A sailing light would be red over green. That light is for aircraft.
I can see the saloon getting flooded and water quickly flowing forward to crew and guest quarters, taking with it a flash flood of cushions, furniture and who knows what that was ripped from its mountings, all of it bound for the guest cabin area. Was a w/t door between guest and crew area open? Who knows but it is possible, maybe even likely at that time with the crew working to secure for bad weather and fact that the galley required access to the guest area. Considering the small volume of the engine room and technical spaces aft, and the fairly safe assumption that like other large Perinis, access to engine room and aft spaces from cockpit or deck is in on the port side, I can’t see how those spaces flooded first. Even if one of the tender bay doors was wide open, the volume of that area is not great but it could add enough weight forward to move more water into the guest and crew areas but not enough by itself to sink the boat.
Sure, Heiwa, they probably used the same secret island mountain top device they used to sink the Estonia. Maybe it’s the same bunch who used space lasers to start forest fires in California.
Often on large yachts the „beach club“ or if aft, tender garage is separately considered in the damaged stability calculations.
But the downflooding at a 90 or +90 deg angle …… whoa.
It’s as if the wind forced her down and held her there for a moment. Lots of technical analysis needed to take the timeline from 45 deg to sunk.
Our resident Ex-Spurts can now explain the exact sequence and how it happened with infinite certainty all without waiting for any pesky investigative results for sure. I’m just amazed at the knockdown whilst not under sail. (As far as we know)
It’s that early Lego design, as updated by Boeing - don’t you know anything?
Yeah, 90 degrees would flood the cockpit and possibly stove in the saloon doors but, wow, it seems like it would have to be held down for quite a while unless some of the side windows were also smashed and allowed almost instant flooding of the saloon. But, aside from the engine room air intakes which are quite high above waterline, where else would water enter the engine room except via the portside deck access which would have been well above water even at 90 degrees of heel and the w/t door between the e/r - control room and engine room was also open which is unlikely. If nothing else, the volume of the engine room and aft compartment is quite small given the hull form in that area.
You would think there would be some underwater video online by now if there was anything at all to show it involved a crew related operational thing instead of a horrible confluence of the all but impossible.
Maybe it was an Italian submarine showing off its emergency surfacing technique, that would explain their rush to blame the yacht crew.
Intakes / outlets SB side might be in the water at 90 deg
Any water in hull would complicate the righting moment available to bring her up again especially should it prove keel was up or mostly up
Lot of tech analysis now and one might speculate that Perini, designer and Class will be in the ass puckering stage of introspection…
I think the term you’re looking for is MRU (Motion Reference Unit). I assume (I know that’s a dangerous word) that the autopilot system on a sailing vessel of this size and caliber would have had an MRU feed (or several). It’s plausible/likely that that data would have been included in a VDR.
You are right, there might be several accelerometers in an autopilot but would they be powered up at anchor? Not many sailboats have stabilizers so unless Bayesian had one of those “rudder fin” stabilizer systems I don’t think that data would be available. It might be just a peculiar translation but “shaking” is a weird way to describe ship motion except for a large ship’s stern when slamming in a head sea. That will shake your fillings out.
It is very true that Perini is deeply puckered up and we see they entered that mode faster than the boat took on water. Does this mean they have already recovered electronics from the wreck?
As far as “shaking “: whatever the sensor/source was for this impression I wonder if it was feeling the effect of the boat both jinking at anchor in hurricane force winds, as well as the vibration of the mast/rigging. The winds were likely not straight-line but changing direction every few moments, as was the hull itself as it suddenly jinked around at anchor.
Like a lot of boats at anchor in very strong winds the boat is jinking about like a fish at the end of a fishing line. A disconcerting feeling for a civilian, and maybe a lot of the crew. If the anchor skipped over the bottom also and caught a few times that too could result in a “shaking”. A mariner used to the effect might not call it that but a civilian might.
The huge mast in 100-200 knot winds is going to vibrate. If the hurricane force wind changes direction by a point or two every few seconds, in two different planes, that’s going to shake things up differently than if the boat was simply underway in a typical storm.
Finally, there would have been waves out of nowhere. One minute a calm sea. The next minute four-footers. Trivial for a mariner. But add it into the mix and a non-mariner might refer to the total resultant effects as “shaking.”
I dont know about yatchs, but the vessels that I worked on with mru/vru’s, they never got shut off. They would be taken out of the autopilot/dp systems for whatever reasons but recorded constantly like the wind sensors, depth finders etc.
But seriously…
No VDR!
Yes, Perinis have complex load, pitch/roll & yaw/wind angle sensing for their semi- & fully-automatic sail control systems - it’s too much for a small crew to handle otherwise.
This includes alarms for crew to limit load/heel/excess helm, followed by automatic easing of sheets, smart commands e.g. “auto-tacking” option that partially furls headsails as the yacht rounds up and through the wind, all electro-hydraulic, including captive winches.
Getting recorded info (if any) will be a bit of a stretch form 50m immersion - if such sytems were on at anchor.
Likewise ECDIS records, which cannot show much more than AIS data already available.
Likewise any video from onboard cameras (we all have them) unless streamed to the cloud - unlikely.
Grey Matter, not Black boxes, for onboard evidence, I think.
It has been some years since I have had a good look at a super yacht but they have got about as much in common with an ordinary yacht as a Bentley has with a golf buggy.
The last one I looked at was built in NZ and displaced 300 tonnes. When the mast was stepped there was an extraordinary amount of wiring for radar, Inmarsat, radio antenna, lights ,security cameras, instrumentation and god knows what else. The sheets were a custom laid synthetic leading to winches with a 50 tonne winches. Hydraulics every where.
Exactly!
Lotsa curly amps, wiggly volts &sensors.
… and laid up into carbon spars and PBO rigging all the stress sensors you could ask for…
… but not in use on this yacht and not in a reasonably-assumed safe anchorage
https://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2024/08/23/did-social-trends-lead-to-yacht-tragedy/
This commentary attributed to a qualified yacht designer pretty much touches all the bases for the moment. Look what he says about the keel positions.
Not knowing anything about this incident vessel or crew. Most particularly Italian law.
Having taken part in the aftermath of a few marine incidents.
After all the more traumatic occurrences. Some the crew found particularly hard.
“The Master having his rights read” By the CG investigator.
It was the first occurance. As soon as we arrived on site.
The starting of an investigation by those who have the role of pressing criminal charges is just part of the process.
MAIB NTSB TSB do not press charges. The rest of the agencies who might will possibly show up if there was risk of injury or death. Definitely if there was serious injury or death.
In most cases nothing more comes of it.
Unless there is sufficient evidence for probable cause.
Under British law. I believe the MCA may prosecute. If there is sufficient evidence for Crown Prosecutor.
Conversations with MAIB are privileged. Meaning you can talk to the MAIB without fear of it being used against you later.
Conversation with lawyer also privileged.
Conversation with insurance (I was surprised by this) Privileged.
Conversation with company or union rep. No Privilege, Fair game for a prosecutor.
Italian Law no idea how it works, The incident happened in Italy so Italian Law and investigation methods apply. Even so. General principle of accident investigation. It is much more important to have the people involved talk freely and find out what happened. Than prosecute them.
So the starting of an investigation for possible manslaughter charges is probably just a routine procedure.
Law regarding VDR varies. Under Canadian law it is seized by TSB. Its an offence for anyone else to try and access it without TSB permission. Not knowing British or American Laws. I expect very similar. Italian law is different, I don’t know
AIS is freely available can be very good info but is not VDR.
Did this vessel have a VDR? Very possible, I don’t know. If it did and it meets the normal commercial standards. In addition to the main VDR. There would be a float free recording unit probably on top of the WH right beside the EPIRB.
The voice recording would pick up lots of other back ground noises like wind ect.
I took part in one form or another in quite a few investigations over the years. I am retired now.
Always have an open mind.
Almost every time I though i knew what happened and what to look for. I found out I was wrong.
I was usually surprised.
I almost never found negligence was a cause.
Complacency even downright stupidity yes occasionally.
Most people involved were trying to do a good job or at least what they thought was a good job at the time.
How this will play out.
I don’t know. It’s beyond my comprehension.
A common log from B&G has a roll sensor these days
Angle of heal is important for sailors and if it has auto sheet dumps then it would most likely have a separate MRU
A 52’ race boat I sail on has a mru to get accurate heal angle as the designer created healing polars which we used to get to know how to sail it.
Saying that it could now get that data form the log as the chips have several functions now not just speed depth and temp.
It will be interesting to know what „black box“ the authorities appear to possess.
Off Honduras, at night, got hit by downburst. Pitch dark, anemometer was bouncing between 90 and 110 knots. Direction indicator also jumping around, 1 -2 points is about right. Lasted for maybe 5 minutes more or less.
Also…
By AIS Bayesian was evidently anchored in 30 meters and sank in 50 meters.
And this article:
Börner was anchored at Porticello with his ship, Sir Robert Baden Powell, at Porticello on Monday. “The weather forecast included thunderstorms and that can sometimes be strange in the Mediterranean,” he told the regional broadcaster. He and his crew got up early that morning. “We were somewhat prepared for it.”
A waterspout - a kind of weaker, wetter tornado above a body of water - appeared. “Very strong and intense. We had a hard time keeping the ship in place with the engine and anchor. The yacht was behind us. We looked every now and then to see where they were. At one point, it disappeared.”
Börner checked the radar and saw no sign of the yacht. He immediately knew something was wrong. That’s when one of his passengers saw a red flare. “A moment later, I saw it too, and together with my helmsman, I got into the tender, the dinghy, and went that way. We found a life raft with 15 people in it, four seriously injured, and also a baby.”
Authorities have apparently ruled out a tornadic waterspout but there were a couple eye witnesses including Captain Börner.
One more thing, don’t have a link but watched a video of a yacht knocked down by a waterspout (about 90 degrees) but it righted itself.
at night in bad weather…good eyes