Italy: Investigators trying to establish why Bayesian superyacht sank so quickly

Rome: Fishers in the Sicilian village of Porticello who witnessed the Bayesian superyacht sink rapidly in a violent storm on Monday say that the vessel was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But for Italian prosecutors investigating the incident, their focus will be on whether the captain and crew took all the necessary safety measures to prevent the tragedy.

Prosecutors from the nearby town of Termini Imerese questioned the yacht’s captain, 51-year-old James Cutfield, from New Zealand, for more than two hours on Tuesday.

Divers scouring the wreck have reportedly found the bodies of five missing persons. The UK tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch; his teenage daughter Hannah Lynch; the Morgan Stanley International chair, Jonathan Bloomer; his wife, Judy; and the Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife, Neda, have been missing since the vessel went down Monday morning. The body of the yacht’s chef, Recaldo Thomas, was located shortly after the vessel sank.

Karsten Borner, 69, the captain of a nearby sailboat that was the first to assist it on Monday, said: “I have never seen a vessel of this size go down so quickly. Within a few minutes, there was nothing left.”

Rescuers are working on the assumption that the boat sank quickly after being hit by a tornadic waterspout. The fact that other vessels nearby – like Borner’s small boat – did not sink is an indication of the localised nature of the event.

According to La Repubblica, divers who carried out underwater inspections of the boat reported that the hatch was open, although this has not been confirmed by officials. If this was the case, large amounts of water could have entered through the gap, potentially destabilising the vessel.

Gabriele Bruni, a sailor who has twice participated in the America’s Cup and has coached the Italian Olympic team, said: “An open hatch on a large ship like the Bayesian can withstand the entry of small amounts of water but, in the case of strong storms, it wouldn’t prevent the entry of large amounts of water.”

“It seems plausible to me that the water entered from somewhere,” Bruni added. “Otherwise, a boat like this wouldn’t have sunk so quickly.”

Other sources told Italian media that the boat’s mobile keel was partially raised. According to data from the Perini Navi shipyard, which built the Bayesian, the vessel was equipped with a system capable of lowering the keel to a depth of up to 10 metres.

“It’s clear that a lowered keel would have provided more stability to the sailboat in case of strong winds,” Bruni commented. “However, it should also be noted that these vessels often cannot lower the mobile keel completely, especially when near a port. A keel with a depth of 10 meters could easily get stuck among the rocks on the seabed.”

Fabio Cefalù, a 36-year-old fisher from Porticello who was one of the first to attempt to provide assistance to the Bayesian, said he arrived at the port at 3.30am for a fishing trip and saw the first flashes of lightning.

“At 3.55, a mini tornado arrived,” Cefalù said. “The docks of the port diverted it and it hit the sailboat head-on.”

The yacht sank shortly after 4.10am. An exclusive photo obtained by the Guardian from a local fisher showed the moment an emergency rocket was launched from its life raft at 4.35 am.

Francesco Lo Coco, who took the image, said: “I went out on the balcony because I have two boats moored in the harbour and I was worried about the approaching storm. Suddenly, I saw the sailboat rocking. I grabbed my phone to take the picture. The emergency rocket was launched while the sailboat was already sinking.”

Investigators are trying to determine why most of the crew survived while six guests and the chef died.

Nicola Romana, an expert in transport and tourism law at the Department of Economic Sciences at the University of Palermo, told La Repubblica: “In maritime accidents, there is almost always a human error at the root of it. In this case, a catastrophic event has also played a role. The crew of a ship of that size must be prepared for anything.”

Bruni said: “The captains and crew of a vessel like the Bayesian are not chosen at random. We are talking about the best professionals in the world. If there’s a storm, the captain must first call the crew to try to right the vessel and take all necessary measures to avoid a shipwreck.

“The sudden storm or mini tornado would have caught them off guard while they were attempting to do what was necessary to ensure the safety of the passengers.

“Unfortunately, they didn’t make it in time. But these are all speculations for now. We’ll have to wait for the end of investigations to understand the causes of the incident.”

“I am incredulous about what happened to a yacht like this,” he added. “If they had asked me that night, in a stormy day, in which sailboat in the world I would have wanted to be, I would have chosen the Bayesian.”