An interesting piece that contradicts the early reports about crew leaving vents open:<p>> The company speculated that the crew did not close a watertight door between this hatch and the engine room.
(...)<p>> But witnesses, an Italian official familiar with the investigation and the underwater video challenged the company’s versions of events. The footage appeared to show the watertight door to the engine room closed, and the Italian official said the divers had not seen any open hatches on the hull.<p>> Mr. Borner also said that after rescuing the captain, he asked him if he had shut the hatches. The captain said he had. Mr. Borner shared pictures taken by his guests a few moments before the Bayesian sank that appear to show that hull hatches were closed.<p>Overall, a very informative article, it analyzes boat's documentation and compares it with other boats from the same manufacturer.
The former captain of the Bayesian laid out his opinion of what caused the sinking:<p><a href="https://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2024/08/27/former-bayesian-captain-offers-insight/" rel="nofollow">https://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2024/08/27/former-bayesia...</a><p>It should also be noted that the fishermen in the area all received notice of incoming storm activity and many of them took precautionary measures HOURS in advance of when the storm actually hit. Whoever was the bridge watchstander on duty during that time should have been paying attention to the immediate near term weather forecast info. This was an entirely preventable incident.
one of the quickest ways to ruin the way an established boat plan 'swims' is by adding a tall rig after de-masting.<p>it's extremely enticing to 'add more sail' to a boat in order to squeeze more speed out of it, or achieve easier lufting.<p>turns out that marine architecture is <i>a lot</i> harder than one thinks at first glance, and just about everyone that tries to tweak specs afterwards does so in such a way that makes the boat categorically worse.<p>(don't ask me how I came to realize this after many dollars spent)
The main problem is various vents along the side of the hull. Typically these are placed closer to the centreline of the vessel such that they can't be flooded at extreme heel angles. On luxury vessels they are placed out of sight of guests and in this case along the hull. Hatches into the water tight compartments were close to the centreline but in this case flooding would have occurred rapidly through the various ventilation systems instead.<p>The boat builder will blame the crew for not closing these but I doubt there was any procedure to actually close them. The engine needs to run to generate power and the engine needs fresh air and an exhaust.
It's not mentioned in this article but it seems Michael Lynch's codefendant in the HP trial Stephen Chamberlain died a few days earlier - <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/sep/05/mike-lynch-associate-hit-by-car-died-from-traumatic-head-injury-inquest-hears" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/sep/05/mike...</a>. Seems to be a genuine coincidence though.
URL Share version <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/31/world/europe/bayesian-yacht-sinking-italy.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Wk4.0IfT.r6aJqK0bbIRc&smid=url-share" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/31/world/europe/...</a> (the richer media on the site doesn't get archived well)
The cascading set of design failures brings to mind the 17th century Swedish warship <i>Vasa</i>:<p><<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(ship)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(ship)</a>>
Were mistakes made? The retractable keel was up. I'm no grizzled mariner, but that feels like a thing you'd want to do in a storm. Feels like at that point your yacht has all the stability of a guy standing up in a canoe.
Pretty ironic that the single mast, that was added for sailing speed, was the likely cause yet they never used the sails. They just enjoyed it looking imposing and different.
These stories sound so abstract, and it’s hard to remember that real people suffered a real tragedy. I was visiting my friend at Princeton, when an acquaintance of his remarked that both of her parents were on the yacht. Really brought home how real it all was.
>Beyond being exceptionally tall — more than 40 feet higher than the original foremast — it was also very heavy, at least 24 tons of aluminum, possibly more.<p>the yacht is 500 ton, 4m draught (with the retractable keel not extended). The mast is 72m height. So, the 24 tons at say 30m above center of buoyancy require - minimum - 240 ton at 3m below the center of buoyancy. Add to that that the center of buoyancy is inside the body at some depth under the deck, so the weight of the body above the center of buoyancy also needs corresponding weight (lever momentum, ie. mass x lever length) below the center of buoyancy. Doesn't look good.
> The retractable keel, which helped to keep the boat stable, was not fully extended when it sank.<p>Regardless of inherent design issues which are perhaps debatable, this seems like a bit of a "Have you tried plugging it in?" kind of a situation.
> "The ship was an unsinkable ship. I say it, I repeat it."<p>Saying that when the boat is nearly 200 feet under the surface of the sea seems insane.
> The days were typically warm, sunny and calm, and finished off with plates of fresh langoustine and sumptuous chocolate.<p>Hopefully not concurrently.
As a slight aside, if anyone is interested in the topic the 'standard' introductory text is apparently 'Principles of Yacht Design' by Larsson and Eliasson. In particular, including a chapter on stability calculations. You can find an older edition freely available on archive.org.
Seems like yachts are kind of like the private airline industry- when a super rich person can afford to request a bespoke design, safety requirements sometimes get eased. Plus less testing of the boat could be it. Pilots and captains for unique designs/mods might not have as much experience as commercial airlines: <a href="https://www.ctinsider.com/news/article/is-flying-private-more-dangerous-than-commercial-19763007.php" rel="nofollow">https://www.ctinsider.com/news/article/is-flying-private-mor...</a> One example is the standardization of buttons in an airplane make it easier to know where to locate the important latches in an emergency.<p>Also, it's possible some of these basic balancing and center-of-gravity considerations were already known over 500 years ago- it's when a novel feature gets prioritized that the fundamental stability of the design gets overlooked.
The incompetente decision to anchor there. And to stay there with the forecast. Knowing you are the captain of a yacht with the tallest mast! They were anchoring on a sort of reef. Where wind and waves in strong winds can be very dangerous.
Further more no precisions the stay on deck, start the engine, get the guest on deck or on shore. This is what his Dutch neighbours did!
I didn't read the article but did it shed light on why some survived and some didn't? I am wondering if those who didn't survive probably died from trauma/injury during the capsizing, or was it because they were incapable of swimming in the rough waters?
I like that the article acknowledges the trade-offs between comfort and safety in the design of these luxury yachts.<p>So many seemingly small compromises along the way that seem to increase the vulnerability, then the crew is expected to compensate.
Further more, there was a forecast. But no real action.
You can blame the yacht builder. But then you are an incompetent captain..sailing in and accepting guest in a very dangerous environment.
This is not boat vents or the angle of the yacht on the water. It’s about a captain who should have make decisions, not to sail, not to anchor, get the guest off board. Lower more life rafts..
I don't really understand all the media hubbub about this. People die in private boats all the time, probably several more that week alone. But this is being treated like a major disaster and someone must be held responsible.<p>Is it just because it was some rich guy that died? I don't think that makes it worse in any way than any other accident where people died, to be honest.<p>I just don't really understand the outrage about this. When I hear that a young family is killed by a drunk driver I'm much more angry and sad. But you don't see the New York Times writing about those when they happen on the other side of the world. These people mattered too but they knowingly took a risk by camping out in the sea.
“Giovanni Costantino, the chief executive of the Italian Sea Group, the company that owns Perini Navi, said that when operated properly, the Bayesian was ‘unsinkable.’”<p>I assign a rather low prior probability to any ship being “unsinkable”, so I’ll need better evidence than that before my posterior probability becomes more than minuscule
I subscribe to the NYT, via login with Apple.<p>Try to login, and it never responds to the login.<p>So I remember that I registered an account with an old email. Login, it send a verification code.<p>And then doesn’t respond to that verification number.<p>So I drop VPN… and it accepts the number… and immediately spams that email address..<p>Only to throw up another paywall.<p>And it still doesn’t accept the subscription I pay for.
NY Times found that an unusually tall mast, and the design changes it required, made the superyacht Bayesian, owned by a tech billionaire Michael Lynch, vulnerable. Lynch co-founded Autonomy and was celebrating his court case against HP when his yacht sank.