Bayesian Disaster Emblematic of Our Era
Reflections on the shipbuilder's statement.
When I first heard reports that the Bayesian superyacht had sunk at anchor outside a marina in Sicily, I was incredulous that such a huge and technically advanced yacht could sink at anchor, even in the most fearsome tempest.
However, after carefully studying (and sleeping on) the statement of the shipbuilder, I have am increasingly drawn to the conclusion that the conduct of the skipper and crew are beyond rational comprehension.
With heavy thunderstorms in the forecast, it is indisputably true that someone should have been keeping the watch on the bridge. This is standard procedure when bad weather is in the forecast.
The second thing that really jumped out at me is that portholes and hatches—and apparently the stern door to the main salon!—were purportedly left open.
Finally, I was stunned to see the confirmed report that the Bayesian lost its anchor hold and dragged for 4 minutes before it sank.
During this time, it appears that the vessel began violently yawing at the same time it was dragging the anchor, with the bow possibly running afoul of the anchor chain.
Here it seems worth mentioning that I have experience sailing off the coast of Sicily and I am familiar with the wild weather that can strike in the early morning hours. In the summer of 2001, I chartered a 50-foot sailing yacht near Tropea, Calabria and sailed west to the Aeolian Islands. After an uneventful night anchored off Stromboli, I sailed to Lipari.
Because the docks in the marina were fully occupied, I anchored just outside the marina. The relatively deep water and rocky bottom made me nervous about the anchor holding, so it I didn’t sleep well. The next morning, just before sunrise, the anchorage was struck by a gale that caused the anchor to lose its hold, and within minutes the vessel had drifted into 200+ deep water, with virtually all the anchor chain dangling straight down off the bow, exerting far too much weight for the boat’s mickey mouse windlass to lift.
The FIRST thing I did was double check to make sure ALL portholes and hatches were closed. I then quickly started the inboard and did my best to hold the bow directly into the wind, which drove heavy rain straight into my face at over 50 miles per hour with what I took to be 60+ gusts.
I wasn’t alone. Other sailing yachts had also lost their anchor hold and were drifting. In fact, the only yachts in the anchorage that did NOT lose their anchor hold were a few super yachts with massive anchors and tons of chain. A few skippers of the other drifting boats had not yet awakened and started their inboards, and some of these boats were drifting into the anchored super yachts, which created a hell of a ruckus.
With the help of a friend onboard, I was able to slowly winch up the anchor chain using dock lines and the jib winch. It was a slow and painstaking process, especially in the driving rain, but at last we got the anchor up around the same time the gale blew over.
I mention this nautical adventure to emphasize that my actions were a matter of basic seamanship. As the boat’s skipper, I was merely following standard procedure. Had I been a really good skipper, I would have:
1). Looked at the weather report right before I went to bed.
2). Set two anchors off the bow instead of only one.
3). Set an alarm to wake me in at the time bad weather was forecast to approach.
Eyewitness accounts of the Bayesian’s sinking are now being reported in the press. I found the following, just published in the Guardian, to be of special interest.
Located approximately 150 metres (492ft) away from the Bayesian was the Sir Robert Baden, a Dutch-flagged sailing ship built in 1957, and captained by the experienced sailor Karsten Borner, 69.
“We were awakened by the storm,” Karsten told the Guardian. “The first thing I did was to start the engines of my sailboat to give more stability to the vessel. After securing our boat, we immediately approached the Bayesian.’’
A photo obtained by the Guardian from a local fisher showed the moment a red emergency flare was launched from the Bayesian’s life raft at 4.35am.
Francesco Lo Coco, who took the image, said: “I saw the sailboat rocking. The emergency rocket was launched while the sailboat was already sinking.”
Borner was the first to attempt providing assistance to the Bayesian, but the boat was already going under.
“I have never seen a vessel of this size go down so quickly,” said Borner. “Within a few minutes, there was nothing left. Then we saw the raft with the 15 passengers. It was a tragedy.”
From a video taken by surveillance cameras at a shipyard, it seems the passengers of the Bayesian had about 16 minutes to save themselves and avoid the sinking.
In light of my elementary knowledge and experience, it is hard for me to understand why the skipper of the Bayesian didn’t—at the very latest—start the inboard and get ready for action soon after the leading edge of the storm started to lash the vessel with the first gusts. A glance at the weather radar would have revealed to him the approaching squall line with dense thunderstorm cells.
Was he afraid the sound of the diesel inboard would wake the sleeping guests who’d enjoyed a party the evening before? Were he and his crew also sleeping when the squall line approached?
In the final analysis, I suppose the investigation will focus on the question: Were there indeed hatches and even salon doors left open even after the leading edge of the storm struck? If this is confirmed to be the case, it will strongly raise the suspicion of gross negligence if not foul play.
Whatever the investigators discover, I feel confident in stating now that the Bayesian Disaster is—like the SARS-CoV-2 Lab Leak, the COVID-19 Vaccine Debacle, the Nord Stream Pipeline Disaster, the Lahaina Fire, the Baltimore Bridge Disaster, the Trump Assassination Attempt—emblematic of our mind-bogglingly confounding era.
Indeed, much of our era reminds me of Roman propaganda against the Emperor Nero, whom propagandists claimed was a bizarre combination of wealth, power, insanity, and incompetence. While I suspect that much of the lore about Nero was probably exaggerated and even fabricated, the portrait of the Emperor that has come down to us over the ages strikes me as providing an apt description of whatever Great Lords are running our world today.
There's an interesting parralell with the voyage of the Apostle Paul from Palestine to Rome, just under 2000 years ago. The ship carrying him met with a storm of the type you describe. Eventually the crew were able to hold the ship with four anchors off the coast of Malta during the night. The next morning they decided to let the anchors go and allow the wind to drive the ship into a sandy bay - a manouvre that was successful. The account of the shipwreck is given in Acts 27. A well-known book by an experienced British sailor, James Smith, sought to validate the biblical account based on modern knowledge of the behaviour of winds and storms in the Mediterranean. It was published in 1848 with the title "The Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul".
Thanks for this John. Interesting points indeed. We have a 12 meter ketch (two masts) made of steel. She is a Joshua designed for Bernard Moitessier in the late 60s. She is a double ender (like a viking long boat) and has a wine class profile with a long keel, external rudder and inboard ballast. She is arguably the most sea worthy sailboat ever made and we were lucky to find her. Bayesian is - for us - an unsafe design. I would not take my family on a boat like that. I would race on it but not with them. She has a flat bottom, like a frying pan, and the only thing stopping her from turning turtle at any moment is a long thin keel with a huge heavy bulb on the end. That is all. The idea is to get speed and ability to turn on a dime. What is worse that keel is not part of the boat and can move up and down - for port entry and so on. Her mast is too high. That long thin keel is there to counteract it. This raises her center of gravity dangerously. In olden times a 55 meter long boat would have had up to three masts and long bowsprit and overhanging rear boom which allows the same sail area overall as Bayesian achieved with that 60 meter mast. No mast, for us, should ever even approach the length of the hull and certainly not go beyond it; and certainly not with that hull profile or keel design. Bayesian, in our view, was an accident waiting to happen, by design. We do not think the skipper was aware just how unstable she was. Not his fault. That is a pretty radical modern racing type design. We survived near ship wreck in a storm off the Bahamas in 2010 because of our hull, low masts, clean flush deck and three anchors. Our boat would, we think, not have noticed the squall that hit Bayesian. We think the Bayesian skipper sensed little threat from that weather forecast as he over estimated Bayesian's stability, hence the open hatches and lack of urgency or prep. The squall hit the mast and the windage - resistance from the over high mast alone - was enough to knock her on her side in seconds. It looks to us as if she up filled through the open port holes and hatches and sank in 16 minutes dragged down by that mast. Earlier we though it might have been an issue with the keel but the news over the past two days points to the mast. We feel sure the crew were taken completely by surprise, never believing Bayesian could be that unstable or could possibly topple over so fast in those conditions and with that sea state. Perhaps, to add insult to injury, the keel was raised to improve the riding at anchor and that did not help one little bit. The position of the keel will be key for the investigators. For us, what this tragedy demands is designers should tell owners and skippers very clearly about stability issues with flat bottomed boats with high masts and lifting keels.