Thank you guys, I agree completely with everything you have said. I am a retired superyacht captain, I previously worked on a Perini Navi sailing yacht, and yes those large heavy sliding doors caused us problems in rough weather I was horrified to hear the comments of the Perini Navi representative putting all the blame on the crew within a few hours of this disaster and also the Italian legal prosecuter saying there was probable cause of manslaughter by three crew members, all of this before the results of any investigations are concluded. This yacht was hit by a freak weather event that no one could have predicted and I believe the crew were all on deck doing what the crew would normally do, securing the boat. The crew were all washed overboard, one crew member sadly drowned and the crew rescued other guest and got them in the lifeboat. That yacht sank in such a short period of time, I believe no crew on any yacht could have or would have done any different. Some of the press and media reports are totally disgusting and we should all wai for final enquiries. The crew should get themselves the best maritime lawyers available as i feel they are being set up as scapegoats in this tragic event RIP to all those souls who perishedt🎉
Hi Brian Thank you so much for your endorsement and confirmation of the critical design issues that I have raised. There will not be a wide field of marine professionals who have experienced at first hand the issues you have encountered on a Perini Navi super yacht, so your contribution to this discussion is great appreciated. I can only think that the people conducting the various witch hunts trying to accuse the skipper and his crew for negiligence either have a vested interest in finding a scapegoat, or have very little understanding of conditions at sea and an even lesser understanding of how rare this down bursts event was. Best regards Dick B Kraken Yachts
@@brianmurray8331 I agree with you 100%. It is very disappointing at the least to see all the ill informed comments and opinions both in the general media and even some of the comments here, all by people who have actually no real understanding of that environment. But hey that's the downside of this internet age. Even total idiots have a voice.
@brianmurray8331 Sir, whilst I am not a sailor, let alone a Captain I bow down to your knowledge and expertise in such matters. Perhaps some historical knowledge could explain that the region has been known to produce these "freak weather events" since Homers' 'Odyssey' with many subsequent geographers from Polybius to Strabo mentioning 'Charybdis', the monster that could pick up ships and toss them about, sinking them. Perhaps the freak weather event may not be as freaky as first imagined?
@@elbmw agreed. 'Freak' is vague and subjective anyway. Downburst will certainly occur elsewhere where conditions are very similar. Their effect at ground or sea level might depend on local geography and other factors. Expert meteorologists might be able to explain further.
As an ex NZ Super yacht builder I was appalled at the PN CEO calling out the crew and skipper. Because this boat had the tallest and I bet heaviest Alloy mast (far more than the equivalent of a carbon rig) the builders opted to add more internal ballast than originally designed to help with the initial tenderness of the yacht because of such a large heavy spar. This would have lowered the freeboard a little this lowering the flood angle from the original design. The event that morning were extrodanary but I feel that the CEO of PN must be feeling pretty bloody worried and so he should. I hope the crew and captain can have a chance to scrutinized PN and learn that the boat did indeed have design and build flaws.
I did hear an account where someone stated that the lazarette door was definitely closed because this yacht had a lower freeboard than her sisterships due to the large mast, so there was only about 10cm between the bottom of the door and the waterline. This makes me wonder if the downflooding angle and angle of vanishing stability on this particular vessel was lower than those quoted by dick which may have been for the original class design....
@@tomriley5790 Remember that those angles both get even worse (lower values, higher danger) if she takes on a little water. That canvas roof up front over "the entertainment area" might have ripped and become a funnel collecting the downpour into the lounge level stairs where it would wash below.
Sorry but the boat did already prove its capabilities in rough waters before… Why shaming PN, no mediterrean 20min storm could have tilt the boat with closed sails….
@@Luca-oc8iw it most certainly could. I've been knocked down twice by a micro burst. You only need to look at the footage from Auckland. I suspect if this boat had of been hit like that one was it would have sunk. Although the chances of getting hit are slim some boats are simply designed more seaworthy than others.
First sensible, real world analysis I’ve seen of this debacle. Thanks once again for your candour, Dick Beaumont, a voice of reason in a sea of stupidity
I hadn’t heard of a ‘downburst’ until the reporting of this event. I experienced an extreme weather event on passage between Hawaii and San Diego on a Hallberg-Rassy 42E. I received a weather fax forecasting a developing Low Pressure system with Hurricane force expected. Naturally I shortened sail (fully reefed main, equivalent furl to genoa and no mizzen) even though wind speeds were below 18 knots at the time. Cutting to the chase, we saw some dark clouds on the horizon so we put the storm boards in and monitored the situation. Suddenly, the wind speed increased from
I knew them as microbursts, and they are actually quite common. When Mr. Beaumont says they are rare events, he is referring to a microburst/downburst of the strength of the one that sank the yacht.
Hi Dick, I photographed and brokered your yacht "Moonshadow" for you in Sydney about 8 years ago... First thing I want to stress is that well designed seaworthy yachts do not sink at anchor! As soon as the Giovanni Costantino the CEO of Perini Navi started trying to stitch the captain and crew up, by claiming that Bayesian was unsinkable, I have been filling TH-cam comment boxes with the facts about the poor yacht design as you are doing here. I called the tall mast a pissing contest for rich guys and also described the waterfall of water that occurred after she heeled 45 degrees, which would have sought the lowest point in the yacht, where the hapless guests slept. Thank you for your comments and support for the captain and crew and for highlighting how unseaworthy this floating condo actually was. It is no mystery to me that "The Lord Baden Powell" survived unscathed only a few meters away from Bayesian because she is a properly designed old yacht. Sticking a mast and keel on a gin palace is the real negligence here, and I hope that you get consulted as an expert witness in this case.
Wow great to hear from you. Moonshadow was a great boat. I sailed her back to Hong Kong from NZ and sold her there. Much of the design and bomb proof build specification of MS inspired the development of Kraken yachts. We are on the same page precisely. No one that has sailed in serious weather well out of the sight of land would ever countenance designing a yacht with what I consider to be fatal design flaws. Although undoubtable the Bayesian's design flaws now are becoming so obviously apparent as the information has got out in the public domain due to the scrutiny it is now getting because of the scale of this tragedy, it does nonetheless continue to amaze me how readily the sailing fraternity will go to sea, and even cross oceans, in boats that have clear vulnerabilities in their design and construction. I believe the sea will find any flaws in your yacht and the crew and if you rely on luck to get you back safely in port are relying on luck sooner or later that luck will run out and your name will be at the top of the list.
What sunk it? Consider its position in the Mediterranean, near the Messina straight. Look to the West Giraraltar Straight . Incoming water or outgoing , will,create a huge current in narrows. Put with it the Sahara Desert heat, getting sucked out of it at night by the very cool exchange. Sea nearby is the next , heat sink for a Sahara wind to draw from. Downdraft , huge cold already in suction exchange from sand mass, is moved to sea attraction , warmer than usual. All factors of Global warming, we have never before experience. Tilt of Earths Axis human shift of tonnages of ores fro South to North ,25. To 30,years of unbalancing a spinning mass. Trillions of tonnes of ore , for money war of greed of Humans . We did it we can repair it, fast is urgent.
What sunk it? Consider its position in the Mediterranean, near the Messina straight. Look to the West Giraraltar Straight . Incoming water or outgoing , will,create a huge current in narrows. Put with it the Sahara Desert heat, getting sucked out of it at night by the very cool exchange. Sea nearby is the next , heat sink for a Sahara wind to draw from. Downdraft , huge cold already in suction exchange from sand mass, is moved to sea attraction , warmer than usual. All factors of Global warming, we have never before experience. Tilt of Earths Axis human shift of tonnages of ores fro South to North ,25. To 30,years of unbalancing a spinning mass. Trillions of tonnes of ore , for money war of greed of Humans . We did it we car N , repair it, fast is urgent.
Fantastic, this is so spot on! I would like to add that, while technically a sloop rigged sailboat, this boat was actually....stability wise....more of a motor yacht, with a design to minimize heeling and to stay upright...which she did for oh, 16 years. But the Achilles Heel ...that mast and weight and drag from it, caused it to be vulnerable to an extraordinary weather event given it's poor angles of recovery. The video seemed to imply that prior to the downburst, the boat was doing as designed - staying very upright - quite a low angle of heel - until BAM - a microburst driven total knockdown and immediate sinking. What a great interview - thanks fellas!!!!!
I am a 79 year old female, my husband and I have had a boat on the Norfolk Broads for 20 years. I know nothing about nautical , boat building, etc. I have listened to every word you have said, finding it at times emotional, and so very very interesting. So very pleased to be able to understand exactly what and where you are coming from. Your explanation and what you have said is second to none. Thank you so much for this video, you would make a very good Lawyer. I do hope the truth about all of this tragic happening gets sorted out. RIP to all the people who lost their lives.x😊
Your assertation as to the cause of the sinking is exactly what I have been saying for weeks now, and I have said as much several times on the eSysman Superyacht Report channel. That's an excellent photo of the side deck cutouts. It highlights how tons of water would pour in once the 45 degrees angle was exceeded. The only aspect you did not seem to understand fully, was the nature of the wind. The downblast could have happened a small distance away, and changed to outward wind including the twister/waterspout that was seen on video from shore that actually started near or on-shore. That horizontal wind might travel for a few hundred metres, like an isolated 'river' air, similar to isolated 'rivers' of current that occur in parts of the ocean. I experienced both the air and sea versions several times, especially around hilly coasts (eg around Wellington New Zealand and the Greek islands). The downbursts I have seen are relatively mild, being caused by wind bombing down off cliffs, not from cold air bombing down from perhaps thousands of metres high, but the outcome when the burst hits sea-level is conceptually the same. The highly localised squalls that radiate outwards, often unevenly, can easily hit 50 knots for many seconds, (perhaps over a minute?), and I don't think Bayesian needed to be heeled more than 30 seconds past 45 degrees to sink her. It appears that she got hit broadside on. Once she shipped a critical amount of water, the wind could stop, and she would be settled and keep shipping while listed. She would not pop upright, as the water inside would change the whole righting dynamic. This is what happens when we can out sailing dinghies of some designs and they fill their cockpit and swamp to different degrees depending on design (and in my case was on a racing keeler that sank with similar effects in play). I shall recommend people to come watch this video from now.
As well, on these big sailing yachts, as lovely as they are, a lot of seaworthy design was sacrificed for prettiness, spaciousness, "design." Noteworthy in those wide open spaces are a lack of handholds, anywhere. And yes, those patio style doors are problematic, sailing and motoryachts. They look nice enough but when they fail, either open or shut, are a problem. The Evian thing happens. In the end, the crew did what they could but sacrificing their lives is not part of the bargain. It's a yacht, not a Don Quijote quest. I'm sorry the chef drowned. The deaths of the guests and owner onboard are tragic and I would not wish that on anyone, it must have been terrifying. Thank you for sticking up for the captain and crew Mr. Beaumont. Seaworthiness #1
Fully agree with your assessment. How disgusting it is to blame the crew within hours of a disaster. The CEO of the company realised they were in trouble the moment the news hit.
Not only disgusting but also stupid. He said the swing keel should have been down. A, no it shouldn't be at anchor. B, now, after asking why not, a lot of people now know it goes bump in the night and might not charter a Perini Navi with a swing keel. Which may affect the resale of a lot of yachts. (Angry billionaire owners).
As an italian, i feel the duty to comment two points discussed at 4.50-5.10. First of all, in the italian code there is not the crime of "negligent manslaughter": probably something went lost in translation. The crew is under investigation for two different crimes: 1) multiple manslaughter; 2) unintentional sinking, which is conceptually completely indipendent from point 1). Here the sinking is labelled as "unintentional" to oppose it to the crime of "intentional sinking", which of course is another ( and much heavier) matter. Of course, the unintentional sinking can only be a consequence of neglicence, and that's why probably at the end the confused and nonexisting crime of "negligent manslaughter" was reported from some people. The second point I would like to stress is that I am confident that the judges will take their decisions without any purpose to protect the reputation or the interests of the company. In general in Italy judges care a lot about being indipendent in their decisions, and public opinion and the press are pretty demanding about the courts being free from any pressure or particular interest as well. So, never say never of course, but honestly I woudn't be worried about this point. Moreover, they know that all the eyes are on them, so they have to be as objective as it gets.
interesting... because Negligent Manslaughter is a crime that does exist on the books inside many countries of the former USSR, basically, it is the crime of letting someone die through ones inaction when you had a formal duty to do something about it... this is different from Reckless Manslaughter, which would be applied if you did something you were not supposed to leading to someone's death... Both crimes would be of roughly thesame severity, but the weight of evidence required for each is very different... the first may only be charged of those who are in a position of legal liability for the events that transpired, however, is very technical where the lack of ability to comply is often unusable as a defense. the second may involve any person as long as one can prove (through however many steps) that his actions caused the death in question
I would not relax here... Politicians cannot effect an Italian court... but all too often, neither can facts the courts are independent, but that does not mean they are free of populism and actions to engrain themselves to the people... they are also not free of preferences and personal bias... indeed, being independent, a judges mood or opinion can often be raised to the category of "the truth" without proper recourse...
I am sure the family of Mike Lynch will demand the truth and put their resources into getting at the truth. I cannot see them allowing a cover up or scapegoating by any court. But I'm sure Italian justice is up to the task
Good to hear two experienced ‘Sea Dogs’ having a balanced conversation about this boat. The comment ‘At sea, the sea is the governor’ is so accurate. The summation is incredible.
I did find the declaration of Giovanni Costantino, CEO of the Bayesian manufacturer very awkward. He came in too fast shouting "NOT MY FAULT" when no one accused him yet.
Much sense talked by Dick and Dick again. Perhaps the designers of mega-yachts need to remember that first and foremost a boat is a boat. Keeping the sea out should be the first duty of the designers, and plush fittings and extravagant features should be secondary.
But I wonder: - Ron Holland is a famous designer. Al these arguments about cockpit- safety like drains, bulk- heads, bridge before the saloon- entry, safe " doors" into must be also on his Radar. - furthermore. When knowing the boat had a downflooding- angle of ca.45°, designing this steps down to the cockpit- area.This is ridicoulus. - this yacht has passed several steps of scrutineering, I presume. Nobody of these highly professional inspectors said " stop, this is a no go" ?
I'm wondering about the certification process of this yacht. From what I have heard, it was certified for offshore cruising. How is it possible with such a low downloading angle?
The architect was from New Zealand as was person in charge, the engineer from former EU state. The vessel is registered in former EU state, the most recent work was done in shipyard in former EU state, and managed by company from former EU state. It is possible the person in charge and engineer both immigrants are not legally allowed to live or work in the EU.
Pleased to hear you speak out in support and sympathy with the crew. I was shocked the other company owner would blame the crew within hours of the sinking. Full credit.
Gratifying to have my own analysis confirmed. The three largest staterooms all ran out to the starboard side. When she capsized everybody in those cabins was suddenly on the side of the boat. with their only exit 3-4 metres above their heads. They must have floated up, with the water flooding through; first up into the passage way, then finally, as she sank by the stern, into the forward, port cabin where, it now appears, they may have survived for a short time. The horror and terror is just about unimaginable. I hope it was brief. My instincts were screaming that the builder’s rush to blame the crew bespoke a guilty conscience, and then I saw the plans and photos on their website, heard of the 73° AVS (point of no return) and the 45°down flooding angle and I pieced it all together. Then I knew they were going to try and blame it on the crew. I think any yacht would have been knocked flat by the wind that capsized Bayesian. Seaworthy yachts would have recovered without shipping sufficient water to sink them. To the Captain and Crew, Kia Kaha, no Aotearoa..
I think the keel may have been up as they intended to come closer into harbour. Half a mile out I would expect keel to be lowered. My only criticism of crew is, if there was time to wake everyone, why weren't all passengers assembled on deck with life jackets. Maybe protocol dictated they thought they were safer in cabins. Also the boat didn't just sink in seconds. Clearly they had time to deploy a life raft and get torches and flares. What caused the power outage if electrics are contained within. That power outage with the tilt would completely disorientate anyone on a capsized vessel.
@@courtneysquill8843 As far as everybody on board was concerned they were riding out a typical summer storm, anchored safely under under the lee of the land. They’d probably ridden out a couple of similar ones every year since she was launched. The crew were up because they needed to ship covers over upholstery, stow loose furniture, check lashings so that when the guests arose to a beautiful sunny morning, nobody would inadvertently get a wet behind sitting on a cushioned seat. I can’t stress this enough: nobody, but NOBODY, aboard that yacht thought the ship herself was in danger, until they were hit, broadside, by a force that simply pushed her over. At somewhere around 40 - 45 degrees of heel she started down flooding, probably through engine room/ac vents. This would immediately decrease her stability reducing even further her 72° capsize point. That this all happened in a matter of moments is evidenced by the fact that the crew ended up in the water. The crew didn’t have time to adeploy a liferaft which are designed to automatically inflate and float free, once submerged by a few feet. Torches and flares come with the liferaft. Once the ship was on her side, there was no way back aboard for those in the water and those still in the cabins, below, were blocked by thousands of gallons pouring down their only means of egress. It is only in the last 100 years or so that sailing yachts have been able to recover from a 90° knockdown and certainly no large sailing ships were recoverable from such an angle. To an extent, sheer size alone provides a degree of protection - righting moments increase in proportion to the cube of the size while windage only increases with the square. All spoiled by a yacht carrying a far larger rig than she needed.
@@courtneysquill8843 no the keel was up because that is standard on those boats. It's only lowered when they are sailing. That has been discussed elsewhere. They would not have been waking the guests, let alone getting them on deck with life jackets, when all they were wanting to do was clear the squabs off deck etc because it was only a 20 knot wind at the time until the downburst hit. Also the life raft probably deployed automatically after the yacht sank. Apparently they're scrambled into it and would have got the flares and torch out of the life raft.
@@q.e.d.9112 I agree with your comments except she was not necessarily knocked flat, just more than 45 degrees. That's all she needed to start shipping water and sink.
@@DavidTangye Ok that's explains the life raft. Could the other one have not deployed because it was under water. 5 guests were all in one cabin port side. The first one. The Captain told the The Watch to wake them. He also said that he became concerned about the vessel and informed them. So they were awake and aware of the danger. Why did they remain below while other passengers and up. The engineer said he started the generators to the hydraulic propellers. This has to be before the power outage. Could there be a remote possibility that he was unaware that water had entered the vessel and he made to start the engine and head for harbour or into the wind. The surviving guests reported the boat bouncing. This is called porpoising and is caused by too much weight in the engine room or astern causing the bow to come out of the water. If the engineer thrust the power and engine and applied right rudder suddenly and without trimming properly this would also cause bouncing especially if the anchor were still attached and cause an over heel or keel to the right or starboard side. In the turn, any accumulated water would also shift to starboard side and cause the boat to keel further. On top of that the crew said the mast tilted and shot back and threw us all off into the sea and they all climbed back on the same side walking on the 'wall'. This would have added to the listing. Because 22 adults forced to one within the boat due to the heeling with 10 or 11 Crew climbing back onto the same side would be an extra few thousand kilogram. Is that why 6 of the adults of which 5 were in one first cabin to try to rebalance the boat on the port side. The engineer started the generators to the hydraulic propellers so he must have tried to start the engine. It can only be ingress of water into the engine or electrics which caused the power outage. A combination of over trimming the props possibly with an engine thrust and two much weight via water and people together with the wind and waves caused the tilt. But what caused the power outage which occurred at 03.53am before any tilt. Find the answer to that and you will find the cause of the sinking. Electrics dont just blow in a storm unless they are exposed to water.
I think the boat designer is at fault. Building a sailboat with a flooding angle of 45 degrees and then putting a mast so large windage can send it over 45 degrees is criminal. The builder and designer should have refused to build such a monstrosity and the government should not have approved it.
The yacht was likely designed to the MCA LYC for carrying 12 passengers. The LYC is essentially a version of the Solas cargoship regs. It may be found that these regs compartmentalisation and down flooding requirements are not suitable for sailing yachts
I got the information from other sites that the deck layout around the recreational aera (midship to mast) was heavily modified during a refit in 2016(?). Can it be exactly this modification which reduced the flooding angle down to 45degrees?
As a sailboat yes. But the design quite possibly addressed stability by taking a motor yacht approach, that is, keep the boat upright like a motor yacht, with minimal heeling designed in. Worked great...until hit with a microburst. Unlike a motor yacht in a big blow, this puppy also had a huge windsock aloft! The weather event is the cause here.
The boat was delivered with a full set of instructions and limitations which gave that big boat a relatively limited domain, but that matched its intended use (hosting parties while at anchor…and fair weather sunbathing cruises). The weather event it encountered is still pretty rare in the Mediterranean (but maybe less rare than it used to be as we have had a few occurrences of very freak weather in the Mediterranean recently) and in any case unpredictable as it develops very very quickly.
The urgency and enthusiasm the 'invested parties' demonstrated in trying to throw the Skipper under the bus, deeply concerned me, so I hope my attempt to allow a wider perspective to be aired puts the brakes on that to some extent. As we can all easily understand the financial ability and influence that Perini Navi have, to sustain and sway the search for culpability in the dreadful situation, will no doubt be considerable more that the skipper can match, so there needs to be a public enquiry into the circumstances surrounding the sinking of this vessel I'm sure. Thanks for the support. Dick B
Money quote from this interview: "the illusory world the super rich believe can be created for them by the people around them." He nailed it with that one. Smart man.
Very gratifying to find this sensible take after all the nonsense that appeared on YT immediately after the event. So many people seemed to think Bayesian was a trailer-sailer, with all the ballast in a keel that you drop when you launch. The reality is that she looked like a sailing vessel but in reality she was a motor vessel with a sailing rig for show and photo-ops in specific moderate conditions. It's clear that the design placed too much faith in size, believing she was too big to be knocked over by wave action, or by reliably forecast wind in the designated sailing range. Terminal hubris. The budget didn't extend to engineering air intakes that weren't water intakes.
In a different context, we just lost the roof of our house to a tree fall due to an intense and extremely local wind storm (about 60-90 seconds of peak wind strength) that did no other damage in the area but was strong enough to snap and splinter a 30+ inch diameter trunk of a tree at about shoulder height whilst causing zero indication of any root stress (no root uplift at all). There were no severe weather warnings.
Most of these super yachts are designed and fitted out primarily for the comfort of the guests. The safety and seaworthyness is compromised tremendously, because of this,and the yacht manufaturerswill never admit to this,because they give the client what they ask for. The crew is cramped into a small space and is often overworked and do not get the necessary resting periods. They have to be there at everybody's beck and call. This was a freak of nature and a tragic accident... full stop.
Irrespective of freak weather, this vessel sank because the necessary securing (make her watertight) for bad weather that will have been predicted on weather forecasts was not carried out. This is, in law, the responsibilty of the captain. There would have been no benefit to the yacht designer and builder to compromise safety and seaworthiness as all vessels of this size and type require to be classified and insured and safety examinations will have been carried out by authorities.
@@stevemathews9535 Until the results of the inquiry are published, we have only hearsay and unsubstantiated rumors regarding what the crew did and did not do.
@@stevemathews9535which makes those authorities also liable in this disaster, are you naïve enough to believe the ultra rich don’t also control these authorities. I have seen it first hand they will bully contractors and designers to build what they want regardless of regulations and even if it means fines for noncompliance they s now imply will pay the fine. (Of course to the designer and contractor it’s their livelihood and not just a fine that’s at risk but the ultra rich don’t care about that they tell them ether you build what I want how I want or I will find someone else who will. In the end the owner and the man who commissioned the construction of this yacht is the one ultimately responsible. Holistic.
Thank You! for going on record, standing up for the crew. The scape-goating is absolutely disgusting. And let's be blunt. The classism is blatant and outrageous. If weather capsized a skiff and working people died, it would be a tragic but passing news blurb. But an expensive floating villa chosen by billionaires for convenience, luxury, and prestige over seaworthiness drowns a few super wealthy; and corporations and government band together to shift blame to employees. If this is impartial investigation of possible criminal negligence, why wasn't the board of Perini Navi asked to surrender their passports for the duration?
I’m surprised that various media outlets are still quoting Giovanni Constantino (the CEO at Italian Sea Group) when he talks nonsense about the seaworthiness of BAYESIAN, blames the crew etc. To be clear; Constantino’s company bought PN out of bankruptcy in 2022. They did the deal mainly to get possession of shipyards around La Spezia and Viareggio. Bayesian was built, launched and delivered long before Constantino and his management team had anything to do with its design or construction.
@@voiceofraisin3778 The "reputation" at stake here is the one of the engineer, Ron Holland, and the one of the British certifying entity, not less than the manufacturer. In fact, the manufacturer cannot take an unsafe ship out of the waters, but the certifying authority can. This ship was certified as safe at sea by the British authority. There is no responsibility at all, neither penal nor civil, from the manufacturer.
Fantastic discussion that pulled everything together very well. A very big Thank You. Like many others here I have sailed yachts offshore for 50 years and been knocked flat on numerous occasions when racing and always righted after the load was taken off the rig. I naively assumed that these super yachts were scaled up versions of this familiar model and would behave in the same way. But you explained so clearly why this is not the case. One small addition to this discussion - some commentators have stated that the low downflooding angle would have immersed the exhaust ports for the engine and air-conditioning and increased the ingress of water. I have trouble understanding how that would have led to the massive flooding seen here.
Something that strikes me is that a passenger was in the cockpit with her baby. I just don’t believe she would be there if the weather had seemed threatening. But… it also tells us that they didn’t have the saloon doors locked in. And honestly, 20 knots wouldn’t seem that much given the sheer numbers of sailors posting videos of sailing in 20 knots. 34:16 What many people don’t get is that microbursts are well known to cause MORE damage than tornadoes. My guess is that the downburst occurred just to port of the boat. Add in what the mother said, it likely caused the boat to suddenly heel to near the stability point throwing her overboard. Meanwhile water is rushing into the solon since its doors were not locked shut. And even if someone was watching the radar, there would have been no real way to know a downburst was about to happen. We get no warning in TX in spite of four very high tech weather radars.
You mention the downbursts in Texas and while I would wouldn’t say that we were being told of likely straight line winds this past May, even an amateur like me knew hours ahead of time that a highly unstable atmosphere capable of producing severe weather was in the forecast the afternoon the Houston derecho came through. I had set up a test of my camera lightning trigger in calm weather an hour earlier based on the near certainty of severe weather according to widely available reports and could see the bow echo on the radar 5-10 minutes before the winds hit my neighborhood. We all know that to the casual observer, severe weather often appears “out of nowhere” which would explain why the mother felt no threat being on deck with her baby. Not knowing the radar/reports available to the crew, their location offshore relative to radar and other instrument coverage or how much time it takes to complete related precautions in advance of approaching weather, I obviously won’t speculate on any potential lapses in this case. I just think the discussion needs to focus on understanding unstable weather environments conducive to severe weather not whether specific, more rare events emanating from these conditions such as water spouts or downbursts are expected to occur. The details about the boat’s design are terrifying; like most accidents, I would expect there to be multiple causes for this tragedy.
I have seen 3 water spouts at sea, none closer than 2nm away, the last one 5 weeks ago. I have been knocked down by a rogue wave with the mast briefly going underwater. My AVS is 115 ° so the knockdown was a close thing. You will experience freak events if you are at sea long enough.
Terrific. I have anchored in 50kts plus in Scotland and was safe and sound. But the sinking of the Bayesian in this freak weather event cannot be laid on the crew given the design faults. Thanks for the analysis!
This is the most well thought out and logical explanation of what happened. You are completely correct, the average person would not have a clue of the sea worthyness of a boat, yacht or any other vessel they were on. All of us as “guests/clients” of these boats are in the hands of the crew and of the designers. Just like boarding an aircraft we are completely at the mercy of the safety levels built in and the experience and understanding of the crew. I believe you should write up your hypothisis with all these design faults and send it to the lawyers (I assume the crew have a defense of some kind). Companies who build these vessels should be held to account. Thanks again very interesting and sensible insight.
Good discussion. I'm curious what Dick Beaumont's thoughts are about smaller sailboats that vanish without a trace in storm conditions. I sailed as crew on a 42' catamaran 7500 nM SE Asia to across the Pacific. We had a lot of waves coming over the bows and many over the saloon. What we almost never experienced were pooping waves from behind. I think we bailed out the dinghy two or three times. The idea I came up with was, for rough weather on a monohull, make sure that the companion way is secure. I am not a boat designer, don't have years of sailing experience. But my idea seems to have no downside other than a bit of inconvenience. I also know from sea kayaking, that two inches (5cm) of water sloshing around in the cockpit (sealed fore and aft compartments) is incredibly destabilizing. Of course my kayak doesn't have a heavy keel. I can only speculate that it would take a huge amount of water coming down a companion way to cause instability... but I really don't know. So unless there's a good reason to not keep the companionway closed in a storm or large seas that's what I'm going to do. What I am most curious to know from the Bayesian sinking is Are there any new precautions that should be considered in storm weather at anchor? (Before this sad event I didn't know that with approaching storm the engine should be running.) Still guessing... I expect that the Bayesian got an extremely rare hit from either the center of a waterspout or wind shear and had a few design issues. I absolutely agree with Dick that as soon as the boat company blamed the crew -- they were covering up. Which means they already know what they did that led to this disaster. And of course Princess Diana's horrible accident. No seat belts. I've heard the rational to this sort of failure: "That's what I pay you for, so I don't have to." Weather, the sea and physics are incredibly equalizing. When I went back to Michigan after being away many years I was impressed that they'd set up a tornado alert siren network. I quickly understood how this 'works.' When the alarm sounds all the women and children go to the basement, and all the men go stand in the middle of street and look for a funnel cloud. Okay, seemed not unreasonable. There would be enough time to get into the basement. Then the siren sounded at night... and all the men went and stood in the middle of the street.... Fortunately I didn't have to tell any of those guys I wouldn't go out in a boat with them. A couple did ask me, "Why'd you go in the basement?" And there are storms and then there are storms. The weather we get off southern California usually takes a while to build up, in Michigan and I think in the Med (only saw one large storm there) it can go from sunny and blue skies to thunderstorm cloud burst in 15 minutes. I've been in more than a few down bursts. It's a lot of rain, but not buckets, just intense. The wind is usually straight down. The more intense they are the shorter they last. In a car you can't see past the windscreen. But it's seconds, no more than ten or fifteen. What you're supposed to do is take your foot off the gas and just keep your heading. It will soon clear up. In Hawaii in a rental car I was desperate to get the weather report. All the stations were prerecorded. Nothing. (This was pre weather apps.) Suddenly a NOAA weather alert broke in, minutes late was a series of downbursts. I usually try to stay as far away from other cars as I can, and when this alert happened, I backed away from everyone, and checked who was behind me. After two of these events, minutes apart, in front of us were multicar pileups. Someone hit the brakes. If something like what I've experienced and am familiar with is what hit the Bayesian, the too tall mast, instability, poor heeling over (73° really???) and the openings did for it. I think my 46' Hunter and most keel boats would've done just fine.
Hi Will There are, of course, many potential causes of yachts disappearing without a trace in storms, and even in fair weather, when you are out of range of rescue, or contact . Despite even the focus I and the team at Kraken have on safety, we, nor anyone else, can say any boat is unsinkable, unless perhaps it is a raft build from a solid block of polystyrene, even that will break up eventually. What is clear is this particular yacht was very far from unsinkable, despite the ridiculous and desperate claim made by Giovanni Constantino CEO of Perini Navi, and of course it did sink. Here's some of the primary causes of yachts sinking in heavy weather, and otherwise. The list of potential risks and what we at Kraken do to de-risk our yachts against the various circumstances described is as below: STRESSES CAUSED BY HEAVY WEATHER WAVE POUNDING, GROUNDING, OR COLLISION WITH WHALES OR FLOATING OBJECTS CAUSING THE KEEL TO DETACH FROM THE HULL. If the keel comes off and the yachts inverts ,especially in heavy weather, loss of the vessel and life is almost certain. All Kraken are build with an integral one piece hull and keel. The keel can never come off. LOSS OF STEERING DUE TO RUDDER LOSS OR DAMAGE. All spade rudders are vulnerable to collision damage. Twin rudders are in even greater risk of collision because they do not even have the protection of the keel in front of them. If steerage is lost in heavy weather there is a major threat that the yacht will sit across the waves and be rolled by a large breaking wave, leading to sinking. All Krakens have the Alpha Rudder system which comprises a full skeg which protects the rudder. The rudder post has three bearings. one at the bottom, one in the middle and one at the top. EXTREME BREAKING WAVES CAUSED BY TYPHOON, HURRICANE,OR CYCLONE During a voyage down the east coast of South Africa I noticed a warning to mariner on the chart that stated breaking waves in excess of 20mts have been observed in this area! I'm pretty sure no sailing yacht could survive such sea conditions. The only solution is don't be there. Many modern yachts these days have satellite coms and modern weather forecasting will provide 4-5 days warning so keep in touch with the weather and get out of its way. TSUNAMIS. If you're inshore at anchor when one occurs, the best outcome likely is that the boat is wrecked and you and your crew survive. There are no precautions you can take to prepare for being hit by this. With enough warning, up anchor and motor out to deep water as quickly and as far out as you can go. TORNADOS, DOWN BURSTS. These very localised and extremely violent weather occurrences are unforcastable with any degree of certainty one way, or the other, I believe. Make sure your on a boat with good righting moment, so she recovers from a knockdown if it occurs quickly, and an AVS greater than 100 degrees, so if she does get knocked down she doesn't continue to roll through 360 deg and, in particular, your boat has a down flooding angle greater than 90 deg and has a companionway system that will allow the inside to be sealed off quickly if she is knocked down flat. Other than that there's nothing you can reasonable do, you're in the wrong place at the wrong time. To put the risk of this happening in context, in a life time of sailing around the world, the most any of my boats have ever listed when hit by strong wind and weather conditions at anchor, with no sails up, is about 5 degrees of list, that includes being anchored and roped into a mangrove hurricane hole when the hurricane came through. You're more likely to die from a heart attack sitting in front of the TV due to lack of exercise, or on the roads driving. Life cannot be without risk. Best regards Dick B
Good info about Lake Michigan which itself can be treacherous as the lake has claimed several sailors during the Chicago Mackinac race in two separate incidents. Being unfamiliar with super yachts but very familiar with smaller vessels that require escape forward hatches over staterooms by European and US standards as I recall, are there similar standards for a yacht of this class? Those poor souls had no chance of getting out.
The amount of water required to sink that boat so fast must have been not only massive but the flow of that water also must have been so fast as to make it physically impossible for any swimmer to overcome.
I assume thats why 5 of the guests were found in the one cabin by the stairs, because they tried to escape but the flow of water down the stairs was too fast to overcome. I wonder if its possible to calculate the rate of flow down the stairs if we had some numbers.
It would have been a lot, but every gallon in the bottom of the hull while she's heeled over makes her sit a little bit lower, and even more come in, and more, and more, until she sinks.
DO COSA PARLI DA ITALIANO DI COMUNE !!!!! NON CERA NISUNA AQUA ! NAVE SI HA ROVESCHIATA !!! GUARDI ANCORA CON ATENCIONE IL FILMATO PERCHE NON HAI CAPITO NIENTE DI COSA PARLA TUTTO MONDO DA SUBITO !!! QUESTA ERA UNA TOMBA GALEGANTE !!!!!
In my view the Kraken Yachts guy is 100% correct on the causes of the sinking. He is 100% incorrect in attributing so called "man made climate change:" to the freak weather event. He fails also to mention the actual Bayesian Yacht designer. Pier Navini were the builders not the designers. But given the intemperate outburst from PN,s it would not surprise me in the least if PN had departed radically from the original boat design. The original designer has an exceptionally good record.
Regarding the comment from the boat builder that the sunken yacht was unsinkable: the original interview, in Italian, on Italian TV was challenged in Italy and explained in the same TV interview. The phrase was qualified to mean; within the parameters of the design, build and advised use / sailing of the yacht. There is no suggestion that the yacht could never be sunk. Regarding the official investigation and potential criminal charges: this is standard practice under Italian Law. There is no pre-supposition of guilt, just the possibility that people have died due to some preventable human error. The tone of quite a few English language discussions is cynical about Italian legal procedures and suggest potential cover-ups; based on zero evidence, ignorance of Italian law, poor translations and stereotypes. Hardly objective duscussion.
I think the original (and later overruled)sentencing of the 6 italian seismologists for not predicting the 2009 earthquake has left a good many folk with serious doubts about how culpability is seen in that country..
I have been trying to warn people if they live with land locked gardens and the storms that have been drenching us over the weekend they may find they are unnecessarily flooded…. this follows the shedding of what seems to be a blinder… in this excellent conversation… thank you for your expertise… 🧚🏻
I really enjoyed the way you were discussing this event, especially having the video in mind, when you talked about seaworthy boats with the Millenials on their YT-channel. When you did the video with Adam there was no tragic accident ahead so you could discuss criteria for offshore-rating of production boats with an amusing black humor. The videos with Adam are 3 years old now and they are as up to date as they can be. When you argued that there are 201 people responsible I thought you would be coming up with the regulations again. We completely agree on the first one and it must have been a pain for the naval architect to sign of the boat as a boat. It was a floating partyzone. On the other hand the naval architect was an honest man. He documented the 45° flooding angle, he documented the AVS of 73° but obviously the boat was registered in the UK as an ocean going yacht and nobody insisted on "Hide the party-zone in the channels of Venice, anything else might end as a tragedy!" I am also interested in the outcome of the investigation and the consequences for the crew. I hope they will not blame them for the problems in boat design and the acceptance of such designs by the officials. You once mentioned that at sea you need a boat that looks after you and not the other way around. The Bayesian would have been a quite safe boat but only with the AC-vents closed, with all doors and hatches locked, ... and this is definitely not what you do in a protected anchorage in a summer night when you want the AC running...
It is Heartening to hear Mr. Dick Beaumont of "Kraken Yachts", mention an often ignored, yet crucial feature of modern "Luxury Yacht ," builds, that of "Sea-worthiness". I fear that, there are far too many builders of this "luxury yacht" class of vessel, who in order to cater to the demands of ultra wealthy clients, many of whom have little or no appreciation or even understanding of the realities of marine vessels, are quite prepared to compromise the potential safety of a vessel, in extreme conditions. The fact that the sloop "Bayesian", combined several such features, which taken individually, may require careful attention, such as the propensity for the desirable and glamourous, massive heavy glass doors separating the aft cockpit from the saloon, to slide open when the yacht heeled whilst under sail, a notable feature of this builders sailing yachts. Then there was the outrageously tall "alloy" mast(considerably heavier than "carbon fibre" equivalents) and really more of a boastful, than a necessary, practical, feature. The location of the essential air intakes for ventilation of the engine room, being located for "aesthetic" appeal, in the hull, apparently fitted with shutters to keep water out, when the vessel was heeling under sail, but usually left open, when motoring or at anchor. The seeming paucity of "escape hatches" for both passengers and crew. Under normal circumstances these aspects of the vessel might require careful consideration, but under extreme circumstances combined to form a tragically lethal situation..My concerns apply equally to many of the modern luxury motor yachts as well..
I have heard it said that in spite of appearance, this boat was more of a motor yacht than sailboat - it does not have the safety characteristics of a sailboat which is designed to be at home in a blow and cannot run away from a storm in many cases. As I learned it, when trapped in a storm and if situation looks dire the last resort would be to drop the sails and secure eveything on deck and then go below and a good boat will look after itself. That would be at sea, not at anchor but my point is you would not haul the guests onto deck in a storm - the safest place for these cream puffs would be below. When the head of the boat building company said that the boat was "unsinkable", this astonishing claim was clearly reference to the compartmented design with isolating bulkheads. So every hatchway and bulkhead was seal, I suppose it it would be difficult to sink (rather like Titanic, ironically), but I am not sure this is really practical where you are going to seal people apart from the crew and inside the boat. Its a case of a safety feature which is not realistic - though I am sure it was played up at time of sale. The boat should have had a warning sign to effect: Do not take this vessel out of protect harbor nor overnight aboard. Well suspect they will spread the blame around (assuming the hull openings were not left open), but for me the greatest fault lies with the surveyor who did not advise the buyer (presumably) that the vessel was of deficient design and that the charteristics were substandard.
The conditions under which a ship is sinkable are not an opinion, it's mathematics. Bayesian is mathematically unsinkable with only two flooded compartments. Titanic is unsinkable with no more than two adjacent flooded compartments. Neither the Titanic nor the Bayesian were ever defined as "unsinkable tout court" by their manufacturers. Both the Titanic and the Bayesian are unsinkable in the conditions specified by the technical papers. You violate the conditions, the ship sinks. Titanic sunk because of a human error. Bayesan sunk because more than two compartments were flooded, this is mathematically certain, and Mr. Costantino is right in stating the obvious truth.
I absolutely agree on the fact that there is no such thing as an "unsinkable boat", but the Perini navi CEO said that the boat was unsinkable "if" no water gets into it and "if" all the safety procedures are correctly completed by the crew. These are two big "ifs" that will be cleared only once the boat will be thoroughly inspected out of the water. I must instead greatly disagree when I hear at around min 3.25 that there is "no skipper in the world that would have done something different"... this is the whole point of the problem... maybe the downburst was indeed unpredictable, but every weather forecast had clearly mentioned possible storms approaching the area. I think instead that every skipper in the world would have done many things differently... in fact every single skipper in the world, knowing that bad weather is approaching and supposedly aknowledging the possible structural defects of his own yacht, would have set maximum alert in all of his crew members (probably not in his passengers) assigning a full night of ongoing guard to himself and all of the "sailing" members of his crew, preparing himself, the crew and the boat to face possible trouble due to the forecasted bad weather. I really would love not to blame anyone of the crew nor the captain, but whoever is used to sail in the mediterranean knows how quickly bad storms can hit and whenever you know that a storm is potentially approaching you - expecially at night and when you are out at anchor - the captain and all of his crew have to have maximum alert and be ready in a few instants from the moment the storm hits the boat to get the engines running, ready to get loose of the anchor and manouvre the boat out of trouble. Lastly, regarding the will to find a potential scapegoat of the italian investigators, I would like to point out that the italian legal system requires an "official designation of potential suspects" - this is a necessary and well defined procedural step of any trail and is called "iscrizione nel registro degli indagati". This does not mean that the suspects are in any way to be considered guilty, instead it actually grants them a fair trial and a fully transparent information, letting them know from the very moment of this "registration in the register of suspects" that there is an official investigation ongoing on their behalf. No trial can be started in Italy until this first fundamental burocratic procedure has been completed.
It's all correct apart the legal point. The "iscrizione nel registro degli indagati" can be a secret act, i.e. at the beginning of an enquiry, the suspect is not necessarily informed of the enquiry (think of all the telephone wire-tapping: the suspect must be registered in the registro but he is not aware of it). If certain acts are performed (e.g. a request to a Bank), then the suspect must receive the "avviso di garanzia", which is the communication that there is an enquiry against him. This is just a technicality, there are cases where the enquiry must be secret. In this case, having an accident at sea with victims, it is obvious, and mandatory, that an enquiry must be initiated.
@@uffa00001 Yes indeed the investigations can be secret but only for a limited period of time, but for the trial itself to get going at a certain point the investigators have to let the suspects know they have been investigated over the past and they have to publicly register them in the public register of suspects... yet again the difference between the preliminary investigations and the beginning of the trial is subtle and many times have brought controversy... especially when the public registration was intended for politicians and was done too close to upcoming public elections... it can be a way to influence the public... it is still percieved too closely to an official conviction sentence but actually is a means of protecting the suspects from infinitely long secret investigators from the behalf of the italian police and magistrates. Anyways, from the point of view of a foreigner all of this will seem quite overcomplicated... it is quite hard to explain the italian laws all around the world! ;-)
As an engineer I think that was no need to loss seven lives if the watch, the engineer and the capitan took appropriete measures as quick as possible. The sailboat could be lost but lives would be saved. Kraken is an expert in very small pure sailboats (small engine ?).
The fact the saved so many astounded me.its not easy deploying life rafts and getting people in to them.That lives were lost attests to the suddenness of this disaster
A very interesting conversation. I am shocked at the figures. One point nobody is talking about. The guests had just taken part in a celebratory dinner. I would imagine a good few bottles of insanity expensive wine, port, cognac and malt were consumed. I suspect the guests weren’t sober. This may have impeded their ability to exit quickly. A bit speculative but also very possible.
The skipper of the Sir Robert Baden Powell did wake up all persons on board, did close all hatches, did start the engines and was about to head the bow towards the waves. So there was already one skipper who did take measures against the weather. But I agree, the flooding angles and the instructions to lower center board only whilst sailing and being offshore did finally lead to the catastrophe. To many weak points, too many “big dicks” (the mast, the lowered entertainment aérea, all the lose furnitures etc.) and too much hubris.
@@the_new_earth there is no mention from the skipper that the Sir Robert Baden Powell was struck by the full force of the downburst and as it wasn’t forecast his preparations weren’t in order to counter it.
Most of the Bayesian crew were up and at stations or on deck. Several were thrown into the sea when it was knocked down. There is still no information about whether the engines were running. Incidentally the AIS information is incorrect.
Very interesting and helpful interview to help understand the possible dynamics of such a tragic sinking. My questions are as follows: what is the angle of vanishing stability with the keel down? What is the down flooding angle with the keel down? Why wouldn’t the captain have kept the keel down if he knew a blow was on its way? Surely, with the benefit of hindsight no captain of a perini will anchor with the keel up in future (unless they are in a port)..
Absolutely agree with your analysis, having and still currently working at sea , the weather is definitely playing a major part , we are seeing down bursts on a semi regular basis and water spouts much more frequently. We are in New Zealand where a super yacht got flattened in the marina… righted itself without too much damage. The skipper had little or no hope of saving this vulnerable ship.
I saw the video of that knock down and recovery, it was extremely impressive that she recovered so well and so promptly! A nearby trimaran was flipped bow over stern, hitting the water inverted, where she remained...
Dick, look at the machinery vents in the hull under the gunwhale, they also contribute to the flooding angle problems. Presumably the vents have to be left open if the AC or generator are running.
Just looked up down burst. Not sure how anyone could predict such an event. Apparently the ship has been at sea for sixteen years. Very sad . Thank you for explaining what you understand.
That aft step down & those sliding doors , As a skipper experienced a few knockdowns One hell of a lotta waters going to come in if she's on her side , Water Weight arft just makes her go deeper .
Good discussion, according to previous skipper, side deck steps would not flood at 45 deg down flooding angle. Also a crew reported sliding saloon doors had to be forced open at one point in disaster. But yes shallow DFA and AVS are serious issue. Clearly between 45 and 73 degree heel it’s all very serious! Re weather , local Italian air-force said there was no expectation of any severe weather .
Comparing a Kraken to a Perini is like comparing an "hurricane shelter" to a "5-star luxury resort". Anyone would go to the shelter in the event of a hurricane, but no real VIP would buy one to spend his holidays there. 😁 I agree 100% with the technical content of the video. I would just add that in a video (which you can find here among mine) you can see the anchor dragging and (therefore) the ship drifting wind abeam. The crosswind and the constraint of the anchor which "trips" the ship up, would have greatly facilitated the capsizing.
A luxurious yacht of this size can easily be designed to have the ability to right from a knockdown. This would mean some combination of less beam, more freeboard and more ballast. Sleeping on a yacht with a 75 degree AVS and a 45 degree downflooding angle is a gamble. The super-rich are often the gamblers who got lucky. Makes sense. Keep spinning the wheel eventually you lose.
@@MatthewFelgate-r4u The designer of that ship is Ron Holland, one of the most famous naval architects in the world. We should ask him if a luxury yacht of that size, and equally beautiful/exclusive enough to be attractive to a VIP, can be easily designed to have the ability to right from a knockdown. 🤔 🙂
Hello Mr. Beaumont. Another seemingly reputable source, e-systems youtube channel, has pointed out that what appears to be a cabin top over the the forward well deck is actually canvas. If the weather event or knockdown collapsed the canvas top, could that be a source of catastrophic down flooding.
10 crew and what I've heard, there are usually not enough crew to cover the required hours and they are continuously sleep deprived when the owners are in. I don't know if this was the case here, but it's common on other luxury yachts.
Yes I suspect there's a loop hole that enable them to get through, probably by claiming it was a motor yacht and then putting a mast on it... definitely the MCA need to look at making sure this kind of thing never happens again.
@@log-x7976 eSysman posted it on an earlier video. It's very unclear, due to massive rain. The other video of the catamaran flipping shows a different large sailboat heeling almost 90 degrees, and righting itself immediately. A real sailboat will survive a knockdown with no problem, unlike this big motorboat with a ridiculous mast stuck on.
A downflooding angle of 45 degrees is not unusually low for large vessels. Nor is the angle of vanishing stability of 73 degrees. What counts is the ability to withstand heeling to those angles. I would venture to suggest that even if Bayesian was hard pressed under full sail it would be incredibly difficult or nigh or impossible to lay her over beyond 30 degrees under normal conditions. This vessel is designed to 1) provide luxury accommodation at exotic locations, 2) move between exotic locations and 3) sail in pleasure regattas at these locations. It has done this successfully for quite a few years. I agree that we should not be looking to make the skipper a scapegoat, nor should we be too critical of a design which was basically fit for purpose but unfortunately hit by a freak event.
Even huge sailing ships like the Herzogin Cecilie got knocked down on occasions, anyone designing a sailing yacht and thinking it's not going to happen is really not allowing for what is a known risk. Freak events unfortunately do happen, the design should have been such to allow her to recover or at least sink slowly enough to allow escape.
Hi Dick, thank you for the very logical (and educative) explanation of the event. Designing direct large open waterflow surfaces to the body of the sailboat with extremely large mast and relatively low down flooding angle is disaster waiting to happen. But, if the event happened as described, there is one area where probably crew could (and should) do better, in my opinion. Weather radar data for this part of the Mediterranean is relatively accurate and very frequent. Crew on watch should be looking at weather radar maps at least every 30min, under the weather forecast for that night. They could see that storm of way more than 20knots of wind is coming and would have time to take basic precautionary measures, lower the keel and close main large open surfaces (close and lock saloon door, seal engine room, hatches...). Probably if these basic measures have been taken sailboat would recover from the downburst? If investigation shows that these basic measures have been taken, then crew should be completely cleared.
If memory serves, the Captain has already stated that the keel was not lowered, and that was in accordance with the ship manual, which does not specify as mandatory to lower the keel in those conditions. If we believe the mathematics of this ship, she sunk because three compartments were flooded, which means that no, those "basic precautionary measures" were not taken. The question is whether there is a negligence in doing so, i.e. whether: a) there actually was a downburst; b) the conditions before the downburst required the "measures".
The owner's desire is the designers goal. The owner pays for the designers expertise. No designer would intentionally build an intrinsically dangerous boat especially an ocean going boat. The tallest mast in the world comes with significant bragging rights. It also comes with significant danger. This is simply arrogant pride expressed.The Ocean is no respecter of persons.
Yes well said Dick. I think this was an accident waiting to happen. Having a sailing yacht that relies on it's beam for stability is ok up to a certain size , say 30 feet. Many sailing dinghies rely on beam to keep them up, if they capsize as they do , no big deal . A close to 200' yacht with a draft of only 13' we have a problem. Depending on design Swing Keels don't make a big difference to the righting moment, they are there more for lateral resistance. For stability you use a weighted Drop Keel. The other thing is the ridiculously high mast had 6 sets of spreaders creating an enormous amount of windage. This boat was going to capsize with or without sails set at some point. I grew up on a 50' racing / cruising yacht built in the late 1930s . We were knocked down once with a sudden downdraft in totally protected waters. Full sails with virtually no prevailing wind. The 65' mast hit the water, after half a minute or less the boat righted itself and we continued on our way. Somewhat shaken and below decks was a mess yet there was no damage and we had taken on no water . It was a proper yacht that still sails in Sydney Harbour today.
On all fairness, the keel weighed ~90 tons. If it had been deployed, it might have made all the difference. My understanding is that it was retracted at anchor (significantly raising the CoG) because it made a loud knocking sound when deployed. Didn’t want to disturb the guests’ sleep 🤔
@@litespud Yes the centerboard was considerable however as it was a Swing Keel as opposed to a Drop keel you do not get the full weight moving down when deployed. . The keel revolves around the pivot point and therefor depending on the shape and composition only a portion of the mass is moved lower. You don't get the full mass of it lower. I cant say how much the center of gravity moves lower without detailed drawings and information but possibly not as much as you would think. Considering the force with which the yacht appears to have been hit its unlikely the Keel position would have made much difference. The other consideration is when a STATIONARY center board boat is hit with a side on wind and the board is up some of the energy is dissipated in leeward motion. With the keel down they have a tendency to Trip on the keel and so can go over just as much. This happens mostly when the boat has no forward motion. It is also very normal for large center board yacht to spend most of the time board up. These are all issues which will be much clearer when the boat is re floated.
Why did the Captain and crew of the other boat anchored nearby start preparing for bad weather much earlier? I don't think the person on anchor watch was qualified to be left alone on watch. The other ship saw weather they didn't like and the engine was started to keep the boat staying into the wind. How did this boat get insurance? It has obvious design flaws.
The only analysis that makes sense and clear to those who have been at sea. Many were critical at the size of my boat's cockpit being small...but I was happy when at an Atlantic storm filled repeatedly. Here I see a serious design fault, that regardless to the effort to accommodate customers wishes, the responsibility of the Architect should have not allowed an obvious hazard to the safety of the vessel and the people on it.
Sorry but at this stage acquitting the crew is as untimely as condemning them. It's simply too early. There are two independent investigations under way, one in Italy and the other in the UK. Let us wait and see what the findings will be. Until then, it is better to say nothing. It seems to me that this gentleman is behaving like the Italian CEO
This interview and the reports by “the yacht report” channel are by far the most sensible pieces of analysis on the Bayesian yacht sinking. Real world facts from people who understand seamanship, basic boat design and perhaps crucially, Mother Nature. As he says, the sea is a law unto itself. It is untameable and should always be treated with respect. And yes - climate change is undoubtedly happening leading to more and more frequent “freak weather” events. I truly hope that the crew are found innocent of any wrong doing or negligence……
I have four comments on what you noted. Firstly, You talked about how a low AVS and downflooding angle mean that she had ‘poor righting moment’. This isn’t the case, often vessels with the largest righting moments (especially in the 0-40 degree range) have low angles of vanishing stability. As a professional naval architect nothing irks me more than an inaccuracy like this and it makes me question the rest of what you have stated. I suspect even with the keel up the vessel had a good righting moment. Secondly, I suspect the MAIB report will find that there were design features for safety that were not operated as intended. I am often amazed by the number of ‘keep closed at sea’ doors that I see with rope tie backs and crew openly stating they are lashed open to make operation easier. This experience is in a very different sector but I suspect this could contribute to how quickly all spaces cross flooded Thirdly, I haven’t seen the data on downflooding but it’s hard to know if these are protected or closely. Often vents have winteb type heads with a floating ball that closes the vent if immeresd preventing flooding through this. Without further info it’s hard to know what to make of the little information we have been supplied Finally I think it’s best to await final report on the sinking to draw real conclusions. I think that’s true when the CEO said his shit, also think it’s true with you saying boat wasn’t fit for purpose. How certain are you a kraken would have survived the downburst? If you say 100% I’m afraid to say your delusional
@@achitophel5852 what makes you think that? There will be some serious evidence there, ie. what was open and or closed, length of chain out on the anchor, etc. Italy build lots of boats, and there would have been many certifications that would have had to be passed on that boat. All boats are not equal, and I agree that this design was not the most seaworthy design for its size and driven more by design and comfort in calmer sea, rather than rough water capability. But ultimately the same can be said for any vessel. They are not all built to an equal standard of performance in rough conditions. It is ultimately up to the Skippers/Captain and the crew to understand what they are comfortable with. I can give a shitty vessel to a great skipper and it can perform a lot better that a really good vessel in the hands of a person that has never skippered a boat. We are also all assuming that this vessel had been maintained to perfection. Because failing to do so would also jeopardize its safety. This is simply not going to be an easy investigation.
Great video, absolutely stunning numbers regarding flooding and vanishing stability. I always found the CEO of the Italian company getting on TV and saying what he did in the manner which he did very inappropriate and telling. He knew the numbers from the beginning. Really hope all this is included in the maib report. This was the Herald of Free Enterprise of yachts. Thank you.
What was the capsize rating? lower CSF indicates greater stability, and a boat with a CSF of 2.0 or less is generally considered safe for ocean passages. A higher CSF indicates a greater chance of capsizing
I’m thinking of the thought of designing this yacht follows this line of thinking. We build a “Super-Motor-Yacht” with standard rules of stability for a “super motor yacht” that has sailing vessel lines/shape, then we want an enormous pole resembling a mast on it, It will need a 30’ keel and ballast to offset the enormous “ 256+ Meter pole “ on top of it affecting this motor Yachts Stability” It was pavini’s operating procedure stated if not under sail the vessel did not have to have keel down. It’s a Titanic type scenario (these yachts are huge!! as well as these vessels usually stay in fair weather “Med” environments I believe that designers push the envelope anyways However, then designers design page The Navini yachts started as an elegant looking “motor Yacht/SuperYacht” not as a “Sailing Vessel” You can imagine many “motoring Siperyachts” to perform just as this one did in same situation with a 256+’ right arm lever being hit with 180mph winds! Just my two cents, Over most aged adults we’ve lived thru time of massive growth in people that all have cameras! Just 30yrs ago at a height of USA polluting and having Ozone fears from 80’s hair cuts, we only owned simple fragile cameras and personal shoulder mounted video cams. We are more likely to see crazy weather scenarios even if they were actually decreasing due to increase in people with cams. We have to be careful to follow long term large factual statistics not sensationalist and those who benefit from particular “statements and Terms’
The med sea was over 4 celcius warmer than normal. And ocean seas are ridiculously warmer this year all around the world , to a worrying level. As we know the warmer water is the easier it is for violent storms and hurricanes to occur . All this data is freely available for sea temperatures
Thanks for this discussion! I got very concerned about the way how the CEO and some italian media made up their „analysis“ „finding“ the one responsible so early on while dead bodies were still 50m below waterline,
An interesting viewpoint I've listened to elsewhere is that these 'yachts' are more akin to motor boats, and only use their sails in optimum conditions, so stability factors don't align with those of ocean going yachts. Bayesian's numbers back up this viewpoint. Anyone with any understanding of yacht design knew almost immediately how this tragedy happened - at least once the weather conditions had been sstablished. The only piece of information that doesn't add up to me is how the divers were only able to spend 10 minutes down on the wreck site at a time. This is baffling as Bayesian lies 50m down, this is well within the capabilities of the technical diving professionals with their specialist gear that were available. If people were stuck in an air pocket, it should have been possible to rescue them, or at least to try. Tony Bullimore survived for 4 days in exactly this situation. They immediately knew it was on its side (increasing the chances of air pockets) else that 72m mast would be visible above the water. What am I missing?
You are missing that “they” didn’t immediately have available the necessary technically skilled divers, equipment (including decompression chamber/s) and rescue boats, competent support people and coordinators. Ok hypothetically a diver finds 4 or 5 alive in an air pocket what does the diver do next? Remember that the pressure at that depth is 4.9 times that at the surface so the bends will be experienced if they ascend too rapidly.
Also, entrance to the guest sleeping quarters was blocked by debris/furniture so the navy had to get specialist cutting equipment to cut open a 3cm thick window to gain entry.
Technical diving kit isn't that common similarly neither are technical divers. 10 minutes bottom time on air is going to give you a decent amount of decompression on the way up. To get to the air pocket you're going have to enter a recently sunken vessel full of debris - floating stuff like materesses, wires, line lots of things that can tangle or snag and trap you, there's no clear surface, the design of the vessel is unknown to you, there is no light. whilst connecting an air compressor and punching a hose through the hull has been done in some submarine resuces it requires specialist equipment and skills and realistically 5-6 people in one small air pocket are likely going to produce enough CO2 to make each other unconscious before it can be put together. Similarly they themselves would need to be brought up slowly or put into a diving bell to stop them getting decompression sickness....
Do you think that 120 kn with Wind, as you mentioned, coming down on a vessel like that and people moving furniture and other pieces of equipment on board would've crushed the deck before they were thrown overboard?
Bayesian crew was 10. Captain, two mates, engineer, two seamen, three hostesses, and the chef. Not really enough crew to sail this large and complex vessel in weather, much less handle an emergency.
Sometimes tragedy accompanies dreams whether we be rich or poor…that’s when lessons are learned and the consequences will be tsunamic for anyone closely connected to the Bayesian…including designers, builders, manufacturers of materials, crew, rescue teams and especially the owner. Liability and fault is a naturally occurring process trust upon us all after any major event and hopefully this adventure doesn’t keep us wrapped in comfort, guilt or despair but keeps us on an ocean of wisdom where we gain understanding in life and continue to aim for adventure. Sadly, every good story has a villain… and life doesn’t include a time machine. Forgiveness and acceptance is a long journey out of ruin.
in 14 minutes it was enough to launch an evacuation alarm, to save the people who were below. An analysis absolutely devoid of common sense and objectivity!!! ridiculous
Sorry but as a retired captain if and that is the qualifier of whether I had seen a forecast of violent cold front weather imminent I would have lowered the keel to maximum extension . Forget cushions and toys so they blow overboard I went my ship in the highest point of stability possible. Then engine on and in standby mode ready to engage to allow easing of anchor rode strain . Because I know violent sudden wx can cause rapid wind shifts with engine on I can maneuver to keep her headed into any wind . I may have also Paid out more chain . Maybe I still would have been knocked down and I may not have had foresight to avoid downflooding due to open vents . But I heard she would experience down flooding at 45 degrees heel . Which means the builder saying she could take a 80 degree heel meaningless unless she was 100 percent water tight . Anyway any ship can founder the sea and wind want you dead so it’s always a threat .
I think the downflooding angle was 43 degrees. What caused the power outage at 03.53am? Getting out of if a capsized boat in 16 minutes is bad enough but getting out if a capsized boat in darkness is impossible.
The stability characteristic of very large yachts are quite different. The stability regulations are statutory, enforced by the state, the MCA. They can be found on line as the “REG code, red ensign group, for yachts over 24m load line. In theory you are required to have 90deg AVS. But many very large yachts and most Perini’s, struggle to achieve this and are given a dispensation. Stability is massively dependent on scale effect double the size of a hull and the stability increases by 8. That’s why the very large sailing ships looked, on paper, to have little stability. And why model yachts have very deep keels to get their stability. So making simple comparisons is misleading (even if you’re a Krackin sales man) 😉
The first down flooding points in the stability books, are the engine room vents. Not the doors. The MCA stability unit in Southampton will review the stability books and inclining tests.
Thanks for the reference to the actual requirements. But *why* are the rules for large yachts seemingly less strict? It seems to me that any sailboat can be knocked down to 90 degrees or even a bit more. Why are small yachts required to be able to recover in that case but not large ones? I would very much like to hear Dick Beaumont's opinion on this point.
@@WilliamAArnett two reasons, both of which are used / demonstrated in the large yacht codes. 1. The ratio of wind gust over ambient is much greater closer to the surface, ie. for small vessels. 2. to achieve 90deg positive (AVS) the stability at sailing angles is very high, structural loading on the rigs, mast, chainplates is very high, more than it needs to be to get good sailing performance. You can see how tall this rig is. She would not heel as much as a yacht half her length under full sail in say 20kts of wind. This is the effects of Scale. You can’t make simple comparisons between v large yachts and regular yachts. So when seemingly experienced sailors like these two gents air there views it’s simply not what they think, they are comparing with there own experience but Naval Architecture would add the reality to this discussion. That said there is an issue with large yacht stability, the problem is one of down-flooding through engine room ventilation ducts, which is the cause of this accident, I have no doubt. It’s my Job.
@@SteamCrane Float valves are difficult to design in and maintain in such large openings (about the size of two wheelie bins, each side) they do have fire dampers, which must be manually closed or auto in fire. The minimum down-flooding angle for sailing yachts is 40deg. Clearly she was pushed over this. I think there is likely to be a revision of the code to look at wind heeling and down flood angles. Of course they may prove that the stability books were not representative of the vessel and in that case it will get more “legally interesting”
At this point, as the subject matter begins to fade from the public agenda, I'd just like to thank everyone for the incredible support and the contributions so many people have made to this discussion. Let's hope that lessons have been learnt. Dick Beaumont Kraken Yachts
No real mention that deploying the keel would have made the vessel considerably more stable, I consider the reason the keel was not specified to be used to make the vessel more stable and hence safer, was because on testing of the keel being deployed, it was found to make an annoying knocking noise, which would be unacceptable to the sort of person that would purchase, operated and use the vessel. I suspect, the knocking noise the keel made when deployed was the real reason the manufacturer instruction said that the keel only had to be deployed when sailing and over 100 miles from land. So, it is very likely a major contributing factor in allowing the vessel to be pushed so easily past 45 degrees was its lack of stability, without the keel deployed. So likely the manufactures mitigating an annoying knocking noise was the final straw that caused the vessel to be lost. Strange how events unfold in life.
@@paulpaul9914 Yes, the AVS with keel down was only 10° more. Most of the ballast was in the stub keel, not the centreboard. The point made in the video is the low flooding angle which is exacerbated by a slow recovery from a knockdown.
@@johnnewington3798 No. It would be more weatherly, but if hit from the beam, the underwater lateral resistance of the extra keel would have knocked her down more.
The sailboat hat very powerful engines. To start them and control the boat via the propulsion and the rudder like any others boats. To control any hydraulic motor and pull the keel down and lives can be saved also via control of the entries to the guest and crew department. I think that the engine room was lost first via some the negligence of engineer. Any conteiner ship without power could be lost due in a strong wind.
I think is a fair assessment and that it should be broadcasted more. I think also that Italian justice can be trusted but it will have to understand first and I believe expert like you sir will provide the necessary input… I am not seriously worried about the fate of the skipper and crew although I understand they must be going through hard times.
Thank you guys, I agree completely with everything you have said. I am a retired superyacht captain, I previously worked on a Perini Navi sailing yacht, and yes those large heavy sliding doors caused us problems in rough weather
I was horrified to hear the comments of the Perini Navi representative putting all the blame on the crew within a few hours of this disaster and also the Italian legal prosecuter saying there was probable cause of manslaughter by three crew members, all of this before the results of any investigations are concluded. This yacht was hit by a freak weather event that no one could have predicted and I believe the crew were all on deck doing what the crew would normally do, securing the boat. The crew were all washed overboard, one crew member sadly drowned and the crew rescued other guest and got them in the lifeboat. That yacht sank in such a short period of time, I believe no crew on any yacht could have or would have done any different. Some of the press and media reports are totally disgusting and we should all wai for final enquiries. The crew should get themselves the best maritime lawyers available as i feel they are being set up as scapegoats in this tragic event
RIP to all those souls who perishedt🎉
Hi Brian Thank you so much for your endorsement and confirmation of the critical design issues that I have raised. There will not be a wide field of marine professionals who have experienced at first hand the issues you have encountered on a Perini Navi super yacht, so your contribution to this discussion is great appreciated. I can only think that the people conducting the various witch hunts trying to accuse the skipper and his crew for negiligence either have a vested interest in finding a scapegoat, or have very little understanding of conditions at sea and an even lesser understanding of how rare this down bursts event was. Best regards Dick B Kraken Yachts
@@brianmurray8331 I agree with you 100%. It is very disappointing at the least to see all the ill informed comments and opinions both in the general media and even some of the comments here, all by people who have actually no real understanding of that environment. But hey that's the downside of this internet age. Even total idiots have a voice.
@@brianmurray8331 well said, sir
@brianmurray8331 Sir, whilst I am not a sailor, let alone a Captain I bow down to your knowledge and expertise in such matters. Perhaps some historical knowledge could explain that the region has been known to produce these "freak weather events" since Homers' 'Odyssey' with many subsequent geographers from Polybius to Strabo mentioning 'Charybdis', the monster that could pick up ships and toss them about, sinking them. Perhaps the freak weather event may not be as freaky as first imagined?
@@elbmw agreed. 'Freak' is vague and subjective anyway. Downburst will certainly occur elsewhere where conditions are very similar. Their effect at ground or sea level might depend on local geography and other factors. Expert meteorologists might be able to explain further.
As an ex NZ Super yacht builder I was appalled at the PN CEO calling out the crew and skipper. Because this boat had the tallest and I bet heaviest Alloy mast (far more than the equivalent of a carbon rig) the builders opted to add more internal ballast than originally designed to help with the initial tenderness of the yacht because of such a large heavy spar. This would have lowered the freeboard a little this lowering the flood angle from the original design.
The event that morning were extrodanary but I feel that the CEO of PN must be feeling pretty bloody worried and so he should. I hope the crew and captain can have a chance to scrutinized PN and learn that the boat did indeed have design and build flaws.
I did hear an account where someone stated that the lazarette door was definitely closed because this yacht had a lower freeboard than her sisterships due to the large mast, so there was only about 10cm between the bottom of the door and the waterline. This makes me wonder if the downflooding angle and angle of vanishing stability on this particular vessel was lower than those quoted by dick which may have been for the original class design....
I think the waterline was 100mm lower than its sister ships.
@@tomriley5790 Remember that those angles both get even worse (lower values, higher danger) if she takes on a little water. That canvas roof up front over "the entertainment area" might have ripped and become a funnel collecting the downpour into the lounge level stairs where it would wash below.
Sorry but the boat did already prove its capabilities in rough waters before… Why shaming PN, no mediterrean 20min storm could have tilt the boat with closed sails….
@@Luca-oc8iw it most certainly could. I've been knocked down twice by a micro burst. You only need to look at the footage from Auckland. I suspect if this boat had of been hit like that one was it would have sunk. Although the chances of getting hit are slim some boats are simply designed more seaworthy than others.
First sensible, real world analysis I’ve seen of this debacle. Thanks once again for your candour, Dick Beaumont, a voice of reason in a sea of stupidity
HERE HERE!
I hadn’t heard of a ‘downburst’ until the reporting of this event. I experienced an extreme weather event on passage between Hawaii and San Diego on a Hallberg-Rassy 42E. I received a weather fax forecasting a developing Low Pressure system with Hurricane force expected. Naturally I shortened sail (fully reefed main, equivalent furl to genoa and no mizzen) even though wind speeds were below 18 knots at the time. Cutting to the chase, we saw some dark clouds on the horizon so we put the storm boards in and monitored the situation. Suddenly, the wind speed increased from
That sounds very scary . Glad you made that one
@@Foxtrottangoabc Thanks mate - I’m glad too!
I knew them as microbursts, and they are actually quite common. When Mr. Beaumont says they are rare events, he is referring to a microburst/downburst of the strength of the one that sank the yacht.
Hi Dick, I photographed and brokered your yacht "Moonshadow" for you in Sydney about 8 years ago...
First thing I want to stress is that well designed seaworthy yachts do not sink at anchor!
As soon as the Giovanni Costantino the CEO of Perini Navi started trying to stitch the captain and crew up, by claiming that Bayesian was unsinkable, I have been filling TH-cam comment boxes with the facts about the poor yacht design as you are doing here. I called the tall mast a pissing contest for rich guys and also described the waterfall of water that occurred after she heeled 45 degrees, which would have sought the lowest point in the yacht, where the hapless guests slept. Thank you for your comments and support for the captain and crew and for highlighting how unseaworthy this floating condo actually was. It is no mystery to me that "The Lord Baden Powell" survived unscathed only a few meters away from Bayesian because she is a properly designed old yacht. Sticking a mast and keel on a gin palace is the real negligence here, and I hope that you get consulted as an expert witness in this case.
Wow great to hear from you. Moonshadow was a great boat. I sailed her back to Hong Kong from NZ and sold her there.
Much of the design and bomb proof build specification of MS inspired the development of Kraken yachts.
We are on the same page precisely. No one that has sailed in serious weather well out of the sight of land would ever countenance designing a yacht with what I consider to be fatal design flaws. Although undoubtable the Bayesian's design flaws now are becoming so obviously apparent as the information has got out in the public domain due to the scrutiny it is now getting because of the scale of this tragedy, it does nonetheless continue to amaze me how readily the sailing fraternity will go to sea, and even cross oceans, in boats that have clear vulnerabilities in their design and construction. I believe the sea will find any flaws in your yacht and the crew and if you rely on luck to get you back safely in port are relying on luck sooner or later that luck will run out and your name will be at the top of the list.
What sunk it? Consider its position in the Mediterranean, near the Messina straight. Look to the West Giraraltar Straight . Incoming water or outgoing , will,create a huge current in narrows. Put with it the Sahara Desert heat, getting sucked out of it at night by the very cool exchange. Sea nearby is the next , heat sink for a Sahara wind to draw from. Downdraft , huge cold already in suction exchange from sand mass, is moved to sea attraction , warmer than usual. All factors of Global warming, we have never before experience. Tilt of Earths Axis human shift of tonnages of ores fro South to North ,25. To 30,years of unbalancing a spinning mass. Trillions of tonnes of ore , for money war of greed of Humans . We did it we can repair it, fast is urgent.
What sunk it? Consider its position in the Mediterranean, near the Messina straight. Look to the West Giraraltar Straight . Incoming water or outgoing , will,create a huge current in narrows. Put with it the Sahara Desert heat, getting sucked out of it at night by the very cool exchange. Sea nearby is the next , heat sink for a Sahara wind to draw from. Downdraft , huge cold already in suction exchange from sand mass, is moved to sea attraction , warmer than usual. All factors of Global warming, we have never before experience. Tilt of Earths Axis human shift of tonnages of ores fro South to North ,25. To 30,years of unbalancing a spinning mass. Trillions of tonnes of ore , for money war of greed of Humans . We did it we car
N , repair it, fast is urgent.
Well said, absolutely correct 👏
❤❤❤
Fantastic, this is so spot on! I would like to add that, while technically a sloop rigged sailboat, this boat was actually....stability wise....more of a motor yacht, with a design to minimize heeling and to stay upright...which she did for oh, 16 years. But the Achilles Heel ...that mast and weight and drag from it, caused it to be vulnerable to an extraordinary weather event given it's poor angles of recovery. The video seemed to imply that prior to the downburst, the boat was doing as designed - staying very upright - quite a low angle of heel - until BAM - a microburst driven total knockdown and immediate sinking. What a great interview - thanks fellas!!!!!
This is the best and the only to-the-point analysis of Bayesian sinking that I have seen. And I have many. THANK YOU Kraken! Sagol!
I am a 79 year old female, my husband and I have had a boat on the Norfolk Broads for 20 years. I know nothing about nautical , boat building, etc. I have listened to every word you have said, finding it at times emotional, and so very very interesting. So very pleased to be able to understand exactly what and where you are coming from. Your explanation and what you have said is second to none. Thank you so much for this video, you would make a very good Lawyer. I do hope the truth about all of this tragic happening gets sorted out. RIP to all the people who lost their lives.x😊
Your assertation as to the cause of the sinking is exactly what I have been saying for weeks now, and I have said as much several times on the eSysman Superyacht Report channel. That's an excellent photo of the side deck cutouts. It highlights how tons of water would pour in once the 45 degrees angle was exceeded.
The only aspect you did not seem to understand fully, was the nature of the wind. The downblast could have happened a small distance away, and changed to outward wind including the twister/waterspout that was seen on video from shore that actually started near or on-shore. That horizontal wind might travel for a few hundred metres, like an isolated 'river' air, similar to isolated 'rivers' of current that occur in parts of the ocean. I experienced both the air and sea versions several times, especially around hilly coasts (eg around Wellington New Zealand and the Greek islands). The downbursts I have seen are relatively mild, being caused by wind bombing down off cliffs, not from cold air bombing down from perhaps thousands of metres high, but the outcome when the burst hits sea-level is conceptually the same. The highly localised squalls that radiate outwards, often unevenly, can easily hit 50 knots for many seconds, (perhaps over a minute?), and I don't think Bayesian needed to be heeled more than 30 seconds past 45 degrees to sink her. It appears that she got hit broadside on. Once she shipped a critical amount of water, the wind could stop, and she would be settled and keep shipping while listed. She would not pop upright, as the water inside would change the whole righting dynamic. This is what happens when we can out sailing dinghies of some designs and they fill their cockpit and swamp to different degrees depending on design (and in my case was on a racing keeler that sank with similar effects in play).
I shall recommend people to come watch this video from now.
As well, on these big sailing yachts, as lovely as they are, a lot of seaworthy design was sacrificed for prettiness, spaciousness, "design." Noteworthy in those wide open spaces are a lack of handholds, anywhere. And yes, those patio style doors are problematic, sailing and motoryachts. They look nice enough but when they fail, either open or shut, are a problem.
The Evian thing happens.
In the end, the crew did what they could but sacrificing their lives is not part of the bargain. It's a yacht, not a Don Quijote quest. I'm sorry the chef drowned. The deaths of the guests and owner onboard are tragic and I would not wish that on anyone, it must have been terrifying.
Thank you for sticking up for the captain and crew Mr. Beaumont. Seaworthiness #1
Fully agree with your assessment. How disgusting it is to blame the crew within hours of a disaster. The CEO of the company realised they were in trouble the moment the news hit.
Not only disgusting but also stupid. He said the swing keel should have been down. A, no it shouldn't be at anchor. B, now, after asking why not, a lot of people now know it goes bump in the night and might not charter a Perini Navi with a swing keel. Which may affect the resale of a lot of yachts. (Angry billionaire owners).
Perini unsinkable ship sank
Great ad for Kraken yachts against Perini !!!!
I agree too many folk who weren’t there were so quick to judge. Disgraceful!
Spolit a good talk with the unnecessary mention of 'climate change'.
As an italian, i feel the duty to comment two points discussed at 4.50-5.10. First of all, in the italian code there is not the crime of "negligent manslaughter": probably something went lost in translation. The crew is under investigation for two different crimes: 1) multiple manslaughter; 2) unintentional sinking, which is conceptually completely indipendent from point 1).
Here the sinking is labelled as "unintentional" to oppose it to the crime of "intentional sinking", which of course is another ( and much heavier) matter. Of course, the unintentional sinking can only be a consequence of neglicence, and that's why probably at the end the confused and nonexisting crime of "negligent manslaughter" was reported from some people.
The second point I would like to stress is that I am confident that the judges will take their decisions without any purpose to protect the reputation or the interests of the company. In general in Italy judges care a lot about being indipendent in their decisions, and public opinion and the press are pretty demanding about the courts being free from any pressure or particular interest as well. So, never say never of course, but honestly I woudn't be worried about this point. Moreover, they know that all the eyes are on them, so they have to be as objective as it gets.
interesting... because Negligent Manslaughter is a crime that does exist on the books inside many countries of the former USSR, basically, it is the crime of letting someone die through ones inaction when you had a formal duty to do something about it...
this is different from Reckless Manslaughter, which would be applied if you did something you were not supposed to leading to someone's death...
Both crimes would be of roughly thesame severity, but the weight of evidence required for each is very different... the first may only be charged of those who are in a position of legal liability for the events that transpired, however, is very technical where the lack of ability to comply is often unusable as a defense. the second may involve any person as long as one can prove (through however many steps) that his actions caused the death in question
I would not relax here...
Politicians cannot effect an Italian court... but all too often, neither can facts
the courts are independent, but that does not mean they are free of populism and actions to engrain themselves to the people... they are also not free of preferences and personal bias... indeed, being independent, a judges mood or opinion can often be raised to the category of "the truth" without proper recourse...
I am sure the family of Mike Lynch will demand the truth and put their resources into getting at the truth. I cannot see them allowing a cover up or scapegoating by any court. But I'm sure Italian justice is up to the task
Those big Italian yards in Viareggio act like a mafia
Amanda Knox might disagree with you about how trustworthy the Italian legal system is.
Good to hear two experienced ‘Sea Dogs’ having a balanced conversation about this boat. The comment ‘At sea, the sea is the governor’ is so accurate. The summation is incredible.
I did find the declaration of Giovanni Costantino, CEO of the Bayesian manufacturer very awkward. He came in too fast shouting "NOT MY FAULT" when no one accused him yet.
Much sense talked by Dick and Dick again.
Perhaps the designers of mega-yachts need to remember that first and foremost a boat is a boat. Keeping the sea out should be the first duty of the designers, and plush fittings and extravagant features should be secondary.
Thanks for the support Martin. I feel sure the problem started in the marketing department of Perini.
But I wonder:
- Ron Holland is a famous designer. Al these arguments about cockpit- safety like drains, bulk- heads, bridge before the saloon- entry, safe " doors" into must be also on his Radar.
- furthermore. When knowing the boat had a downflooding- angle of ca.45°, designing this steps down to the cockpit- area.This is ridicoulus.
- this yacht has passed several steps of scrutineering, I presume. Nobody of these highly professional inspectors said " stop, this is a no go" ?
It was a weather weapon mate
I'm wondering about the certification process of this yacht. From what I have heard, it was certified for offshore cruising. How is it possible with such a low downloading angle?
The architect was from New Zealand as was person in charge, the engineer from former EU state. The vessel is registered in former EU state, the most recent work was done in shipyard in former EU state, and managed by company from former EU state. It is possible the person in charge and engineer both immigrants are not legally allowed to live or work in the EU.
Pleased to hear you speak out in support and sympathy with the crew. I was shocked the other company owner would blame the crew within hours of the sinking. Full credit.
Gratifying to have my own analysis confirmed. The three largest staterooms all ran out to the starboard side. When she capsized everybody in those cabins was suddenly on the side of the boat. with their only exit 3-4 metres above their heads. They must have floated up, with the water flooding through; first up into the passage way, then finally, as she sank by the stern, into the forward, port cabin where, it now appears, they may have survived for a short time. The horror and terror is just about unimaginable. I hope it was brief.
My instincts were screaming that the builder’s rush to blame the crew bespoke a guilty conscience, and then I saw the plans and photos on their website, heard of the 73° AVS (point of no return) and the 45°down flooding angle and I pieced it all together. Then I knew they were going to try and blame it on the crew.
I think any yacht would have been knocked flat by the wind that capsized Bayesian. Seaworthy yachts would have recovered without shipping sufficient water to sink them.
To the Captain and Crew,
Kia Kaha,
no
Aotearoa..
I think the keel may have been up as they intended to come closer into harbour. Half a mile out I would expect keel to be lowered.
My only criticism of crew is, if there was time to wake everyone, why weren't all passengers assembled on deck with life jackets.
Maybe protocol dictated they thought they were safer in cabins.
Also the boat didn't just sink in seconds. Clearly they had time to deploy a life raft and get torches and flares.
What caused the power outage if electrics are contained within. That power outage with the tilt would completely disorientate anyone on a capsized vessel.
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As far as everybody on board was concerned they were riding out a typical summer storm, anchored safely under under the lee of the land. They’d probably ridden out a couple of similar ones every year since she was launched. The crew were up because they needed to ship covers over upholstery, stow loose furniture, check lashings so that when the guests arose to a beautiful sunny morning, nobody would inadvertently get a wet behind sitting on a cushioned seat.
I can’t stress this enough: nobody, but NOBODY, aboard that yacht thought the ship herself was in danger, until they were hit, broadside, by a force that simply pushed her over. At somewhere around 40 - 45 degrees of heel she started down flooding, probably through engine room/ac vents. This would immediately decrease her stability reducing even further her 72° capsize point. That this all happened in a matter of moments is evidenced by the fact that the crew ended up in the water.
The crew didn’t have time to adeploy a liferaft which are designed to automatically inflate and float free, once submerged by a few feet. Torches and flares come with the liferaft. Once the ship was on her side, there was no way back aboard for those in the water and those still in the cabins, below, were blocked by thousands of gallons pouring down their only means of egress.
It is only in the last 100 years or so that sailing yachts have been able to recover from a 90° knockdown and certainly no large sailing ships were recoverable from such an angle. To an extent, sheer size alone provides a degree of protection - righting moments increase in proportion to the cube of the size while windage only increases with the square. All spoiled by a yacht carrying a far larger rig than she needed.
@@courtneysquill8843 no the keel was up because that is standard on those boats. It's only lowered when they are sailing. That has been discussed elsewhere.
They would not have been waking the guests, let alone getting them on deck with life jackets, when all they were wanting to do was clear the squabs off deck etc because it was only a 20 knot wind at the time until the downburst hit.
Also the life raft probably deployed automatically after the yacht sank. Apparently they're scrambled into it and would have got the flares and torch out of the life raft.
@@q.e.d.9112 I agree with your comments except she was not necessarily knocked flat, just more than 45 degrees. That's all she needed to start shipping water and sink.
@@DavidTangye Ok that's explains the life raft. Could the other one have not deployed because it was under water.
5 guests were all in one cabin port side. The first one.
The Captain told the The Watch to wake them. He also said that he became concerned about the vessel and informed them. So they were awake and aware of the danger. Why did they remain below while other passengers and up.
The engineer said he started the generators to the hydraulic propellers. This has to be before the power outage.
Could there be a remote possibility that he was unaware that water had entered the vessel and he made to start the engine and head for harbour or into the wind. The surviving guests reported the boat bouncing. This is called porpoising and is caused by too much weight in the engine room or astern causing the bow to come out of the water. If the engineer thrust the power and engine and applied right rudder suddenly and without trimming properly this would also cause bouncing especially if the anchor were still attached and cause an over heel or keel to the right or starboard side.
In the turn, any accumulated water would also shift to starboard side and cause the boat to keel further.
On top of that the crew said the mast tilted and shot back and threw us all off into the sea and they all climbed back on the same side walking on the 'wall'. This would have added to the listing.
Because 22 adults forced to one within the boat due to the heeling with 10 or 11 Crew climbing back onto the same side would be an extra few thousand kilogram. Is that why 6 of the adults of which 5 were in one first cabin to try to rebalance the boat on the port side.
The engineer started the generators to the hydraulic propellers so he must have tried to start the engine. It can only be ingress of water into the engine or electrics which caused the power outage.
A combination of over trimming the props possibly with an engine thrust and two much weight via water and people together with the wind and waves caused the tilt.
But what caused the power outage which occurred at 03.53am before any tilt.
Find the answer to that and you will find the cause of the sinking.
Electrics dont just blow in a storm unless they are exposed to water.
I think the boat designer is at fault. Building a sailboat with a flooding angle of 45 degrees and then putting a mast so large windage can send it over 45 degrees is criminal. The builder and designer should have refused to build such a monstrosity and the government should not have approved it.
The yacht was likely designed to the MCA LYC for carrying 12 passengers. The LYC is essentially a version of the Solas cargoship regs. It may be found that these regs compartmentalisation and down flooding requirements are not suitable for sailing yachts
@@guytaylor-smith2819 they limit the number of passengers so at to not be constrained by the security constraints of commercial cruises...
I got the information from other sites that the deck layout around the recreational aera (midship to mast) was heavily modified during a refit in 2016(?). Can it be exactly this modification which reduced the flooding angle down to 45degrees?
As a sailboat yes. But the design quite possibly addressed stability by taking a motor yacht approach, that is, keep the boat upright like a motor yacht, with minimal heeling designed in. Worked great...until hit with a microburst. Unlike a motor yacht in a big blow, this puppy also had a huge windsock aloft! The weather event is the cause here.
The boat was delivered with a full set of instructions and limitations which gave that big boat a relatively limited domain, but that matched its intended use (hosting parties while at anchor…and fair weather sunbathing cruises). The weather event it encountered is still pretty rare in the Mediterranean (but maybe less rare than it used to be as we have had a few occurrences of very freak weather in the Mediterranean recently) and in any case unpredictable as it develops very very quickly.
Thanks for the extremely valuable insights given. Finally, someone who knows what they're talking about.
The urgency and enthusiasm the 'invested parties' demonstrated in trying to throw the Skipper under the bus, deeply concerned me, so I hope my attempt to allow a wider perspective to be aired puts the brakes on that to some extent.
As we can all easily understand the financial ability and influence that Perini Navi have, to sustain and sway the search for culpability in the dreadful situation, will no doubt be considerable more that the skipper can match, so there needs to be a public enquiry into the circumstances surrounding the sinking of this vessel I'm sure. Thanks for the support. Dick B
Money quote from this interview: "the illusory world the super rich believe can be created for them by the people around them." He nailed it with that one. Smart man.
Oh snap, never mind. He blames it on climate change. Idiot.
Most important is his following with "those illusions will be shattered by the sea". That completes the circle.
@@TheSelf_8 Indeed.
The same arrogance ("the illusory world") killed Kobe Bryant, his own kid, and others...
@@cozziec1196 And JFK Jr + wife + wife's sister
Very gratifying to find this sensible take after all the nonsense that appeared on YT immediately after the event. So many people seemed to think Bayesian was a trailer-sailer, with all the ballast in a keel that you drop when you launch. The reality is that she looked like a sailing vessel but in reality she was a motor vessel with a sailing rig for show and photo-ops in specific moderate conditions. It's clear that the design placed too much faith in size, believing she was too big to be knocked over by wave action, or by reliably forecast wind in the designated sailing range. Terminal hubris. The budget didn't extend to engineering air intakes that weren't water intakes.
Everything you have discussed here makes more sense than anything I've read so far. Well said.
In a different context, we just lost the roof of our house to a tree fall due to an intense and extremely local wind storm (about 60-90 seconds of peak wind strength) that did no other damage in the area but was strong enough to snap and splinter a 30+ inch diameter trunk of a tree at about shoulder height whilst causing zero indication of any root stress (no root uplift at all). There were no severe weather warnings.
What a fantastic explanation, it is a pleasure to listen to. Thank you
Most of these super yachts are designed and fitted out primarily for the comfort of the guests. The safety and seaworthyness is compromised tremendously, because of this,and the yacht manufaturerswill never admit to this,because they give the client what they ask for. The crew is cramped into a small space and is often overworked and do not get the necessary resting periods. They have to be there at everybody's beck and call. This was a freak of nature and a tragic accident... full stop.
However the captain could have sounded the alarm
Irrespective of freak weather, this vessel sank because the necessary securing (make her watertight) for bad weather that will have been predicted on weather forecasts was not carried out. This is, in law, the responsibilty of the captain.
There would have been no benefit to the yacht designer and builder to compromise safety and seaworthiness as all vessels of this size and type require to be classified and insured and safety examinations will have been carried out by authorities.
@@stevemathews9535 Until the results of the inquiry are published, we have only hearsay and unsubstantiated rumors regarding what the crew did and did not do.
@@stevemathews9535which makes those authorities also liable in this disaster, are you naïve enough to believe the ultra rich don’t also control these authorities. I have seen it first hand they will bully contractors and designers to build what they want regardless of regulations and even if it means fines for noncompliance they s now imply will pay the fine. (Of course to the designer and contractor it’s their livelihood and not just a fine that’s at risk but the ultra rich don’t care about that they tell them ether you build what I want how I want or I will find someone else who will. In the end the owner and the man who commissioned the construction of this yacht is the one ultimately responsible. Holistic.
Thank You! for going on record, standing up for the crew. The scape-goating is absolutely disgusting. And let's be blunt. The classism is blatant and outrageous. If weather capsized a skiff and working people died, it would be a tragic but passing news blurb. But an expensive floating villa chosen by billionaires for convenience, luxury, and prestige over seaworthiness drowns a few super wealthy; and corporations and government band together to shift blame to employees. If this is impartial investigation of possible criminal negligence, why wasn't the board of Perini Navi asked to surrender their passports for the duration?
What? They are Italian and live and work here! The crew was allowed to live the country in which the incident happened
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The most realistic analysis I have heard so far. Totally agreeing.
I’m surprised that various media outlets are still quoting Giovanni Constantino (the CEO at Italian Sea Group) when he talks nonsense about the seaworthiness of BAYESIAN, blames the crew etc. To be clear; Constantino’s company bought PN out of bankruptcy in 2022. They did the deal mainly to get possession of shipyards around La Spezia and Viareggio. Bayesian was built, launched and delivered long before Constantino and his management team had anything to do with its design or construction.
True but when he bought the company he also inherited its reputation and liabilities.
@@voiceofraisin3778 The "reputation" at stake here is the one of the engineer, Ron Holland, and the one of the British certifying entity, not less than the manufacturer. In fact, the manufacturer cannot take an unsafe ship out of the waters, but the certifying authority can. This ship was certified as safe at sea by the British authority. There is no responsibility at all, neither penal nor civil, from the manufacturer.
The best discussion so far! Thank you!
Fantastic discussion that pulled everything together very well. A very big Thank You. Like many others here I have sailed yachts offshore for 50 years and been knocked flat on numerous occasions when racing and always righted after the load was taken off the rig. I naively assumed that these super yachts were scaled up versions of this familiar model and would behave in the same way. But you explained so clearly why this is not the case. One small addition to this discussion - some commentators have stated that the low downflooding angle would have immersed the exhaust ports for the engine and air-conditioning and increased the ingress of water. I have trouble understanding how that would have led to the massive flooding seen here.
Something that strikes me is that a passenger was in the cockpit with her baby. I just don’t believe she would be there if the weather had seemed threatening. But… it also tells us that they didn’t have the saloon doors locked in. And honestly, 20 knots wouldn’t seem that much given the sheer numbers of sailors posting videos of sailing in 20 knots.
34:16 What many people don’t get is that microbursts are well known to cause MORE damage than tornadoes. My guess is that the downburst occurred just to port of the boat. Add in what the mother said, it likely caused the boat to suddenly heel to near the stability point throwing her overboard. Meanwhile water is rushing into the solon since its doors were not locked shut.
And even if someone was watching the radar, there would have been no real way to know a downburst was about to happen. We get no warning in TX in spite of four very high tech weather radars.
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You mention the downbursts in Texas and while I would wouldn’t say that we were being told of likely straight line winds this past May, even an amateur like me knew hours ahead of time that a highly unstable atmosphere capable of producing severe weather was in the forecast the afternoon the Houston derecho came through. I had set up a test of my camera lightning trigger in calm weather an hour earlier based on the near certainty of severe weather according to widely available reports and could see the bow echo on the radar 5-10 minutes before the winds hit my neighborhood. We all know that to the casual observer, severe weather often appears “out of nowhere” which would explain why the mother felt no threat being on deck with her baby. Not knowing the radar/reports available to the crew, their location offshore relative to radar and other instrument coverage or how much time it takes to complete related precautions in advance of approaching weather, I obviously won’t speculate on any potential lapses in this case. I just think the discussion needs to focus on understanding unstable weather environments conducive to severe weather not whether specific, more rare events emanating from these conditions such as water spouts or downbursts are expected to occur. The details about the boat’s design are terrifying; like most accidents, I would expect there to be multiple causes for this tragedy.
I have seen 3 water spouts at sea, none closer than 2nm away, the last one 5 weeks ago. I have been knocked down by a rogue wave with the mast briefly going underwater. My AVS is 115 ° so the knockdown was a close thing. You will experience freak events if you are at sea long enough.
Terrific. I have anchored in 50kts plus in Scotland and was safe and sound. But the sinking of the Bayesian in this freak weather event cannot be laid on the crew given the design faults. Thanks for the analysis!
This is the most well thought out and logical explanation of what happened. You are completely correct, the average person would not have a clue of the sea worthyness of a boat, yacht or any other vessel they were on. All of us as “guests/clients” of these boats are in the hands of the crew and of the designers. Just like boarding an aircraft we are completely at the mercy of the safety levels built in and the experience and understanding of the crew. I believe you should write up your hypothisis with all these design faults and send it to the lawyers (I assume the crew have a defense of some kind). Companies who build these vessels should be held to account. Thanks again very interesting and sensible insight.
Good discussion. I'm curious what Dick Beaumont's thoughts are about smaller sailboats that vanish without a trace in storm conditions. I sailed as crew on a 42' catamaran 7500 nM SE Asia to across the Pacific. We had a lot of waves coming over the bows and many over the saloon. What we almost never experienced were pooping waves from behind. I think we bailed out the dinghy two or three times.
The idea I came up with was, for rough weather on a monohull, make sure that the companion way is secure. I am not a boat designer, don't have years of sailing experience. But my idea seems to have no downside other than a bit of inconvenience. I also know from sea kayaking, that two inches (5cm) of water sloshing around in the cockpit (sealed fore and aft compartments) is incredibly destabilizing. Of course my kayak doesn't have a heavy keel. I can only speculate that it would take a huge amount of water coming down a companion way to cause instability... but I really don't know. So unless there's a good reason to not keep the companionway closed in a storm or large seas that's what I'm going to do.
What I am most curious to know from the Bayesian sinking is Are there any new precautions that should be considered in storm weather at anchor? (Before this sad event I didn't know that with approaching storm the engine should be running.) Still guessing... I expect that the Bayesian got an extremely rare hit from either the center of a waterspout or wind shear and had a few design issues. I absolutely agree with Dick that as soon as the boat company blamed the crew -- they were covering up. Which means they already know what they did that led to this disaster. And of course Princess Diana's horrible accident. No seat belts. I've heard the rational to this sort of failure: "That's what I pay you for, so I don't have to." Weather, the sea and physics are incredibly equalizing.
When I went back to Michigan after being away many years I was impressed that they'd set up a tornado alert siren network. I quickly understood how this 'works.' When the alarm sounds all the women and children go to the basement, and all the men go stand in the middle of street and look for a funnel cloud. Okay, seemed not unreasonable. There would be enough time to get into the basement.
Then the siren sounded at night... and all the men went and stood in the middle of the street.... Fortunately I didn't have to tell any of those guys I wouldn't go out in a boat with them. A couple did ask me, "Why'd you go in the basement?"
And there are storms and then there are storms. The weather we get off southern California usually takes a while to build up, in Michigan and I think in the Med (only saw one large storm there) it can go from sunny and blue skies to thunderstorm cloud burst in 15 minutes.
I've been in more than a few down bursts. It's a lot of rain, but not buckets, just intense. The wind is usually straight down. The more intense they are the shorter they last. In a car you can't see past the windscreen. But it's seconds, no more than ten or fifteen. What you're supposed to do is take your foot off the gas and just keep your heading. It will soon clear up. In Hawaii in a rental car I was desperate to get the weather report. All the stations were prerecorded. Nothing. (This was pre weather apps.) Suddenly a NOAA weather alert broke in, minutes late was a series of downbursts. I usually try to stay as far away from other cars as I can, and when this alert happened, I backed away from everyone, and checked who was behind me. After two of these events, minutes apart, in front of us were multicar pileups. Someone hit the brakes. If something like what I've experienced and am familiar with is what hit the Bayesian, the too tall mast, instability, poor heeling over (73° really???) and the openings did for it. I think my 46' Hunter and most keel boats would've done just fine.
Hi Will
There are, of course, many potential causes of yachts disappearing without a trace in storms, and even in fair weather, when you are out of range of rescue, or contact . Despite even the focus I and the team at Kraken have on safety, we, nor anyone else, can say any boat is unsinkable, unless perhaps it is a raft build from a solid block of polystyrene, even that will break up eventually.
What is clear is this particular yacht was very far from unsinkable, despite the ridiculous and desperate claim made by Giovanni Constantino CEO of Perini Navi, and of course it did sink.
Here's some of the primary causes of yachts sinking in heavy weather, and otherwise. The list of potential risks and what we at Kraken do to de-risk our yachts against the various circumstances described is as below:
STRESSES CAUSED BY HEAVY WEATHER WAVE POUNDING, GROUNDING, OR COLLISION WITH WHALES OR FLOATING OBJECTS CAUSING THE KEEL TO DETACH FROM THE HULL.
If the keel comes off and the yachts inverts ,especially in heavy weather, loss of the vessel and life is almost certain.
All Kraken are build with an integral one piece hull and keel. The keel can never come off.
LOSS OF STEERING DUE TO RUDDER LOSS OR DAMAGE. All spade rudders are vulnerable to collision damage. Twin rudders are in even greater risk of collision because they do not even have the protection of the keel in front of them. If steerage is lost in heavy weather there is a major threat that the yacht will sit across the waves and be rolled by a large breaking wave, leading to sinking.
All Krakens have the Alpha Rudder system which comprises a full skeg which protects the rudder. The rudder post has three bearings. one at the bottom, one in the middle and one at the top.
EXTREME BREAKING WAVES CAUSED BY TYPHOON, HURRICANE,OR CYCLONE
During a voyage down the east coast of South Africa I noticed a warning to mariner on the chart that stated breaking waves in excess of 20mts have been observed in this area! I'm pretty sure no sailing yacht could survive such sea conditions. The only solution is don't be there. Many modern yachts these days have satellite coms and modern weather forecasting will provide 4-5 days warning so keep in touch with the weather and get out of its way.
TSUNAMIS.
If you're inshore at anchor when one occurs, the best outcome likely is that the boat is wrecked and you and your crew survive. There are no precautions you can take to prepare for being hit by this. With enough warning, up anchor and motor out to deep water as quickly and as far out as you can go.
TORNADOS, DOWN BURSTS.
These very localised and extremely violent weather occurrences are unforcastable with any degree of certainty one way, or the other, I believe.
Make sure your on a boat with good righting moment, so she recovers from a knockdown if it occurs quickly, and an AVS greater than 100 degrees, so if she does get knocked down she doesn't continue to roll through 360 deg and, in particular, your boat has a down flooding angle greater than 90 deg and has a companionway system that will allow the inside to be sealed off quickly if she is knocked down flat.
Other than that there's nothing you can reasonable do, you're in the wrong place at the wrong time.
To put the risk of this happening in context, in a life time of sailing around the world, the most any of my boats have ever listed when hit by strong wind and weather conditions at anchor, with no sails up, is about 5 degrees of list, that includes being anchored and roped into a mangrove hurricane hole when the hurricane came through.
You're more likely to die from a heart attack sitting in front of the TV due to lack of exercise, or on the roads driving. Life cannot be without risk.
Best regards Dick B
Good info about Lake Michigan which itself can be treacherous as the lake has claimed several sailors during the Chicago Mackinac race in two separate incidents. Being unfamiliar with super yachts but very familiar with smaller vessels that require escape forward hatches over staterooms by European and US standards as I recall, are there similar standards for a yacht of this class? Those poor souls had no chance of getting out.
The amount of water required to sink that boat so fast must have been not only massive but the flow of that water also must have been so fast as to make it physically impossible for any swimmer to overcome.
I assume thats why 5 of the guests were found in the one cabin by the stairs, because they tried to escape but the flow of water down the stairs was too fast to overcome. I wonder if its possible to calculate the rate of flow down the stairs if we had some numbers.
It would have been a lot, but every gallon in the bottom of the hull while she's heeled over makes her sit a little bit lower, and even more come in, and more, and more, until she sinks.
An Italian vessel made in Italy, sinks in Italy, let there be an uninterested third party do the Investigation!!!
@@leaylebattiste9823 the British authorities are indeed cooperating
DO COSA PARLI DA ITALIANO DI COMUNE !!!!! NON CERA NISUNA AQUA ! NAVE SI HA ROVESCHIATA !!! GUARDI ANCORA CON ATENCIONE IL FILMATO PERCHE NON HAI CAPITO NIENTE DI COSA PARLA TUTTO MONDO DA SUBITO !!! QUESTA ERA UNA TOMBA GALEGANTE !!!!!
In my view the Kraken Yachts guy is 100% correct on the causes of the sinking.
He is 100% incorrect in attributing so called "man made climate change:" to the freak weather event.
He fails also to mention the actual Bayesian Yacht designer.
Pier Navini were the builders not the designers. But given the intemperate outburst from PN,s it would not surprise me in the least if PN had departed radically from the original boat design. The original designer has an exceptionally good record.
So this weather event never happened before in the history of the world, it’s only a recent phenomenon because climate change 😂🤡
Precisely the key points identified and explained well, thank you
Regarding the comment from the boat builder that the sunken yacht was unsinkable: the original interview, in Italian, on Italian TV was challenged in Italy and explained in the same TV interview. The phrase was qualified to mean; within the parameters of the design, build and advised use / sailing of the yacht. There is no suggestion that the yacht could never be sunk. Regarding the official investigation and potential criminal charges: this is standard practice under Italian Law. There is no pre-supposition of guilt, just the possibility that people have died due to some preventable human error. The tone of quite a few English language discussions is cynical about Italian legal procedures and suggest potential cover-ups; based on zero evidence, ignorance of Italian law, poor translations and stereotypes. Hardly objective duscussion.
English language discussions forget the treatment towards Julian Assange at the hands of the British and Americans. 14 years of torment.
I think the original (and later overruled)sentencing of the 6 italian seismologists for not predicting the 2009 earthquake has left a good many folk with serious doubts about how culpability is seen in that country..
@@anthonyxuereb792 So if one country does something wrong it cancels out what another country does wrong? That isn't how the real world works.
Stereotypes exist for a reason. They're just an expression of pattern recognition
Ask Amanda Knox about Italian law.
I have been trying to warn people if they live with land locked gardens and the storms that have been drenching us over the weekend they may find they are unnecessarily flooded….
this follows the shedding of what seems to be a blinder… in this excellent conversation… thank you for your expertise… 🧚🏻
I really enjoyed the way you were discussing this event, especially having the video in mind, when you talked about seaworthy boats with the Millenials on their YT-channel. When you did the video with Adam there was no tragic accident ahead so you could discuss criteria for offshore-rating of production boats with an amusing black humor. The videos with Adam are 3 years old now and they are as up to date as they can be. When you argued that there are 201 people responsible I thought you would be coming up with the regulations again. We completely agree on the first one and it must have been a pain for the naval architect to sign of the boat as a boat. It was a floating partyzone. On the other hand the naval architect was an honest man. He documented the 45° flooding angle, he documented the AVS of 73° but obviously the boat was registered in the UK as an ocean going yacht and nobody insisted on "Hide the party-zone in the channels of Venice, anything else might end as a tragedy!"
I am also interested in the outcome of the investigation and the consequences for the crew. I hope they will not blame them for the problems in boat design and the acceptance of such designs by the officials.
You once mentioned that at sea you need a boat that looks after you and not the other way around. The Bayesian would have been a quite safe boat but only with the AC-vents closed, with all doors and hatches locked, ... and this is definitely not what you do in a protected anchorage in a summer night when you want the AC running...
It is Heartening to hear Mr. Dick Beaumont of "Kraken Yachts", mention an often ignored, yet crucial feature of modern "Luxury Yacht ," builds, that of "Sea-worthiness". I fear that, there are far too many builders of this "luxury yacht" class of vessel, who in order to cater to the demands of ultra wealthy clients, many of whom have little or no appreciation or even understanding of the realities of marine vessels, are quite prepared to compromise the potential safety of a vessel, in extreme conditions. The fact that the sloop "Bayesian", combined several such features, which taken individually, may require careful attention, such as the propensity for the desirable and glamourous, massive heavy glass doors separating the aft cockpit from the saloon, to slide open when the yacht heeled whilst under sail, a notable feature of this builders sailing yachts. Then there was the outrageously tall "alloy" mast(considerably heavier than "carbon fibre" equivalents) and really more of a boastful, than a necessary, practical, feature. The location of the essential air intakes for ventilation of the engine room, being located for "aesthetic" appeal, in the hull, apparently fitted with shutters to keep water out, when the vessel was heeling under sail, but usually left open, when motoring or at anchor. The seeming paucity of "escape hatches" for both passengers and crew. Under normal circumstances these aspects of the vessel might require careful consideration, but under extreme circumstances combined to form a tragically lethal situation..My concerns apply equally to many of the modern luxury motor yachts as well..
I have heard it said that in spite of appearance, this boat was more of a motor yacht than sailboat - it does not have the safety characteristics of a sailboat which is designed to be at home in a blow and cannot run away from a storm in many cases.
As I learned it, when trapped in a storm and if situation looks dire the last resort would be to drop the sails and secure eveything on deck and then go below and a good boat will look after itself. That would be at sea, not at anchor but my point is you would not haul the guests onto deck in a storm - the safest place for these cream puffs would be below.
When the head of the boat building company said that the boat was "unsinkable", this astonishing claim was clearly reference to the compartmented design with isolating bulkheads. So every hatchway and bulkhead was seal, I suppose it it would be difficult to sink (rather like Titanic, ironically), but I am not sure this is really practical where you are going to seal people apart from the crew and inside the boat. Its a case of a safety feature which is not realistic - though I am sure it was played up at time of sale.
The boat should have had a warning sign to effect: Do not take this vessel out of protect harbor nor overnight aboard. Well suspect they will spread the blame around (assuming the hull openings were not left open), but for me the greatest fault lies with the surveyor who did not advise the buyer (presumably) that the vessel was of deficient design and that the charteristics were substandard.
The conditions under which a ship is sinkable are not an opinion, it's mathematics. Bayesian is mathematically unsinkable with only two flooded compartments. Titanic is unsinkable with no more than two adjacent flooded compartments. Neither the Titanic nor the Bayesian were ever defined as "unsinkable tout court" by their manufacturers. Both the Titanic and the Bayesian are unsinkable in the conditions specified by the technical papers. You violate the conditions, the ship sinks. Titanic sunk because of a human error. Bayesan sunk because more than two compartments were flooded, this is mathematically certain, and Mr. Costantino is right in stating the obvious truth.
Great concise appraisal of the whole event. Some great information on the mind set of some owners, costs & lifestyle on these yachts. Cheers guys.
I absolutely agree on the fact that there is no such thing as an "unsinkable boat", but the Perini navi CEO said that the boat was unsinkable "if" no water gets into it and "if" all the safety procedures are correctly completed by the crew. These are two big "ifs" that will be cleared only once the boat will be thoroughly inspected out of the water. I must instead greatly disagree when I hear at around min 3.25 that there is "no skipper in the world that would have done something different"... this is the whole point of the problem... maybe the downburst was indeed unpredictable, but every weather forecast had clearly mentioned possible storms approaching the area. I think instead that every skipper in the world would have done many things differently... in fact every single skipper in the world, knowing that bad weather is approaching and supposedly aknowledging the possible structural defects of his own yacht, would have set maximum alert in all of his crew members (probably not in his passengers) assigning a full night of ongoing guard to himself and all of the "sailing" members of his crew, preparing himself, the crew and the boat to face possible trouble due to the forecasted bad weather. I really would love not to blame anyone of the crew nor the captain, but whoever is used to sail in the mediterranean knows how quickly bad storms can hit and whenever you know that a storm is potentially approaching you - expecially at night and when you are out at anchor - the captain and all of his crew have to have maximum alert and be ready in a few instants from the moment the storm hits the boat to get the engines running, ready to get loose of the anchor and manouvre the boat out of trouble. Lastly, regarding the will to find a potential scapegoat of the italian investigators, I would like to point out that the italian legal system requires an "official designation of potential suspects" - this is a necessary and well defined procedural step of any trail and is called "iscrizione nel registro degli indagati". This does not mean that the suspects are in any way to be considered guilty, instead it actually grants them a fair trial and a fully transparent information, letting them know from the very moment of this "registration in the register of suspects" that there is an official investigation ongoing on their behalf. No trial can be started in Italy until this first fundamental burocratic procedure has been completed.
It's all correct apart the legal point. The "iscrizione nel registro degli indagati" can be a secret act, i.e. at the beginning of an enquiry, the suspect is not necessarily informed of the enquiry (think of all the telephone wire-tapping: the suspect must be registered in the registro but he is not aware of it). If certain acts are performed (e.g. a request to a Bank), then the suspect must receive the "avviso di garanzia", which is the communication that there is an enquiry against him. This is just a technicality, there are cases where the enquiry must be secret. In this case, having an accident at sea with victims, it is obvious, and mandatory, that an enquiry must be initiated.
@@uffa00001 Yes indeed the investigations can be secret but only for a limited period of time, but for the trial itself to get going at a certain point the investigators have to let the suspects know they have been investigated over the past and they have to publicly register them in the public register of suspects... yet again the difference between the preliminary investigations and the beginning of the trial is subtle and many times have brought controversy... especially when the public registration was intended for politicians and was done too close to upcoming public elections... it can be a way to influence the public... it is still percieved too closely to an official conviction sentence but actually is a means of protecting the suspects from infinitely long secret investigators from the behalf of the italian police and magistrates.
Anyways, from the point of view of a foreigner all of this will seem quite overcomplicated... it is quite hard to explain the italian laws all around the world! ;-)
Congratulations on a very honest and open interview, totally agree
As an engineer I think that was no need to loss seven lives if the watch, the engineer and the capitan took appropriete measures as quick as possible. The sailboat could be lost but lives would be saved. Kraken is an expert in very small pure sailboats (small engine ?).
The fact the saved so many astounded me.its not easy deploying life rafts and getting people in to them.That lives were lost attests to the suddenness of this disaster
Best analysis so far, lets see if the inquiry is as good.
A very interesting conversation. I am shocked at the figures.
One point nobody is talking about. The guests had just taken part in a celebratory dinner. I would imagine a good few bottles of insanity expensive wine, port, cognac and malt were consumed. I suspect the guests weren’t sober. This may have impeded their ability to exit quickly.
A bit speculative but also very possible.
The skipper of the Sir Robert Baden Powell did wake up all persons on board, did close all hatches, did start the engines and was about to head the bow towards the waves. So there was already one skipper who did take measures against the weather. But I agree, the flooding angles and the instructions to lower center board only whilst sailing and being offshore did finally lead to the catastrophe. To many weak points, too many “big dicks” (the mast, the lowered entertainment aérea, all the lose furnitures etc.) and too much hubris.
@@the_new_earth there is no mention from the skipper that the Sir Robert Baden Powell was struck by the full force of the downburst and as it wasn’t forecast his preparations weren’t in order to counter it.
I suspect he did this once the microburst happened, by which time it was too late for Baysian
Most of the Bayesian crew were up and at stations or on deck. Several were thrown into the sea when it was knocked down. There is still no information about whether the engines were running. Incidentally the AIS information is incorrect.
Very interesting and helpful interview to help understand the possible dynamics of such a tragic sinking. My questions are as follows: what is the angle of vanishing stability with the keel down? What is the down flooding angle with the keel down? Why wouldn’t the captain have kept the keel down if he knew a blow was on its way? Surely, with the benefit of hindsight no captain of a perini will anchor with the keel up in future (unless they are in a port)..
I soo love Dick Beaumont ! He's my kind of fella,. Speaks his mind, his experience, the truth.
Absolutely agree with your analysis, having and still currently working at sea , the weather is definitely playing a major part , we are seeing down bursts on a semi regular basis and water spouts much more frequently. We are in New Zealand where a super yacht got flattened in the marina… righted itself without too much damage. The skipper had little or no hope of saving this vulnerable ship.
I saw the video of that knock down and recovery, it was extremely impressive that she recovered so well and so promptly!
A nearby trimaran was flipped bow over stern, hitting the water inverted, where she remained...
Dick, look at the machinery vents in the hull under the gunwhale, they also contribute to the flooding angle problems.
Presumably the vents have to be left open if the AC or generator are running.
But the midships rail would be under well before those vents.
Just looked up down burst. Not sure how anyone could predict such an event. Apparently the ship has been at sea for sixteen years. Very sad . Thank you for explaining what you understand.
That aft step down & those sliding doors , As a skipper experienced a few knockdowns One hell of a lotta waters going to come in if she's on her side , Water Weight arft just makes her go deeper .
Excellent analysis gents . Down flood angle was ridiculous, it was just a big sailing dingy waiting to fill with water .
Good discussion, according to previous skipper, side deck steps would not flood at 45 deg down flooding angle. Also a crew reported sliding saloon doors had to be forced open at one point in disaster.
But yes shallow DFA and AVS are serious issue.
Clearly between 45 and 73 degree heel it’s all very serious!
Re weather , local Italian air-force said there was no expectation of any severe weather .
Chatting to a superyacht captain a couple of weeks back, he reckoned this could finish off Perini, they already had a shakey reputation.
Just heard the comany is sueing the widow and the crew for 220 mil dollars. Who sues their customers? Absolutely shameful
Unbelievable and they will probably win because they are an Italian builder
This has now been denied by the builders.
Thanks for this very informative and candid discussion.
Comparing a Kraken to a Perini is like comparing an "hurricane shelter" to a "5-star luxury resort".
Anyone would go to the shelter in the event of a hurricane, but no real VIP would buy one to spend his holidays there. 😁
I agree 100% with the technical content of the video.
I would just add that in a video (which you can find here among mine) you can see the anchor dragging and (therefore) the ship drifting wind abeam. The crosswind and the constraint of the anchor which "trips" the ship up, would have greatly facilitated the capsizing.
A luxurious yacht of this size can easily be designed to have the ability to right from a knockdown. This would mean some combination of less beam, more freeboard and more ballast. Sleeping on a yacht with a 75 degree AVS and a 45 degree downflooding angle is a gamble. The super-rich are often the gamblers who got lucky. Makes sense. Keep spinning the wheel eventually you lose.
@@MatthewFelgate-r4u The designer of that ship is Ron Holland, one of the most famous naval architects in the world. We should ask him if a luxury yacht of that size, and equally beautiful/exclusive enough to be attractive to a VIP, can be easily designed to have the ability to right from a knockdown. 🤔 🙂
amazing analysis. Thank you guys for this
Hello Mr. Beaumont. Another seemingly reputable source, e-systems youtube channel, has pointed out that what appears to be a cabin top over the the forward well deck is actually canvas. If the weather event or knockdown collapsed the canvas top, could that be a source of catastrophic down flooding.
You might mean eSysman, now changed to "The Yacht Report".
Excellent discussion. Thanks, gentlemen.
Great interview ⛵️⛵️👍
10 crew and what I've heard, there are usually not enough crew to cover the required hours and they are continuously sleep deprived when the owners are in. I don't know if this was the case here, but it's common on other luxury yachts.
It was very much the case here!
No one mention Class? The design and build most have been approved by Class and Flag State , which is UK.
Yes I suspect there's a loop hole that enable them to get through, probably by claiming it was a motor yacht and then putting a mast on it... definitely the MCA need to look at making sure this kind of thing never happens again.
Just because it complies with class or ce or ??? Doesn’t necessarily equal sensible
at 19:22 they talk about a video where you can see that boat tilt to 45°... where is this video?
On eSysman for one.
@@SteamCrane Where? As far as I know there's no video of the bayesian tilting at all.
@@log-x7976 eSysman posted it on an earlier video. It's very unclear, due to massive rain. The other video of the catamaran flipping shows a different large sailboat heeling almost 90 degrees, and righting itself immediately. A real sailboat will survive a knockdown with no problem, unlike this big motorboat with a ridiculous mast stuck on.
@@SteamCrane I know that video with massive rain,but there's no tilt at all on that footage.
A downflooding angle of 45 degrees is not unusually low for large vessels. Nor is the angle of vanishing stability of 73 degrees. What counts is the ability to withstand heeling to those angles. I would venture to suggest that even if Bayesian was hard pressed under full sail it would be incredibly difficult or nigh or impossible to lay her over beyond 30 degrees under normal conditions. This vessel is designed to 1) provide luxury accommodation at exotic locations, 2) move between exotic locations and 3) sail in pleasure regattas at these locations. It has done this successfully for quite a few years. I agree that we should not be looking to make the skipper a scapegoat, nor should we be too critical of a design which was basically fit for purpose but unfortunately hit by a freak event.
Even huge sailing ships like the Herzogin Cecilie got knocked down on occasions, anyone designing a sailing yacht and thinking it's not going to happen is really not allowing for what is a known risk. Freak events unfortunately do happen, the design should have been such to allow her to recover or at least sink slowly enough to allow escape.
@@tomriley5790 hi Tom,
You get the award for best comment.
@@tomriley5790 And what happened to the Herzogin Cecilie? It capsized and sank.
Hi Dick, thank you for the very logical (and educative) explanation of the event. Designing direct large open waterflow surfaces to the body of the sailboat with extremely large mast and relatively low down flooding angle is disaster waiting to happen.
But, if the event happened as described, there is one area where probably crew could (and should) do better, in my opinion.
Weather radar data for this part of the Mediterranean is relatively accurate and very frequent. Crew on watch should be looking at weather radar maps at least every 30min, under the weather forecast for that night. They could see that storm of way more than 20knots of wind is coming and would have time to take basic precautionary measures, lower the keel and close main large open surfaces (close and lock saloon door, seal engine room, hatches...).
Probably if these basic measures have been taken sailboat would recover from the downburst?
If investigation shows that these basic measures have been taken, then crew should be completely cleared.
If memory serves, the Captain has already stated that the keel was not lowered, and that was in accordance with the ship manual, which does not specify as mandatory to lower the keel in those conditions. If we believe the mathematics of this ship, she sunk because three compartments were flooded, which means that no, those "basic precautionary measures" were not taken. The question is whether there is a negligence in doing so, i.e. whether: a) there actually was a downburst; b) the conditions before the downburst required the "measures".
The owner's desire is the designers goal. The owner pays for the designers expertise. No designer would intentionally build an intrinsically dangerous boat especially an ocean going boat. The tallest mast in the world comes with significant bragging rights. It also comes with significant danger. This is simply arrogant pride expressed.The Ocean is no respecter of persons.
Kraken would build a bigger boat if you brought them cash.
Very enlightening discussion. Huge amount of common sense.
Yes well said Dick. I think this was an accident waiting to happen. Having a sailing yacht that relies on it's beam for stability is ok up to a certain size , say 30 feet. Many sailing dinghies rely on beam to keep them up, if they capsize as they do , no big deal . A close to 200' yacht with a draft of only 13' we have a problem. Depending on design Swing Keels don't make a big difference to the righting moment, they are there more for lateral resistance. For stability you use a weighted Drop Keel. The other thing is the ridiculously high mast had 6 sets of spreaders creating an enormous amount of windage. This boat was going to capsize with or without sails set at some point. I grew up on a 50' racing / cruising yacht built in the late 1930s . We were knocked down once with a sudden downdraft in totally protected waters. Full sails with virtually no prevailing wind. The 65' mast hit the water, after half a minute or less the boat righted itself and we continued on our way. Somewhat shaken and below decks was a mess yet there was no damage and we had taken on no water . It was a proper yacht that still sails in Sydney Harbour today.
I agree any yacht that sails should be designed and capable of at least taking a knock down.... it will happen at some point.
On all fairness, the keel weighed ~90 tons. If it had been deployed, it might have made all the difference. My understanding is that it was retracted at anchor (significantly raising the CoG) because it made a loud knocking sound when deployed. Didn’t want to disturb the guests’ sleep 🤔
@@litespud Yes the centerboard was considerable however as it was a Swing Keel as opposed to a Drop keel you do not get the full weight moving down when deployed. . The keel revolves around the pivot point and therefor depending on the shape and composition only a portion of the mass is moved lower. You don't get the full mass of it lower. I cant say how much the center of gravity moves lower without detailed drawings and information but possibly not as much as you would think. Considering the force with which the yacht appears to have been hit its unlikely the Keel position would have made much difference. The other consideration is when a STATIONARY center board boat is hit with a side on wind and the board is up some of the energy is dissipated in leeward motion. With the keel down they have a tendency to Trip on the keel and so can go over just as much. This happens mostly when the boat has no forward motion. It is also very normal for large center board yacht to spend most of the time board up. These are all issues which will be much clearer when the boat is re floated.
Why did the Captain and crew of the other boat anchored nearby start preparing for bad weather much earlier? I don't think the person on anchor watch was qualified to be left alone on watch. The other ship saw weather they didn't like and the engine was started to keep the boat staying into the wind. How did this boat get insurance? It has obvious design flaws.
Unusually I find myself agreeing with Beaumont. This boat, and many others like it are nowhere near as seaworthy as most much smaller boats.
The only analysis that makes sense and clear to those who have been at sea. Many were critical at the size of my boat's cockpit being small...but I was happy when at an Atlantic storm filled repeatedly. Here I see a serious design fault, that regardless to the effort to accommodate customers wishes, the responsibility of the Architect should have not allowed an obvious hazard to the safety of the vessel and the people on it.
Sorry but at this stage acquitting the crew is as untimely as condemning them. It's simply too early. There are two independent investigations under way, one in Italy and the other in the UK. Let us wait and see what the findings will be. Until then, it is better to say nothing. It seems to me that this gentleman is behaving like the Italian CEO
This interview and the reports by “the yacht report” channel are by far the most sensible pieces of analysis on the Bayesian yacht sinking. Real world facts from people who understand seamanship, basic boat design and perhaps crucially, Mother Nature. As he says, the sea is a law unto itself. It is untameable and should always be treated with respect. And yes - climate change is undoubtedly happening leading to more and more frequent “freak weather” events. I truly hope that the crew are found innocent of any wrong doing or negligence……
I have four comments on what you noted. Firstly, You talked about how a low AVS and downflooding angle mean that she had ‘poor righting moment’. This isn’t the case, often vessels with the largest righting moments (especially in the 0-40 degree range) have low angles of vanishing stability. As a professional naval architect nothing irks me more than an inaccuracy like this and it makes me question the rest of what you have stated. I suspect even with the keel up the vessel had a good righting moment.
Secondly, I suspect the MAIB report will find that there were design features for safety that were not operated as intended. I am often amazed by the number of ‘keep closed at sea’ doors that I see with rope tie backs and crew openly stating they are lashed open to make operation easier. This experience is in a very different sector but I suspect this could contribute to how quickly all spaces cross flooded
Thirdly, I haven’t seen the data on downflooding but it’s hard to know if these are protected or closely. Often vents have winteb type heads with a floating ball that closes the vent if immeresd preventing flooding through this. Without further info it’s hard to know what to make of the little information we have been supplied
Finally I think it’s best to await final report on the sinking to draw real conclusions. I think that’s true when the CEO said his shit, also think it’s true with you saying boat wasn’t fit for purpose. How certain are you a kraken would have survived the downburst? If you say 100% I’m afraid to say your delusional
Couldn't agree more with you. You can also read my comment above.
My problem is that the final report may not be as impartial, unbiased and comprehensive as we are entitled to expect.
@@achitophel5852 what makes you think that? There will be some serious evidence there, ie. what was open and or closed, length of chain out on the anchor, etc. Italy build lots of boats, and there would have been many certifications that would have had to be passed on that boat. All boats are not equal, and I agree that this design was not the most seaworthy design for its size and driven more by design and comfort in calmer sea, rather than rough water capability. But ultimately the same can be said for any vessel. They are not all built to an equal standard of performance in rough conditions. It is ultimately up to the Skippers/Captain and the crew to understand what they are comfortable with. I can give a shitty vessel to a great skipper and it can perform a lot better that a really good vessel in the hands of a person that has never skippered a boat. We are also all assuming that this vessel had been maintained to perfection. Because failing to do so would also jeopardize its safety. This is simply not going to be an easy investigation.
I’d have to worry about a naval architect who thinks a low AVS and downflooding angle is not a very bad thing.
Apply Some Bayesian Analyses and Statistical Parameters with respect to the Weather please ...?
Such an interesting discussion. Seaworthiness is paramount to me. The sea can change so quickly and l'd want a boat that could cope with it.
Great video, absolutely stunning numbers regarding flooding and vanishing stability.
I always found the CEO of the Italian company getting on TV and saying what he did in the manner which he did very inappropriate and telling. He knew the numbers from the beginning.
Really hope all this is included in the maib report.
This was the Herald of Free Enterprise of yachts.
Thank you.
Indeed. He reminded me of the captain of the Concordia, blaming everyone else for his own failures.
What was the capsize rating? lower CSF indicates greater stability, and a boat with a CSF of 2.0 or less is generally considered safe for ocean passages. A higher CSF indicates a greater chance of capsizing
I was wondering the same.
There isn't any direct evidence yet of a downburst, the only evidence is what happened to the boat, which is at present circular reasoning
There is the harbour webcam footage.
The downburst was confirmed by the Italian Air Force - in the press conference the Italian investigators held.
I very much appreciate the objective analysis. Thanks for posting a long form version.
Let's hope the reckoning comes upon the guilty parties.
I’m thinking of the thought of designing this yacht follows this line of thinking.
We build a “Super-Motor-Yacht” with standard rules of stability for a “super motor yacht” that has sailing vessel lines/shape,
then we want an enormous pole resembling a mast on it,
It will need a 30’ keel and ballast to offset the enormous “ 256+ Meter pole “ on top of it affecting this motor Yachts Stability”
It was pavini’s operating procedure stated if not under sail the vessel did not have to have keel down.
It’s a Titanic type scenario (these yachts are huge!!
as well as these vessels usually stay in fair weather “Med”
environments
I believe that designers push the envelope anyways
However, then designers design page The Navini yachts started as an elegant looking “motor Yacht/SuperYacht” not as a “Sailing Vessel”
You can imagine many “motoring Siperyachts” to perform just as this one did in same situation with a 256+’ right arm lever being hit with 180mph winds!
Just my two cents,
Over most aged adults we’ve lived thru time of massive growth in people that all have cameras!
Just 30yrs ago at a height of USA polluting and having Ozone fears from 80’s hair cuts, we only owned simple fragile cameras and personal shoulder mounted video cams.
We are more likely to see crazy weather scenarios even if they were actually decreasing due to increase in people with cams. We have to be careful to follow long term large factual statistics not sensationalist and those who benefit from particular “statements and Terms’
The med sea was over 4 celcius warmer than normal. And ocean seas are ridiculously warmer this year all around the world , to a worrying level. As we know the warmer water is the easier it is for violent storms and hurricanes to occur . All this data is freely available for sea temperatures
Thanks for this discussion! I got very concerned about the way how the CEO and some italian media made up their „analysis“ „finding“ the one responsible so early on while dead bodies were still 50m below waterline,
An interesting viewpoint I've listened to elsewhere is that these 'yachts' are more akin to motor boats, and only use their sails in optimum conditions, so stability factors don't align with those of ocean going yachts. Bayesian's numbers back up this viewpoint. Anyone with any understanding of yacht design knew almost immediately how this tragedy happened - at least once the weather conditions had been sstablished. The only piece of information that doesn't add up to me is how the divers were only able to spend 10 minutes down on the wreck site at a time. This is baffling as Bayesian lies 50m down, this is well within the capabilities of the technical diving professionals with their specialist gear that were available. If people were stuck in an air pocket, it should have been possible to rescue them, or at least to try. Tony Bullimore survived for 4 days in exactly this situation. They immediately knew it was on its side (increasing the chances of air pockets) else that 72m mast would be visible above the water. What am I missing?
bullimore was in an uncompressed air pocket. at 50m down that air pocket becomes useless.
You are missing that “they” didn’t immediately have available the necessary technically skilled divers, equipment (including decompression chamber/s) and rescue boats, competent support people and coordinators.
Ok hypothetically a diver finds 4 or 5 alive in an air pocket what does the diver do next? Remember that the pressure at that depth is 4.9 times that at the surface so the bends will be experienced if they ascend too rapidly.
Also, entrance to the guest sleeping quarters was blocked by debris/furniture so the navy had to get specialist cutting equipment to cut open a 3cm thick window to gain entry.
@@andrewcherowbrier329
Why?
Technical diving kit isn't that common similarly neither are technical divers. 10 minutes bottom time on air is going to give you a decent amount of decompression on the way up. To get to the air pocket you're going have to enter a recently sunken vessel full of debris - floating stuff like materesses, wires, line lots of things that can tangle or snag and trap you, there's no clear surface, the design of the vessel is unknown to you, there is no light. whilst connecting an air compressor and punching a hose through the hull has been done in some submarine resuces it requires specialist equipment and skills and realistically 5-6 people in one small air pocket are likely going to produce enough CO2 to make each other unconscious before it can be put together. Similarly they themselves would need to be brought up slowly or put into a diving bell to stop them getting decompression sickness....
Do you think that 120 kn with Wind, as you mentioned, coming down on a vessel like that and people moving furniture and other pieces of equipment on board would've crushed the deck before they were thrown overboard?
Bayesian crew was 10. Captain, two mates, engineer, two seamen, three hostesses, and the chef. Not really enough crew to sail this large and complex vessel in weather, much less handle an emergency.
Sometimes tragedy accompanies dreams whether we be rich or poor…that’s when lessons are learned and the consequences will be tsunamic for anyone closely connected to the Bayesian…including designers, builders, manufacturers of materials, crew, rescue teams and especially the owner.
Liability and fault is a naturally occurring process trust upon us all after any major event and hopefully this adventure doesn’t keep us wrapped in comfort, guilt or despair but keeps us on an ocean of wisdom where we gain understanding in life and continue to aim for adventure.
Sadly, every good story has a villain…
and life doesn’t include a time machine.
Forgiveness and acceptance is a long journey out of ruin.
in 14 minutes it was enough to launch an evacuation alarm, to save the people who were below. An analysis absolutely devoid of common sense and objectivity!!! ridiculous
Very enlightening, revealing a super yacht designed for comfort and pleasure but not for safety. Bad priorities.
thank you
Sorry but as a retired captain if and that is the qualifier of whether I had seen a forecast of violent cold front weather imminent I would have lowered the keel to maximum extension . Forget cushions and toys so they blow overboard I went my ship in the highest point of stability possible. Then engine on and in standby mode ready to engage to allow easing of anchor rode strain . Because I know violent sudden wx can cause rapid wind shifts with engine on I can maneuver to keep her headed into any wind . I may have also
Paid out more chain . Maybe I still would have been knocked down and I may not have had foresight to avoid downflooding due to open vents . But I heard she would experience down flooding at 45 degrees heel . Which means the builder saying she could take a 80 degree heel meaningless unless she was 100 percent water tight . Anyway any ship can founder the sea and wind want you dead so it’s always a threat .
I totally agree
in a 20knot forecast? pfhht
I think the downflooding angle was 43 degrees.
What caused the power outage at 03.53am? Getting out of if a capsized boat in 16 minutes is bad enough but getting out if a capsized boat in darkness is impossible.
The stability characteristic of very large yachts are quite different. The stability regulations are statutory, enforced by the state, the MCA. They can be found on line as the “REG code, red ensign group, for yachts over 24m load line. In theory you are required to have 90deg AVS. But many very large yachts and most Perini’s, struggle to achieve this and are given a dispensation. Stability is massively dependent on scale effect double the size of a hull and the stability increases by 8. That’s why the very large sailing ships looked, on paper, to have little stability. And why model yachts have very deep keels to get their stability. So making simple comparisons is misleading (even if you’re a Krackin sales man) 😉
The first down flooding points in the stability books, are the engine room vents. Not the doors. The MCA stability unit in Southampton will review the stability books and inclining tests.
Thanks for the reference to the actual requirements. But *why* are the rules for large yachts seemingly less strict? It seems to me that any sailboat can be knocked down to 90 degrees or even a bit more. Why are small yachts required to be able to recover in that case but not large ones?
I would very much like to hear Dick Beaumont's opinion on this point.
@@WilliamAArnett two reasons, both of which are used / demonstrated in the large yacht codes. 1. The ratio of wind gust over ambient is much greater closer to the surface, ie. for small vessels. 2. to achieve 90deg positive (AVS) the stability at sailing angles is very high, structural loading on the rigs, mast, chainplates is very high, more than it needs to be to get good sailing performance. You can see how tall this rig is. She would not heel as much as a yacht half her length under full sail in say 20kts of wind. This is the effects of Scale. You can’t make simple comparisons between v large yachts and regular yachts. So when seemingly experienced sailors like these two gents air there views it’s simply not what they think, they are comparing with there own experience but Naval Architecture would add the reality to this discussion. That said there is an issue with large yacht stability, the problem is one of down-flooding through engine room ventilation ducts, which is the cause of this accident, I have no doubt. It’s my Job.
@@johnstott1431 I have trouble believing those vents didn't have float valves.
@@SteamCrane Float valves are difficult to design in and maintain in such large openings (about the size of two wheelie bins, each side) they do have fire dampers, which must be manually closed or auto in fire. The minimum down-flooding angle for sailing yachts is 40deg. Clearly she was pushed over this. I think there is likely to be a revision of the code to look at wind heeling and down flood angles. Of course they may prove that the stability books were not representative of the vessel and in that case it will get more “legally interesting”
At this point, as the subject matter begins to fade from the public agenda, I'd just like to thank everyone for the incredible support and the contributions so many people have made to this discussion. Let's hope that lessons have been learnt. Dick Beaumont Kraken Yachts
No real mention that deploying the keel would have made the vessel considerably more stable, I consider the reason the keel was not specified to be used to make the vessel more stable and hence safer, was because on testing of the keel being deployed, it was found to make an annoying knocking noise, which would be unacceptable to the sort of person that would purchase, operated and use the vessel.
I suspect, the knocking noise the keel made when deployed was the real reason the manufacturer instruction said that the keel only had to be deployed when sailing and over 100 miles from land.
So, it is very likely a major contributing factor in allowing the vessel to be pushed so easily past 45 degrees was its lack of stability, without the keel deployed.
So likely the manufactures mitigating an annoying knocking noise was the final straw that caused the vessel to be lost.
Strange how events unfold in life.
It would probably have sunk with the keel down.
@@paulpaul9914
Yes, the AVS with keel down was only 10° more. Most of the ballast was in the stub keel, not the centreboard. The point made in the video is the low flooding angle which is exacerbated by a slow recovery from a knockdown.
@@meofnz2320 perhaps you don’t understand, that with the keel down, the vessel would be “more” stable and have greater righting properties.
@@johnnewington3798 No. It would be more weatherly, but if hit from the beam, the underwater lateral resistance of the extra keel would have knocked her down more.
The sailboat hat very powerful engines. To start them and control the boat via the propulsion and the rudder like any others boats. To control any hydraulic motor and pull the keel down and lives can be saved also via control of the entries to the guest and crew department. I think that the engine room was lost first via some the negligence of engineer. Any conteiner ship without power could be lost due in a strong wind.
I think is a fair assessment and that it should be broadcasted more. I think also that Italian justice can be trusted but it will have to understand first and I believe expert like you sir will provide the necessary input… I am not seriously worried about the fate of the skipper and crew although I understand they must be going through hard times.