What sank the Bayesian superyacht in Italy?
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
> The company speculated that the crew did not close a watertight door between this hatch and the engine room. (...)
> But witnesses, an Italian official familiar with the investigation and the underwater video challenged the company’s versions of events. The footage appeared to show the watertight door to the engine room closed, and the Italian official said the divers had not seen any open hatches on the hull.
> Mr. Borner also said that after rescuing the captain, he asked him if he had shut the hatches. The captain said he had. Mr. Borner shared pictures taken by his guests a few moments before the Bayesian sank that appear to show that hull hatches were closed.
Overall, a very informative article, it analyzes boat's documentation and compares it with other boats from the same manufacturer.
Do you want to buy your yacth from someone who will blame everyone but themselves when things go wrong? I would rather buy a yacht from someone who will incorporate all the learnings into their new designs to make them as safe as possible.
The attitude of "we are perfect, somebody else's fault" stinks, even if they are. More so if they are not.
In either case it’s advantageous to do what they did: either you’re wrong and the fact that your defective product killed your customers far far far outweighs any messaging you did before that comes to light, or you’re right and the initial message shows confidence in your product.
Not making a statement shows the inverse: that it could be your product to blame, and if that story is what people run with then it’s much more harmful in the long run even if it turns out to be not your fault.
Nobody makes purchasing decisions on big boats based on the perceived and subjective pettiness of their PR department.
https://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2024/08/27/former-bayesia...
It should also be noted that the fishermen in the area all received notice of incoming storm activity and many of them took precautionary measures HOURS in advance of when the storm actually hit. Whoever was the bridge watchstander on duty during that time should have been paying attention to the immediate near term weather forecast info. This was an entirely preventable incident.
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7233792... (no account needed)
Changing the name of a vessel is bad luck. That's all I need to know.
it's extremely enticing to 'add more sail' to a boat in order to squeeze more speed out of it, or achieve easier lufting.
turns out that marine architecture is a lot harder than one thinks at first glance, and just about everyone that tries to tweak specs afterwards does so in such a way that makes the boat categorically worse.
(don't ask me how I came to realize this after many dollars spent)
Similarly particle filters, catalytic converters and whatnot reduce efficiency via exhaust backpressure.
So all in all, reducing non-CO2 emissions do come at a cost in CO2 emissions (or fuel consumed, if you like). Is it as much as 15%? No idea.. And is it all worth it? I'd argue yes, old-school diesel exhaust is nasty stuff.
As for your later point...I very much concur. I started masking (n95) during the pandemic, and haven't stopped. I have a... large number of health issues including several respiratory ones. Exhaust in general really is nasty stuff. I live in pretty quiet smallish (100k) town, and it can be bad enough around here with all the pollen, but I wasnt recently on a whirlwind trip through the north east that saw me visit the dense urban cores of DC, Philly, Manhattan, and Boston. The difference in odor on the occasions I'd take my mask off on the sidewalk were kinda shocking as someone not used to it.
Not sure what you're arguing here. Isn't it quite obvious that resistance in the exhaust system means that the engine has to do more work to push the exhaust gases out; work that otherwise could be used to turn the crankshaft. Now of course a lot of that extra energy is wasted in any case, particularly if there's nothing like a turbocharger to make use of it.
Backpressure aft of the turbo is something you really want to avoid because it makes the turbine much less effective. The whole point is to use a pressure and thermal gradient to do work.
Something about the large, hardly noticeable depression traps bad air at a regional level. I wouldn’t move back for a myriad of reasons, but everyone is always surprised when I list air quality as one.
Coming from NWI, I know the mills had a lot to do with subpar air quality, but I had similar issues when I lived on the far Northside of Chicago so it seems to be more regionally affecting.
It's a similar top reason on my list to not living there long term again
Here is a quick overview of how the system works.
Currently only smaller engines are EGR+DPF only. It takes having an SCR(&DEF) system to reduce emissions to legal limits on most larger engines now and the technology has been combined to have an engine with EGR+DPF&SCR(&DEF).
There are issues with engines and the active regeneration that has to occur in order to clean the DPF(basically engine has to get very hot and burn out the buildup) and also issues with DEF, which is an ammonia solution, both with the electronic dosing units failing and solution purity.
Wide band O2 sensors are unreliably enough that they're kind of a pain to keep working accurately long term if you're not on a racecar maintenance schedule and if you aren't tuning things to those extremes you don't need that level of precision anyway.
Basically it just kinda adds up to "not worth it" for street vehicles
The "I bought a tuner" or "I bought a kit" guys don't care or know enough to care.
Once you start talking about people who are reading turbo specs and whatnot people do very much care (because turbos and injectors are expensive and you want them both to be compatible so they get the most out of each other).
(Emissions control, reduces NOx in diesel exhaust.)
I installed a pull-out stereo, a separate amplifier, various permanent and movable speakers, etc. I mostly had the pros installed them, but I was always tweaking things at the wire-harness level. I enjoyed my music EXTRA LOUD, with minimal distortion.
And I had one of those basic aftermarket alarm systems. And there I was, constantly tripping the alarm for various reasons, and we lived in a safe neighborhood, so it was mostly an additional annoyance when I set it off, or armed it, or disarmed it: I was being super ostentatious.
So my proudest DIY mod was to install a shiny toggle switch in the dashboard. The toggle switch had the sole function of disabling the alarm by cutting its power. So I basically handed it to the crooks who came along in a few weeks to steal all my cassettes. But honestly, I doubt that anyone on that block was sorry to see me separated from my music at that point.
But yeah, most "enthusiast" mods are a waste of money and make the vehicle worse.
and then you say "the 1st best day is when you sell it"
rug pull
Boats are just holes in the water that your throw money into.
The tough part is scheduling and finding a boatyard if there’s not one close.
Your nautical mileage may vary
Costs a lot of money to make people put up with boat owners.
Hourly labor rates are $0, I share ownership with 2 other people and we all pitch in.
That way it includes going to buy the paint and sandpaper, putting the boat in a drydock or otherwise on land, finding and dragging out the tools and getting power to them, drying the boat, cleaning it, eating, toilet breaks, taping off the edges etc, letting the paint dry, cleaning up everything afterwards, putting the boat back into the water and probably tons more that I missed.
x5 sounds about right for this one.
Sanding takes multiple person-days and can be the wrong method (depending on details). Media blasting (like soda) is much preferred but requires machines and infrastructure to collect the run-off. In ideal situations, sanding is not necessary at all.
It can be several boat bucks, or just about a hundred dollars. It depends.
For a 40' sailboat it doesn't take multiple person days, it takes about a quarter of a person day. More if you really have to take off a lot of layered up material. And you're right, blasting would work better in that case.
Nowadays there exists bottom paints such as polysiloxane based ones that work by creating a very hard and smooth surface that critters find it very hard to attach to, rather than poisoning them.
This isn't the case for any paint now purchasable, but most still contain biocides that you want to avoid for your own health when cleaning or sanding.
Last time I had it done it was $6450 including tax. 7 boat bucks.
1. In the fall, drive the boat onto the hauler's trailer, unstep the masts, and transport it to the yard. Place on blocks and pressure wash.
2. Winterize the boat, wait for spring.
3. In the spring, break out the shop vac and sander and sand the hull. Since it's a multi season ablative paint, don't sand it all off--just enough to smooth it out and get the dried, hard top layer off.
4. Roll on a coat of paint.
5. When the truck arrives to splash the boat, slap some paint on the spots where the stands' pads were, and where the blocks were under the keel.
6. Step and rig the masts.
7. Splash the boat and go sailing.
Steps 3-7 take place on two consecutive days, along with a bunch of other maintenance activities.
(to paraphrase Sterling Hayden) my body is only about 6ft long… I sleep as well and have just as much fun on a 17 foot boat as I would on a 184ft boat- and despite being small mine is much more seaworthy than Bayesian was.
As distasteful as the last part of that advice it, I can see the sense of the rest of it. You need to have enough money that the inevitably high ongoing maintenance costs (and I guess depreciation) simply aren’t a concern, or even something you have to think about because you have people to take care of it for you.
Given that they didn't undertake other, "lesser" preparations before the storm hit...
I'm curious about how it went for you?
Sail area ~square mast height Mast wind force under sail ~linear sail area Mast diameter ~square mast wind force under sail Mast wind force reefed ~linear mast diameter
If that's right, then you're in quadratic shit. How much bigger was the mast, a metre taller or - like the Bayesian - tens of metres?
It seems true, the preussen had a similiar height and was a really big ship.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preussen_(ship)
It shows how utterly insane the design of the bayesian was.
Not saying the Bayesian design was or wasn't insane, I don't know, but my point is that it shouldn't be judged compared to what was done over 100 years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Republic_(1853_clipper)
Yes, the yacht is a much smaller ship but it has half as many masts it's masts are aluminum, it has engines so it doesn't have to run sail in poor conditions to maintain control authority and benefits from 150yr of improvements to watertightness.
I get that everyone wants to act smug because "everybody knows that you don't put big weight high up, hehehe, stupid billionares" but I'm betting that when the dust settles, the circle jerking dies down and the reports get published the end result will be the mast being a contributory factor (I'm betting on the reduction in righting moment rather than wind area) at best and that the outcome would not have been that much more unavoidable had the same other currently unknown errors been made on the other ships of the class.
A modern ship in good state doesn't just sink in minutes from capsizing. Other stuff had to have gone wrong here too. These vessels are designed that you can spend all day burying the bow in wave after wave. A little dip of one gunnel into the water should not be catastrophic. TFA discusses this.
The term is luffing for anyone who wants to look further into these things (as I do/did).
The boat builder will blame the crew for not closing these but I doubt there was any procedure to actually close them. The engine needs to run to generate power and the engine needs fresh air and an exhaust.
The International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), established in 1974, is continually updated based on lessons from past accidents, mandating strict requirements for all ships over a certain size. Parts of SOLAS even apply universally to all ships on any voyage, regardless of size. https://www.imo.org/en/About/Conventions/Pages/International...
The maritime system is complex. But it wasn’t just made up by a few people. It’s evolved continuously, internationally, for generations.
So you average insurance company is not interested in providing insurance.
If you want to read more about the history of martime insurance, you could start with the history of Lloyds of London.
reason according to wikipedia:
> Vasa sank because she had very little initial stability—resistance to heeling under the force of wind or waves acting on the hull. This was due to the distribution of mass in the hull structure, and to the ballast, guns, provisions, and other objects loaded on board placing a lot of weight too high in the ship. This put the centre of gravity very high relative to the centre of buoyancy, thus making the ship readily heel in response to little force, and not providing enough righting moment for her to become upright again.
My memory of vasa museum: At that time, ship designers not necessarily calculated center of mass and center of buoyancy.
Think about the lever arm of that "other half meter" of ship that you're dragging up into the air when you heel the ship over plus the increased displacement of the half meter you're burying into the water.
Remember, ships aren't really subject to huge propulsive forces relative to their mass compared to land vehicles. So something like an extra meter is gonna make a pretty big difference.
Anyone who's had experience with rowing shells will be quite aware of this. Beginner's / open-water vs. flat-water shells differ in width by only a few centimetres, but the difference in handling is profound. Both are unstable to the absolute novice, but even a fairly experienced rower from a wider shell will find the handling of a narrower one much more precarious.
(Both are also inherently unstable with CoG well above midpoint, but the dynamic stabilisation provided by the rower or crew is much more critical for the narrower, and faster, shells.)
So… there are parallels. A wealthy owner saying “I want this”, and a shipbuilder deviating from a previously established design to meet their whims, resulting in compromised stability.
True but on the largest frigates even in moderate seas the lower gun deck had to be kept closed.
The real problem was the Vasa's design & weight distribution - which were disastrously unstable. Which problem had previously been demonstrated in simple dockside testing. Here's Wikipedia's account:
> In the summer of 1628, the captain responsible for supervising construction of the ship, Söfring Hansson, arranged for the ship's stability to be demonstrated for Vice Admiral Fleming, who had recently arrived in Stockholm from Prussia. Thirty men ran back and forth across the upper deck to start the ship rolling, but the admiral stopped the test after they had made only three trips, as he feared the ship would capsize.
Gunports are most usually open when guns are firing, which occurs as a ship is under way. Merely having open gunports should not imperil a ship.
The Bayesian similarly had a high CoG and windage courtesy its tall mast, and was apparently susceptible to shipping water should it heel sharply and/or encounter high seas, as seems to have been the case.
We don't know yet. The rumour is that the mechanism of the extendable keel was prone to banging in the lowered state. You don't want to be disturbing the sleep of the guests paying you fortunes. That plus the also rumoured fact that the operating manual only required it to be lowered when sailing could explain why the crew did not opt to lower it at anchor.
All of the above is based on internet whispers. The investigation report hopefully will answer this question with authority.
The fact that the keel was up is no excuse at all.
Adjacently, one glaring omission from the Times' coverage was reports of those gigantic cabin windows shattering. I wish they'd addressed that. I didn't know about the unseaworthy vents, but just looking at the pictures it seemed obvious that if you put that boat on its ear in any kind of weather you'd break those windows and sink.
I've had my boat with the rail 2' under water in 6'+ choppy Buzzards Bay conditions gusting over 30kt and it was a hoot. When I imagine a floating hotel like the craft in the article in a similar situation, that's probably a fatality. I wouldn't be able to sleep onboard a boat like that.
EDIT: There are also numerous examples in the historical record of whaling ships, clipper ships, war ships, merchant ships, and the like getting knocked down in storms and besides maybe crew being washed overboard and busted rigging getting through it relatively unscathed. It's absolutely inexcusable and shameful in the year 2024 for this to happen.
[1] https://www.practical-sailor.com/sailboat-reviews/block-isla...
EDIT: I can actually count on one hand the number of times I've been in situations like that and while it's a hell of a lot of fun it's not something you bring your friends, family, children, etc along for..
Source (found in a cousin comment which now I can't find): https://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2024/08/27/former-bayesia...
the yacht is 500 ton, 4m draught (with the retractable keel not extended). The mast is 72m height. So, the 24 tons at say 30m above center of buoyancy require - minimum - 240 ton at 3m below the center of buoyancy. Add to that that the center of buoyancy is inside the body at some depth under the deck, so the weight of the body above the center of buoyancy also needs corresponding weight (lever momentum, ie. mass x lever length) below the center of buoyancy. Doesn't look good.
And also the weight of full, rain-drenched sails. And a few crew aloft, fiddling with those sails. And...
And while the article doesn't explicitly say that sails was stowed, it does mention that they were only under sail propulsion once during the trip and that they started the engines to maneuver into the wind. While a (rolling? I don't know the English term) sail is somewhat exposed to the elements even while stowed, its rolled up fairly tight.
In short, I strongly doubt either wet sails or climbing crew contributed in any way to the sinking.
Correct. But my point was about the design & stability calculations. Not about the rigging state at critical moment, when this vessel failed. (And if things go seriously wrong up in the rigging, a few of your crew might just have to go climbing. Just like "sails could be wet", safety margins must allow for that.)
Regardless of inherent design issues which are perhaps debatable, this seems like a bit of a "Have you tried plugging it in?" kind of a situation.
Now obviously nobody sane would make the knowing trade to risk their life for a bit of quiet. But it is easy to imagine the crew getting into the habit of retracting the keel so they can keep the rich guests comfortable. And especially if they were doing that on the regular and nothing bad happened ever people would normalise it and see it as the correct operating procedure. One might view this as a form of normalisation of deviance. “The gradual process through which unacceptable practice or standards become acceptable. As the deviant behaviour is repeated without catastrophic results, it becomes the social norm for the organisation.”
(Technically speaking of course it is only normalisation of deviance if this was unacceptable practice. If it is true that the ship’s operating manual did not require them to have the keel down in that configuration then it is not deviance and then the term does not apply.)
Will be interesting to read the exact findings about this in the investigation report once it is out.
Like yourself, I await the investigation report, however, I suspect that will be a bit underwhelming and only confirm speculation. It is not good to speak ill of the dead, so it will take a lot longer before someone tells the unvarnished truth. I suspect that will be a story of folly, with the big mast being the 'invisible clothes'.
We have lots of these stories at the moment, from Oceangate all the way to the Boeing 'projects' that have been off the mark. You could 'explain it like I am five' to write a really good story book for bedtime reading for kids, going from the depths of the ocean to space, with follies that follow the same story, all the way. What a great time to be alive.
I love that concept!
60 nautical miles out to sea according to a write up by a former captain of the yacht (https://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2024/08/27/former-bayesia...)
>One section of the Bayesian Stability book related to the use of the moveable keel… and defines when it must be lowered. In this vessel’s case it was required to be lowered when using sails, and/ or when over 60 nautical miles offshore (regardless of whether sailing or only using engines). At all other times, it could be in the raised position.
Perhaps interesting for people, 'knots' is actually a measure of speed rather than distance and relates to the practice of counting how many knots in a line (rope) went over the stern of the boat during a certain time, giving the speed of the boat relative to the water (https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/knots-measuring-speed-s...)
Edit: typos
Absolutely right. My first interpretation of that "something like 70 knots out at sea" was that it is the purported limit speed over which they must lower their keel. But that interpretation would be... improbable to say the least.
70 knots (~130 km/h, ~80 m/h) is ridiculously fast for a sailing ship.
I just checked and the fastest ever instantaneous speed reported by a sailing ship is lower than 70 knots. (68.33 knots to be precise)
Saying that when the boat is nearly 200 feet under the surface of the sea seems insane.
{Titanic, Bayesian}
Hopefully not concurrently.
Also, it's possible some of these basic balancing and center-of-gravity considerations were already known over 500 years ago- it's when a novel feature gets prioritized that the fundamental stability of the design gets overlooked.
To nitpick, properly being able to do these kinds of stability calculations are a considerably newer invention. E.g. the famous Vasa ship capsized in 1628 because at that time ships were still designed based on rules-of-thumb and the experience/intuition of the builders, with no stability calculations done.
>In the last part of the inquest held after the sinking, a group of master shipwrights and senior naval officers were asked for their opinions about why the ship sank. Their discussion and conclusions show very clearly that they knew what had happened, and their verdict was summed up very clearly by one of the captains, who said that the ship did not have enough "belly" to carry the heavy upperworks.[81] When other ships that predated stability calculations were found to lack stability, remedial action could be taken to increase the beam.
Also the original builder and his successor both died before completion. (Not suspiciously, but makes responsibility in construction harder)
Just pointing out that naval architecture, as a branch of engineering involving stability calculations etc., is much younger than 500 years.
This would make it virtually impossible to get out, if you were below deck.
Maybe that was the case with the chef who was found outside of the vessel. The rest of the casualties unfortunately seems to have been trapped in the capsized vessel. (This is based on my present knowledge of rumours, the proper investigation is still on-going and our understanding might change.)
So many seemingly small compromises along the way that seem to increase the vulnerability, then the crew is expected to compensate.
and then
"only sailed once in 5 days, motored the rest"
silly tradeoffs.
Wind isn't blowing the right direction? Easier to motor than tack. Sailing upwind? Easier to motor than have the guests stumbling into walls due to heel. Variable winds? No wind? Have to be at <place> by <time>? Easier to motor.
Is it just because it was some rich guy that died? I don't think that makes it worse in any way than any other accident where people died, to be honest.
I just don't really understand the outrage about this. When I hear that a young family is killed by a drunk driver I'm much more angry and sad. But you don't see the New York Times writing about those when they happen on the other side of the world. These people mattered too but they knowingly took a risk by camping out in the sea.
Honestly one look at that mast and unless that thing is on a submarine I really don't know what the builders were thinking.
I assign a rather low prior probability to any ship being “unsinkable”, so I’ll need better evidence than that before my posterior probability becomes more than minuscule
It's worth it for those classes of vessels. Their job is to handle very rough conditions. The price of such extreme stability is a rough ride.
Self-righting yachts exist.[2] But they look like rescue boats with nicer interiors.
Many recreational sailboats have enough flotation to survive 90 degrees of roll, with the sails flat on the water. This is called a "knockdown". In small craft, it's usually embarrassing but not a disaster. Larger sailing craft are usually built to avoid rolling that far.
There's a conflict between luxury and seaworthyness. The things you want for rough conditions, such as high freeboard and few openings, conflict with what people want in a luxury craft. Bayesian apparently couldn't go past 45 degrees without water pouring in. A stupidly tall and heavy mast allowed wind to push it that far over with no sails raised.
> Many recreational sailboats have enough flotation to survive 90 degrees of roll, with the sails flat on the water. This is called a "knockdown". In small craft, it's usually embarrassing but not a disaster. Larger sailing craft are usually built to avoid rolling that far.
Offshore racing rules tend to specify things like minimum angle of vanishing stability (AVS), they tend to be around 130 degrees. Similarly yachts sold in the EU must fulfill ISO 12217-2 which, AFAIU, also requires a minimum AVS of 130 degrees.
Not sure if that applies to the Bayesian, it might be old or big enough to be exempt from these rules.
[1] https://www.linkedin.com/posts/stephen-edwards-78539147_some...
So downflooding angle safety certification for bad weather apparently assumes the boat being in a buttoned-up condition. But, buttoned up, the yacht has no air conditioning or non-battery power. One article mentions that lowering the moveable keel for more stability results in a much noisier environment below decks. So, rigged fully for bad weather, it ceases to be a luxury yacht.
The ship was in harbor, at anchor. That's not usually a situation in which a ship is rigged for worst case conditions.
Here's a picture of the infamous mast.[1] It's not just a pole. There's a lot of structure with surface area. Nobody seems to have anticipated that wind on the bare mast system was enough to knock the boat down. But it was.
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/how-the-defining-fea...
you mean the Bayesian?
But if you overload it or damage it and compromise air spaces or break off or crush lighter-than-water materials (e.g., styrofoam filled fixtures and voids), then it's no longer unsinkable. So you're right, nothing is unsinkable. Not even when "operated properly" and maintained properly, there's no guarantee you won't run into unforeseen conditions. An unsinkable boat is as ridiculous as an uncrashable airplane or automobile.
One can chill under the waves, the other is so big we don't know of any waves that can meaningfully do much to it.
If they hit a vessel and knock out the bridge, without control, drifting side-on to the waves in a storm even a huge vessel can sink.
Try to login, and it never responds to the login.
So I remember that I registered an account with an old email. Login, it send a verification code.
And then doesn’t respond to that verification number.
So I drop VPN… and it accepts the number… and immediately spams that email address..
Only to throw up another paywall.
And it still doesn’t accept the subscription I pay for.
the very basic undervalued, as with the subject
This rumor wasn't mentioned in the article.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.