Five unanswered questions over Bayesian sinking yacht

After the £30million superyacht Bayesian sank off the coast of Italy on Monday morning, many questions have been raised as the desperate search effort continues.

The search for six missing people continues today with fears bodies are still trapped in the vessel which went down as British tech tycoon Mike Lynch and his friends celebrated his acquittal in a US fraud trial.

Mr Lynch, his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, Morgan Stanley boss Jonathan Bloomer, his wife Judy, lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda are all still yet to be found.

The vessel had been anchored just 300 metres from the coast when it was hit by a suspected freak waterspout amid heavy thunderstorms near the city of Palermo at around 5am.

The boat – which had been carrying 10 crew members and 12 passengers – went down quickly, with survivors found floating in a life raft describing how they swam for their lives.

But unanswered questions over the Bayesian sinking remain, including why it capsized when other boats stayed afloat.

It comes as:

What caused the superyacht to sink but not other boats?

Investigations are underway as to why the Bayesian sank when others in the vicinity remained afloat when disaster struck just before 5am on Monday.

The yacht – carrying 10 crew members and 12 passengers – had the world’s tallest aluminium mast at almost 250ft.

The enormous mast could have been what caused the vessel to capsize and sink rapidly, according to an expert.

It broke during the waterspout, causing the ship to sink after the weight of the mast took the hull beyond the ‘down-flooding angle’, technical consultant and nautical expert Gino Ciriaci told Italian website Corriere Della Sera.

The freakish nature of the event was brought into context by the fact that a Dutch sailing ship, the Sir Robert BP, which was anchored just metres away from the Bayesian, survived unscathed before rescuing the 15 passengers.

Karsten Borner, the captain of the boat, described how his vessel was battered by strong gusts, with his team working to stabilise it and manoeuvre it to avoid hitting the Bayesian nearby.

Why was it in the bay during such strong winds?

The boat had been anchored offshore from Porticello, having sailed from the seaside village of Cefalu, when it was hit by a freak waterspout caused by bad weather and sank near Palermo.

Matthew Shank, chairman of the Maritime Search and Rescue Council, told Radio 4 this morning: ‘There were weather warnings out that evening for intense thunderstorms. They are still incredibly rare weather events.’

The boat – which had been carrying 10 crew members and 12 passengers – went down quickly, with survivors found floating in a life raft describing how they swam for their lives.

One maritime expert has claimed the sinking of such a large vessel due to weather conditions is ‘unprecedented’ and has suggested that despite the severe storm at the time the superyacht should have been able to withstand it.

The yacht sank as a fierce storm battered the area overnight, with local meteorologists warning that 30C temperatures – warmer than normal – had amplified the risk of an extreme weather event.

Survivors were dramatically rescued from the water in the aftermath including one woman who heroically saved a one-year-old British boy.

Where did the mayday flare come from?

As the yacht began to sink, a member of the crew fired a distress flare which alerted vessels nearby.

Mr Shank told Radio 4: ‘One of the captains from the anchorage said he saw the vessel there one minute and then the next minute the yacht was gone.

‘All he saw was the red flare which indicates to me that this has been a catastrophic incident which has gone very quickly.’

Fabio Cefalu, a fisherman who witnessed the freak storm, told Italian media he stayed on site for several hours.

‘After 10 minutes we saw a flare in the sky, we waited about 10 minutes to see the intensity of the tornado and we went out to sea,’ he said.

‘We were first to give rescue but we found no one at sea, we only found cushions and the remains of the boat.’

What happened to the missing passengers? 

Mr Lynch, his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, Morgan Stanley boss Jonathan Bloomer, his wife Judy, lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda are all still yet to be found. 

As the sun rose over the Mediterranean this morning, the search for them resumed with specialist divers heading 50m (164ft) down to where the wreck of the vessel lies on the seabed.

During yesterday’s frantic search it was reported that bodies had been seen through the portholes in some of the cabins, although it is believed that divers have not been able to get inside the vessel due to furniture obstructing the way in.

Search teams have already found the body of one man, thought to be an onboard chef, and there are fears that more bodies will be found in the hull of the ship by specialist divers today. 

Any hopes of finding the missing six alive is being hampered by a number of challenges: dive teams are limited to 12 minute shifts to explore the wreck, and they also need to have a clear path without the threat of debris to ensure a safe exit. 

Nick Sloane, an engineer who led the salvage operation for the Costa Concordia disaster, says survivors may be trapped in ‘air pockets’ on board the doomed vessel.

He told Sky News that the next 24 hours are critical in the ‘very dangerous’ operation, with rescuers having to be aware of floating materials ‘that can trap you’. 

‘They’ve got a very small window of time to try to find people stuck inside with hopefully an air pocket, and they could be rescued,’ he said. 

Firefighter divers trained to work in tight spaces were flown in from Rome and Sardinia to aid in the operation yesterday, but in their first search below the surface they failed to gain access to the vessel.

Officials have said those on board the boat were in ‘the wrong place at the wrong time’, with hope already fading that anyone else will be found alive this morning.

Francesco Venuto, the spokesperson for Sicily’s civil protection agency, also told the BBC that they ‘think [the corpses] must be there [in the boat]’.

He added: ‘We’ve been searching all day with helicopters and boats, we’ve found nothing. That wouldn’t make sense, in [these] conditions we should have found something by now.’

Expert divers reached the hull on Monday morning, with more specialist teams brought in as the day went on cables reportedly fixed between the yacht and the surface to allow easier descent.

‘The specialists are able to get into small spaces underwater,’ a spokesman said.

Did the crew have time to close their access hatches into the vessel before the storm struck?

Last night it emerged the UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch is deploying a team of four inspectors to Italy to conduct a preliminary assessment. 

One expert at the scene of the disaster who declined to be named said an early focus of the investigation would be whether the yacht’s crew had had time to close access hatches into the vessel before the storm struck.

Emergency divers found wreckage of the vessel at a depth of 187ft, where ‘through the portholes they saw corpses’.