning and his boat was motoring forward as the storm hit.
Starting to sound like poor seamanship. The other possibility is of course revenge.

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Ramona said..

Bananabender said..
Report in news .com.au mast intact keel up. "It comes after divers found that the keel, a crucial part of the boat's structure which helps keep it balanced, had been raised when the yacht was anchored off shore."

The Channel 9 news feed is similar though they are not sure whether it's a lifting keel or not! I would have thought that would be easy to research. Even so there must be ample form stability and ballast still with the keel up. The speed this happened is enough for them to start a criminal investigation. The skipper of the other yacht said there was plenty of warning and his boat was motoring forward as the storm hit.
Starting to sound like poor seamanship. The other possibility is of course revenge.

Revenge?
They were apparently out celebrating a court case win stiffing Hewitt-Packard out of billions of dollars.
Not sure how a rival tech company engineered a waterspout to occur but I've watched plenty of Netflix movies with equally implausible plots.

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Ramona said..

Bananabender said..
Report in news .com.au mast intact keel up. "It comes after divers found that the keel, a crucial part of the boat's structure which helps keep it balanced, had been raised when the yacht was anchored off shore."

The Channel 9 news feed is similar though they are not sure whether it's a lifting keel or not! I would have thought that would be easy to research. Even so there must be ample form stability and ballast still with the keel up. The speed this happened is enough for them to start a criminal investigation. The skipper of the other yacht said there was plenty of warning and his boat was motoring forward as the storm hit.
Starting to sound like poor seamanship. The other possibility is of course revenge.

This link suggests keel (fixed keel and lifting keel combined) of max draught 10m and minimum 4m. If it can be relied upon.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_(yacht)

eSysman has an update with some unverified info, but sounds like pretty close approximation of what might have occurred.
Plus a little clip of a similar, very confronting, situation with a 45m yacht in Auckland some years ago.

Certainly going to make me rethink how I ventilate boats at anchor in the future.
Very rare and unlucky occurrence, but has highlighted some risks I've taken in the past with trailer sailers and cruising monos (wouldn't have needed waterspout to knock the boat flat)

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wildemann said..


Revenge?
They were apparently out celebrating a court case win stiffing Hewitt-Packard out of billions of dollars.
Not sure how a rival tech company engineered a waterspout to occur but I've watched plenty of Netflix movies with equally implausible plots.

That was mentioned in the news article and why there is a criminal investigation I should imagin. A yacht this size with numerous water tight compartments sank very quickly. It seems the owner was one of the one percenters that had plenty of enemies.

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Ramona said..

Bananabender said..
Report in news .com.au mast intact keel up. "It comes after divers found that the keel, a crucial part of the boat's structure which helps keep it balanced, had been raised when the yacht was anchored off shore."

The Channel 9 news feed is similar though they are not sure whether it's a lifting keel or not! I would have thought that would be easy to research. Even so there must be ample form stability and ballast still with the keel up. The speed this happened is enough for them to start a criminal investigation. The skipper of the other yacht said there was plenty of warning and his boat was motoring forward as the storm hit.
Starting to sound like poor seamanship. The other possibility is of course revenge.

From my personal experience of waterspouts, they exist in the soupy warm air before a front. Once the actual front hits , you're safe ( well except if the front is a hum dinger)

So there may be a forecast of a front but a waterspout is different and unpredictable, often with relatively still air around it.

I was fairly close to some waterspouts mid Tasman and they were very large powerful and scary things. A tornado over water .

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D3 said..
eSysman has an update with some unverified info, but sounds like pretty close approximation of what might have occurred.
Plus a little clip of a similar, very confronting, situation with a 45m yacht in Auckland some years ago.

Certainly going to make me rethink how I ventilate boats at anchor in the future.
Very rare and unlucky occurrence, but has highlighted some risks I've taken in the past with trailer sailers and cruising monos (wouldn't have needed waterspout to knock the boat flat)

Good link; thanks. Fortunately for us it's lots easier to get out of a smaller yacht with no corridors etc. Twelve minutes sounds like a long time but obviously insufficient for some if your first obstacle in a totally dark flooding chamber is a heavyish shut door on the roof followed by flooded corridors with big openings all over the (now) floor. Add to this total darkness and half asleep and possible concussion/other injury...

On the ventilation issue most small yachts only have opening hatches along the centerline although you don't have to get very big in the broad beam dingy styles these days before many are off centre- not that in those extreme conditions it would make much difference.

Some of the comments on the eSysman video are by top drawer designers of some note and people with very impressive experience.

The NZ video of the large cat being flipped and large mono knocked flat gives great context.

One thing I would like to know however it's whether the "lifting keel" was in fact that or perhaps more of a lightly balasted centreboard primarily designed to combat leeway.

This boat had a fairly substantial keel with a drop keel. There would be a lot of ballast in the permanent part of the keel plus the form stability. The builders of the boat reckon they are unsinkable! Earlier links referred to a video from the shore which showed the boat disappearing in one minute.

"Termini Imerese Public Prosecutor's Office investigators were collecting evidence for a criminal investigation, which they opened immediately after the tragedy despite no formal suspects having been publicly identified."

This could mean the crew might be under investigation too of course.

Please give opinions on this. No one seems to have noticed.

Esysman posted a Marine Traffic AIS video clip of the incident. You can also find it online.

It looked to me the boat dragged anchor downwind or even didn't have it properly hooked. You could wonder why.

The boat was then free to broach with keel fully up, which it did.

Here is the video from the shore. All it really shows is the mast and cabin lights going out, but you can still see the navigation lights.


There are 15 survivors but I haven't seen any talking to the media. I guess the cops may be stopping them from speaking, and perhaps keeping them separate until formally interviewed.

Interesting video. It seems to me right up until the last second the mast is visible upright. You can see its anchor light the whole time, and it looks like it starts swinging to port. ie. Bow towards the camera which would put it broad side onto the wind. That would be when anchor starts dragging. My guesstimation.

Comments from the builder in the Australian,from the Times - ? Access door open near waterline = fill in a moment !

+ Locals were aware of weather conditions,and acted appropriately,so one wonders if the Watch was Awake/Aware/Distracted ??

from the FT article:

According to ISG, when the boat's keel is raised, the Bayesian can withstand an inclination of up to 73 degrees; when the keel is lowered, she can tilt by up to 88 degrees - a nearly flat position with the mast on the water - without capsizing.

Is that an AVS of 88 or did i misread it?

All reminds me a bit of my only good yachting story. About 20 years ago we were on a flotilla holiday in Greece. As the first boat into the new anchorage we cruised in, started the motor, dropped the sails, chucked the boat in reverse along a line of about 6m depth and let the hook go. 18 odd metres of chain went out which we pulled up nice and tight, then pumped up the dinghy, rowed ashore and drank our body weight in Gins and Tonics whilst watching the rest of the flotilla cruise in, stop the boat and drop the anchor under a nice pile of chain on the bottom, directly below the bows of their boats.

At about midnight, my then girlfriend wakes me up yelling "we're moving, we're moving" and I got out of bed, scratched my balls and switched on the instruments on my way to the companionway. Yep, still in 6m. I still can't believe I had the presence of mind to do this - we had no GPS.

As soon as I emerged on deck in my boxer shorts I was amazed by two things, first the easily force 6/7 blowing down the side of the hill, which was warm (like Melbourne summer northerly warm), and the 45 foot Benny blowing past me with bare poles. Then the next one, then the yelling and the torches shining and the engines being started. The poor guys on the lead boat trying to supervise 5 boats re-anchoring in the dark.

Moral of the story, make sure you dig your anchor in because the weather when you pass out drunk is not guaranteed to be the same before you wake up.....

The latest report I read stated the boat took 16 minutes to sink.

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Trek said..
Please give opinions on this. No one seems to have noticed.

Esysman posted a Marine Traffic AIS video clip of the incident. You can also find it online.

It looked to me the boat dragged anchor downwind or even didn't have it properly hooked. You could wonder why.

The boat was then free to broach with keel fully up, which it did.

Didn't the other vessel just NW of them experience similar movement at the same time?

Anchored in 50m of water with possibly 200 - 300m of cable out, you'd expect them to swing a fair bit with a wind change.
I can't quite make out the scale on the image you posted, maybe their movement was excessive and indicative of insufficient anchor cable for the depth and expected weather....

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D3 said..


Didn't the other vessel just NW of them experience similar movement at the same time?

Anchored in 50m of water with possibly 200 - 300m of cable out, you'd expect them to swing a fair bit with a wind change.
I can't quite make out the scale on the image you posted, maybe their movement was excessive and indicative of insufficient anchor cable for the depth and expected weather....

Everyone had ample warning of the approaching storm. The older yacht anchored nearby had the engine running and idled ahead to take the weight off the anchor. But most importantly, the skipper and crew were on deck to handle whatever came their way. It's called seamanship!
The Bayesan which is 158 feet long and would have full air conditioning meanwhile, close-by, had hatches and windows open. No mention of how many crew were on watch. The criminal investigation will be focused on the crew I suspect.

www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3275542/indescribable-crew-errors-led-disaster-mike-lynchs-bayesian-yacht-maker-says

Wonder if they will raise it or even restore it? Maybe no one would want a superyacht on which seven people drowned.

Presumably the mast could still be a navigation hazard were the reportedly intact vessel ever roll upright again.

The divers cut a big hole in the hull. No doubt they took video as they went. That'll be crazy, like a Bond movie.

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Ramona said..

D3 said..


Didn't the other vessel just NW of them experience similar movement at the same time?

Anchored in 50m of water with possibly 200 - 300m of cable out, you'd expect them to swing a fair bit with a wind change.
I can't quite make out the scale on the image you posted, maybe their movement was excessive and indicative of insufficient anchor cable for the depth and expected weather....

Everyone had ample warning of the approaching storm. The older yacht anchored nearby had the engine running and idled ahead to take the weight off the anchor. But most importantly, the skipper and crew were on deck to handle whatever came their way. It's called seamanship!
The Bayesan which is 158 feet long and would have full air conditioning meanwhile, close-by, had hatches and windows open. No mention of how many crew were on watch. The criminal investigation will be focused on the crew I suspect.

www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3275542/indescribable-crew-errors-led-disaster-mike-lynchs-bayesian-yacht-maker-says

Was commenting on the whether the anchor had dragged or not

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D3 said..


Was commenting on the whether the anchor had dragged or not

The news report said she survived relatively unscathed. Motoring ahead up the anchor rode would negate any chance of dragging.