The sea is a harsh mistress laddie.
Posted on 05/01/2026 8:18:19 AM PDT by Ahithophel
nvestigators believe the sinking of Mike Lynch's Bayesian superyacht was not caused by a storm and have blamed the crew instead.
The £30million vessel capsized off the coast of Sicily in August 2024, killing seven including the British tech billionaire and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah.
However, the report found it amounted to 'little more than a squall, a sudden increase in wind speed that precedes thunderstorms and downpours', which the crew should have been able to manage.
According to the preliminary findings, the 184ft yacht therefore capsized and sank due to the improper actions of the crew, their underestimation of the weather and a number of safety devices not being activated properly.
The probe is exploring the possibility of alleged crimes including negligent shipwreck and multiple counts of manslaughter for the yacht's captain and two of its crew members.
It has also raised the possibility of liability on the part of the superyacht's builder.
The Bayesian went down off the coast of the Sicilian fishing village of Porticello in just 16 minutes after being hit by a fierce storm with 100 mph winds.
Mr Lynch was onboard with 11 guests including his daughter, who died, while his wife Angela Bacares was rescued alongside 10 crew members.
The other victims were the Bayesian's chef, Recaldo Thomas; Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife, Judy; and Mr Lynch's lawyer, Chris Morvillo, and his wife, Neda Morvillo.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.com ...
So how bad was the storm?
How hard would it be to get the wind data at that time?
Dumb article.
Makes me wonder if Lynch was to cheap to keep himself alive.
Was he unwilling to pay the required wages to hire an experienced crew?
Was he unwilling to pay the ship's builder to train his crew on the ships operation and operation of its safety features?
I have seen this kind of foolishly cheap behavior in other places.
A buyer is unwilling to pay for adequate training when purchasing a high dollar high tech item.
They expect the people they hire to operate the new equipment to figure it out. And feel that the seller should do the training for free.
The local wind speed may have been recorded on the ship if the ship had a voyage data recorder and the drives survived.
But since the ship went down so fast, the sensors may have lost power pretty quickly leaving little data to review.
The mast of that ship was really tall.
In preparation for this, the "truth" has be made public, blame placed on appropriate people, renumeration and compensation, etc.
Who is liable? The captain?
The crew?
The owner, who was on board at the time?
The ship's designers?
The weather bureau?
Or was it an act of G*d, unpreventable?
There will be millions, probably billions, involved here. I expect all manner of "experts" to weigh in.
The sea is a harsh mistress laddie.
I have sought shelter in storms on sailboats in the 50-60 foot range many times. Hurricane Maria being my last one and I suffered a severe groin injury in that one while trying to secure the yacht in a cove off the East Coast of St. John.
That said, I cannot fathom how an anchored yacht with all sails stowed just sank so quickly. It’s like they had it anchored at the bow and stern with the beam pointed toward the wind rather than the bow. And, what the heck was EVERYBODY doing in the 16 minutes!?
Some crew morons left leeward hatches and windows unsecured is my guess. Maybe passengers in their cabins did too. When the straight line wind off the squall hit it it rolled hard over and took in water thru the window(s) and hatches. Buh bye.
Ship rules are too insignificant for rich and important ppl to follow.
“The mast of that ship was really tall.”
Scarily tall. The boat’s design deserves some consideration in the faultfinding.
One of my first jobs after engineering was a drafter for a marine propulsion engineer and architect. This was during the dot com craze. Every tech startup founder wanted the biggest most luxurious yachts ever built. Which means heavy, which means bigger engines, which require bigger hulls, etc in a chain reaction of big and stupid. One even had marble floors and columns that some interior designer was installing at the ship yard finishing dock. My boss said there is no way this boat will float. And sure enough, as soon at it started trials it cracked down the keel and sank.
I don’t know anything about this yacht but it did remind me of some of my good old days.
It's a given that the crew should know more about what to do than did the owners and their guests.
Given that there was a storm, what are the odds the crew were at fault?
“Given that there was a storm, what are the odds the crew were at fault?”
Wait for an information update, to make a better inference.
It wasn’t the crew or the storm that caused the superyacht to sink. It was negative buoyancy.
Hold my Prosecco and watch this.
“How hard would it be to get the wind data at that time?
Dumb article.”
Very good article.
The wind data is in the article ... along with stability diagrams.
Apparently the wind caused the ship to heel over to the point that it capsized. Poor design causing instability, open hatches, too many heavy frills installed too far above the waterline? Could be any or all of these things happened.
Something as simple as dropping anchor and turning the ship into the wind might have avoided the whole incident.
We'll see who wins in court, I suppose.
Any other interpretation is just lawyer bs.
Hatches were open near the sea surface.
100% crew fault.
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