The 5 design flaws that sank Bayesian superyacht and killed seven

A bombshell investigation has revealed how a series of flaws with the design of the ill-fated $40 million Bayesian superyacht may have caused it to capsize and sink, leaving seven dead.

The New York Times probe, which included accounts from experts, schematic diagrams, and computer models, concluded that there were five main faults – including the unusually tall mast.

Survivor testimony further revealed how the deadly event unfolded in real time when a squall suddenly blew in off the Sicilian coast during the early hours of August 19.

The boat capsized and sank within just minutes, killing tech mogul Mike Lynch, daughter Hannah, as well as Judy and Jonathan Bloomer, Christopher Morvillo, Neda Nassiri and Recaldo Thomas.

Fifteen others on board survived after scrambling aboard a life raft, with the report laying bare in terrifying detail the horror they experienced.

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Tad Roberts, a naval architect with 40 years experience, was one of more than a dozen experts interviewed.

He said: ‘We can look at it in hindsight and say they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. No, that’s not true.

‘This boat had definite shortcomings that kind of uniquely made it vulnerable to what happened.’

‘When I first saw this, I couldn’t believe it,’ he added of design decisions such as putting the yacht’s keel toward the back of the boat instead of evenly across the bottom, as is commonplace.

‘It made no sense to me.’ 

One of the main functions of a yacht’s keel, he pointed out, is to provide stability –  adding weight low in ships to give it a center of gravity.

Without such a center, the boat would have been susceptible to capsizing, he said. Other naval engineers also agreed with his remarks. 

Many experts also said that the decision was likely made to offset the weight of the boat’s single, heavy mast – a 237-foot structure set slightly toward the ship’s front.

The placement of the mast itself was also unusual, several others claimed – before painting a picture of a compromised vessel seemingly doomed right from the start.

The mast was far the ship’s most distinguishing feature and may been simply too big, the seasoned engineers interviewed all said.

They explained how the more weight put on a yacht up high, the more weight was needed down low to stop it from tipping over.

Revisions to the boat’s original ballast – a boating term that refers to the balance brought by the keel – were therefore necessary in an apparently fruitless bid for stability.

Meanwhile, the mast measured in at an astounding 237 feet – more than 40 feet more than most others of its kind.

It was also comprised of at least 24 tons of aluminum rather than the much lighter carbon fiber more commonly used in yachts today – despite its inherent, higher cost.

Moreover, the boat only boasted one mast instead of the more standard two.

The Times also uncovered startling data from a ‘stability book’ for another 56-meter vessel from the same Italian yacht-maker responsible for the Bayesian in 2008.

Specifically, it showed a two-masted ship can lean at least 10 degrees farther onto its side that one-masted counterparts before taking on dangerous amounts of water – something that proved fatal in the case of the Bayesian.

Meanwhile, two Spanish naval engineers interviewed by the Times, Guillermo Gefaell and Juan Manuel López, calculated that the sheer size of the mast effectively made  the yacht a wind catcher. 

While not damning on their own, these alleged design flaws combined to create a perfect storm of compromises, experts said – before pointing to at least three other problems that also played a crucial part.  

These included how close the boat’s four air vents were to the waterline and a sunken deck that drastically reduced the boat’s buoyancy – decisions that, when faced with a sudden storm of great ferocity, proved fatal. 

The storm that stuck Lynch’s boat during its second voyage would definitely be included in that class, boat Captain Karsten Borner said – recalling wind gusts that reached nearly 70 miles an hour while out on the same stormy sea as the Bayesian.

Such speeds are just below hurricane strength, and saw the boat pushed to its side about 15 degrees, the Times report discerned.

Gefaell noted how if the gusts were as strong as Borner estimated, such a force would have pushed the boat to an even more severe angle, knocking it all over within a matter of minutes, as witnesses described.

At that point, Gefaell insisted, ‘the boat was certainly lost.’

This happened at around 4:05am, Borner and others confirmed – and within two minutes, the boat was knocked to its side.

Such an occurrence is completely of the ordinary for a boat like the Bayesian, Borner insisted – calling 15 degrees a serious lean but nothing close to capsizing.

However, in the instance surrounding the Bayesian, it was enough to tip the vessel over – an occurrence that was immediately worsened by the low-lying vents and recessed deck, both of which brought in water at a startling rate, other experts said. 

Other basic design choices, such as putting two tall doors on either side of the deck, caused even more water to come in, they all said – citing how the boat sank just 16 minutes after the storm emerged hundreds of miles from where it had been forecast.

Borner’s old sailboat managed to stay afloat, and he was able to rescue the 15 bloodied survivors huddled in a twelve-person lifeboat.

He recalled how among them was Angela Bacares, the wife of the tech mogul who owned the vessel. 

‘Are you OK?’ Borner remembered asking her. 

‘No,’ she replied. ‘I am not OK at all.’ 

Her husband and 18-year-old daughter were among those did not make it into the lifeboat and perished.

Survivors described what occurred to a doctor who went on to treat them – and was also interviewed by the Times.

Dr. Domenico Cipolla, the head of pediatric emergency at Di Cristina Pediatric Hospital, recalled accounts of a mother and her one-year-old child being hurled into the sea seconds after being jolted awake by the storm as the boat capsized.

The doctor said the woman told him how her baby nearly slipped away, before she grabbed her and swam to the just deployed life raft.

The boat would then fall beneath the water’s surface, as the seven remained trapped inside.

On the first day of a subsequent search, divers found the body of yacht chef Thomas – the only victim found floating outside the boat.

Over the next three days, they found the bodies of Lynch and the four other victims all in a cabin opposite the main staircase they could have used to flee.

The Times report – which included consultations from more than a dozen naval architects, engineers and other experts – found that they failed to do so when a surge of water knocked them backward, due to the litany of design flaws.

The last victim, Hannah, was found trapped behind furniture in another cabin nearby.

With the boat flipped on its side and without power, it would have been nearly impossible for anyone below deck to escape, the experts all said – pointing to the abnormal rate at which the water must have poured in and a lack of light.

The wreck, still 160 feet below the surface, is now set to be raised by Italian officials in the coming months for a more in-depth inspection, as the makers of the Italian-made vessel continue to insist the ship’s design was not the cause of the catastrophe.

Giovanni Costantino, the chief executive of the Italian Sea Group, the company that owns the firm that built the yacht, Perini Navi, told the Times the Bayesian was ‘unsinkable.’

He blamed the tragedy on the ship’s crew, and a series of unspecified errors that left it at the storm’s mercy.

‘I know, all the crew knows, that they did not do what they should have done,’ he said, as surviving members reportedly remain under a still-shrouded ‘gag order’

He said the design was not at fault and that the towering mast did not create ‘any kind of problem’ – contrary to the experts’ claims.

‘The ship was an unsinkable ship,’ he said. ‘I say it, I repeat it.’