A complicated search effort is underway deep beneath the surface of the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Italy, where a superyacht sank early Monday during a fierce storm.
Dive crews are attempting to enter the wreck of the Bayesian, a 56-metre British-flagged luxury vessel, which is sitting in some 50 metres of water near the Sicilian fishing village of Porticello.
Fifteen of the 22 passengers and crew members on board were rescued. Six people are still considered missing, including British businessman Mike Lynch. Some say it’s possible they may still be alive and in the hull of the sunken yacht. Searchers recovered the body of the Canadian cook on board the Bayesian in the water not far from where it sank.
Questions have emerged about why a boat designed to handle severe weather sank so rapidly and whether or not some of its features could’ve been a factor in its demise.
Maritime experts say investigations may, in time, reveal what led to the disaster. But the focus now, they say, is on rescue divers getting further inside the vessel to where the missing passengers and crew may be located, on the slim chance that someone may have survived inside an air pocket in the hull.
“It’s unlikely, I’m sorry to say, but time will tell,” said Simon Boxall, an oceanographer and senior lecturer at the University of Southampton in England.
A Canadian-born man is dead after a patch of rough weather sank a luxury superyacht off the coast of Sicily, Italian officials said. Several others are still missing.
How did the Bayesian sink so quickly?
Grainy footage from closed-circuit cameras on the shore broadcast on the website of the Giornale di Sicilia newspaper showed the Bayesian’s majestic mast just before it disappeared.
Karsten Borner, captain of the Sir Robert Baden Powell, which rescued the survivors who managed to get into a lifeboat, told The Associated Press he was close enough to be able to see the Bayesian as the storm came in.
“A moment later, she was gone,” he said, adding that the survivors told them they went flat on the water “and were sunk in two minutes.”
Boxall said vessels rely on being able to steer and navigate stormy seas, but the Bayesian was anchored and stationary, which likely made it more vulnerable to the storm that has been described as a waterspout or tornado.
He noted that it was also dark, meaning “you wouldn’t see this sort of very unique event coming towards you.”
“It’s a freak of nature,” Boxall said. “I think the fact that so many have survived, so far, is probably a miracle.”
Tom Sharpe, a retired Royal Navy commander and defence commentator, told CBC News the weather was likely not the only issue.
He says it’s rare that a weather event like this takes down a boat.
“There’s nearly always a sequence [of events],” he said in an interview from Guildford, England, explaining that everything from safety protocols to the culture on board the vessel needs to be taken into account.
Rescue efforts are underway in Sicily, after a luxury superyacht carrying 22 people was hit by a violent storm, causing it to suddenly capsize. Lauren Bird explains the challenges that divers face in finding the six missing passengers, and breaks down why time isn’t on their side.
Was the boat’s design part of the problem?
The Bayesian was built in 2008 by Italian luxury yacht maker Perini Navi.
Andrea Ratti, a nautical design professor at Milan Polytechnic university, told Reuters that a boat the size of the Bayesian could only sink so rapidly by taking in a huge amount of water.
He suggested that one or more portholes, windows or other openings may have been broken or smashed open by the waterspout, letting in water. There has also been media speculation that a major hatch might have been inadvertently left open.
Reports have also highlighted that the Bayesian featured a 72-metre mast — one of the tallest in the world.
Ratti said an unusually tall mast is not by itself an element of vulnerability in a storm.
A second expert, structural engineer Filippo Mattioni, was also skeptical about the suggestion the boat may have sunk due to a broken mast, which likely would have caused major damage smashing against the hull.
Fire department diver Marco Tilotta told the newspaper Il Messaggero that the wreck was “apparently intact,” with “no gashes, no signs of impact.” However, only half of the hull is visible to divers.
The Bayesian also had a retractable keel — the fin-like structure under the hull that helps stabilize boats and acts as a counterweight to the mast.
Both Ratti and Mattioni wondered if the yacht had been anchored with the keel up, reducing the vessel’s depth under water and making it less stable. Ratti said strong winds might have caused the boat to start oscillating wildly, “like a pendulum,” putting exceptional strain on the mast.
The mast lights of the yacht Bayesian, anchored at Porticello, Italy, can be seen in this CCTV footage as the storm intensifies and they become obscured. It is unclear at which point the yacht capsized.
Sharpe pointed out that a mast the size of the Bayesian’s is designed for a massive sail, and without that sail raised and catching the wind, the gusts likely would’ve had a negligible impact on the aluminum pole.
He instead suggested the anchor may have played a pivotal role.
“My kind of working assumption is that she was probably a bit further in at anchor, and it’s very likely, in these sort of conditions, that her anchor dragged,” he said.
In such a situation, he said, a crew is better off steering toward the anchor to stabilize the vessel or raising the anchor and heading out to sea to ride out the storm.
“They might have got caught in that middle ground where they’re not on a particularly good anchorage, but the anchor is now controlling the bow of the ship.”
What caused the extreme weather?
Although Sharpe says the weather is unlikely the sole cause of the sinking, he notes the Mediterranean isn’t the calm sea often pictured in travel brochures.
“It can get pretty nasty,” he said.
The type of storm that struck Monday is fuelled by warm water and the Mediterranean is warmer than ever, said Boxall, noting there’s been about a three and a half degree increase in the 20-year average temperature.
Karsten Borner describes seeing the British-flagged Bayesian capsize, and his subsequent rescue of some passengers, after the luxury yacht was struck by an unexpectedly violent storm and sank off the Sicilian capital Palermo.
Climatologists say global warming is making such violent and unexpected tempests more frequent.
Luca Mercalli, president of Italy’s meteorological society, said the sea surface temperature around Sicily in the days leading up to the shipwreck was about 30 C.
“This creates an enormous source of energy that contributes to these storms,” he told Reuters.