Oh please … gawd I hope that was a poorly considered lame joke. If it wasn’t please don’t drag this thread back into USA Today level analysis. The boat wasn’t a fiberglass toy boat and grade school level stability fears based on stick figure drawings have no place here.
1 Like
According to the builder there’s an opening at the stern for a platform of some kind for small boats. Also another similar opening on the side close to the waterline.
They may have been open at the time.
Also from the FT winds were estimated at about 60 kts.
Costantino offered his view of how the tragedy could have been avoided: "To begin with, in a weather alert situation it was inappropriate to have, as I read, a party. Not that evening. The hull and deck needed to be secured by closing all doors and hatches, after putting the guests at the ship’s meeting point as per emergency procedure. Then start the engines and pull up the anchor or release it automatically, put the bow to the wind and lower the keel.
1 Like
Yes. And WTDs left open to the interior that should have remained closed. As @yacht_sailor pointed out:
@Jughead, you are the resident square-rigged ship expert here. You’ve doubtless considered your vessel getting knocked down in heavy seas. Are all the weatherdeck hatches the typical steel/aluminum WTD designs you would find on motor vessels? Is there a protocol for keeping them open or closed in certain conditions?
My never-wrong, go-to conspiracy theory / words of wisdom:
“When your number comes up… Ba-Boom.”
The aft opening is a fold out “swim deck” that when opened exposes access steps for guests to move from the main deck to the platform. The side platform, sometimes called a “beach club” opens just above water line to provide access to small toy storage and engineering spaces. Tenders and other large toys are stored below the main deck forward in dedicated spaces, not in an aft garage like large motor yachts. That side opening would never be left open in anything but dead calm water when crew are present and the swim deck would be retracted when not tended in use. The photo below is of another large Pereni that I am very familiar with, note the side door location and thickness. Considering that it is entirely submerged when heeled to the port rail, it is very strong and seaworthy.
A news release from Reuters . Edited at …
MILAN (Reuters) - A series of “indescribable, unreasonable errors” by the crew led to the shipwreck in which British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and six others died earlier this week, the yacht manufacturer’s CEO told Reuters on Thursday…
…“The boat suffered a series of indescribable, unreasonable errors, the impossible happened on that boat … but it went down because it took on water. From where, the investigators will tell,” Giovanni Costantino said in an interview.
Costantino helms The Italian Sea Group, which includes Perini Navi, the Italian high-end yacht maker that built the Bayesian in 2008. The vessel has been refitted twice, last in 2020, but not by Perini.
The CEO ruled out any design or construction errors, which he called unlikely after 16 years of trouble-free navigation, including in more severe weather than on Monday.
He blamed the Bayesian’s crew for the “incredible mistake” of not being prepared for the storm, which had been announced in shipping forecasts. “This is the mistake that cries out for vengeance,” he said.
Costantino said passengers should have been summoned out of their cabins and assembled at a point of safety while the boat was being prepared for the storm by pulling up the anchor, closing doors and hatches, lowering the keel to increase stability and other measures…
…Had correct procedures been followed, all passengers would have gone back to sleep after one hour “and the next morning they would have happily resumed their wonderful cruise,” Costantino said.
Another yacht anchored near the Bayesian escaped unharmed. The captain of the sunken yacht and other crew members have not commented publicly on the disaster, while Italian prosecutors investigating it are due to hold a press conference on Saturday.
‘Indescribable’ crew errors led to Sicily shipwreck, yacht maker says (msn.com)
the incident is getting plenty of coverage in the media in New Zealand because the skipper is a New Zealander living in Europe. I am pretty sure he will have a Master Yacht quali4fication and that has a stability segment.
It has been reported that the retractable keel was half way down. The investigation will reveal the time when the procedure started. I am going to refrain from speculation and await the results of the investigation.
1 Like
The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks.
5 Likes
Yes. We secure off-centre deck openings in any rough conditions and often at night if weather is possible but most of my ship’s such openings are only off-centre by a few feet and wouldn’t immerse in a theoretical 90 degree knockdown in flat calm.
The four hatches are secondary ventilation into accommodation spaces and so it is a captain’s discretion to shut them in other, more benign conditions. I would never order shutting at anchor.
None of those hatches are necessary for crew to enter normally but they are escape hatches. All normal entries are on the centreline. All hatches, doors and vents are fully sealable.
Now that I hear this ship had a side opening, I can see a possible water entry point.
1 Like
I can detect a blame game starting here. He’s saying it can’t possibly be his design, it has to be the incompetent crew. Pontius Pilate washed his hands.
I’d reckon a good design should aim to withstand an incompetent or forgetful crew. I accept that’s a tall order.
2 Likes
There is no design, plan or mode of operation so solid that the crew cannot find a way to fuck it up and create a dangerous situation. I think most people learn that very quickly upon taking command.
6 Likes
In the article below they interviewed the 35 yr old British mother who was blown overboard with her 1 yr old. She says she was sleeping on deck & in minutes was in the sea. Really odd they would forego the comforts of the inside of a superyacht with multiple HVAC units. Even stranger the weather changed so quick it didn’t wake her or her 1 yr old. The only tornado I experienced & what I read about others, they’re as loud as freight trains when blowing their horns.
2 Likes
I was wondering how mum and baby sorta floated free. That answers it. As for why she was on deck, might have found that baby slept better there. It’s hardly an uncomfortable deck.
1 Like
I have worked on the construction and repair of Perinis larger and smaller than this one. Years of experience at sea in the Med and elsewhere. Months spent at Perini facilities in Tuzla & Viareggio.
The comments here are getting into pure nonsensical bloviation about things that you haven’t a friggin‘ clue about.
Just stop for the love of God.
There are factors in this incident that are known (not many) and many others yet to be discovered.
The rest …… hard to say. Be respectful and Await the UK MAIB Report. It ain’t going to be a difficult case to solve, but the facts just aren’t laid out yet.
3 Likes
Instead of getting 30 different people from several different continents to stop commenting on something, wouldn’t it be easier to get 1 person to quit reading it? This is a forum for crying out loud. The word forum is at the top of the page & in the web address. Its great you know so much & have so much experience on this class of yacht but I don’t recall any bridge experts visiting this forum when the Baltimore bridge came down telling us we weren’t qualified to discuss it. And with all the media coverage the Bayesian is getting worldwide I don’t think 150 comments on gcaptain forum makes a difference.
2 Likes
Snippets from an article in The Times (paywalled)
Giovanni Costantino, who leads the Italian Sea Group, suggested the doors of the vessel may have been left open … Costantino said he suspected a large door, low down on the hull, which was close to the engine room and used to enter the yacht from its tender, was left open.
{He said} that the vessel was “like a pendulum” and designed to return upright even when tilted at an angle of 87.6 degrees – almost horizontal. Commenting on speculation the crew raised the yacht’s keel, rendering it less stable, he said: “I don’t see that as a factor since even when it’s up, the yacht can lean over at 73 degrees and still right itself.”
He goes on to blame the procedures and actions of what the crew should have done ie get everyone up at an emergency station etc.
The yacht’s captain has also spoken about the freak tornado that hit the vessel. James Cutfield, 51, told Italian media: “We didn’t see it coming.”
Prosecutors from the nearby town of Termini Imerese questioned Cutfield for more than two hours on Tuesday.
Originally from Auckland, New Zealand, he was described as a “well-respected” lifelong seafarer.
His brother, Mark Cutfield, said he had captained luxury yachts for eight years, worked on them since he was a teenager and was a “very good sailor”.
On Wednesday, Mark Cutfield told The New Zealand Herald that his brother was recovering in hospital and his injuries were not “too dramatic”.
For as long as men go to sea, hatches and doors that must remain closed for safety will be negligently left open. Always was and always will be.
Oh yeah. You were there and witnessed that. Got it
I’m beginning to understand why C Captain was an angry old man after reading this drivel.
1 Like