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There was a detailed article yesterday in the New York Times: What Sank the Tech Tycoon’s ‘Unsinkable’ Yacht? [paywall unfortunately]. This is a modern NYT article with dynamic content and animations, which add to the interest but make it difficult to print to a pdf and share as text, probably partially by design to prevent content-sharing. Though it's largely off-topic for NavList --there's no navigation story here-- incidents like this, surprising and unlikely losses of vessels, have been a frequent side-topic.

The superyacht "Bayesian" sank at anchor, just offshore, a few miles east of Palermo, Sicily on August 19, 2024. I talked about it on several of my stargazing cruises later in the summer since Palermo was already "in the show" three times: once for the former planet Ceres which was in the teapot of Sagittarius this summer and was discovered in Palermo, once for the reverse-named star "Sualocin" which was named in Palermo during the same star cataloguing project that had discovered Ceres, and a third time for the discovery of Technetium, the weird "missing element" in the periodic table that eventually proved the stars are nuclear reactors, also first found in Palermo (though with radioactive evidence mailed from California!). The yacht's name "Bayesian" tells us that the  owner, the late Michael Lynch who died in the sinking, was a mathematician at heart. By profession he was a software tychoon. The nearly instant sinking of such a fabulous superyacht and the deaths that night are a reminder that money, even vast money, does not over-rule simple mortality. On that dark score, it reminded me of the implosion of the submersible "Titan" descending towards the Titanic in June 2023.

Some quotes from the article:

— More than a dozen naval architects, engineers and other experts consulted by The Times found glaring weaknesses in the Bayesian’s design that they said could have contributed to the disaster.
— Basic design choices, like the two tall doors on the side of the deck, increased the Bayesian’s chances of taking on dangerous amounts of water if high winds pushed the boat over toward its side, several naval architects said.
— Witness and survivor accounts revealed how this deadly sequence unfolded in real time: The yacht fell completely on its side and sank within minutes.

On the other hand, the article notes that the squall that night was much stronger than forecast though early reports of a "waterspout" are now discounted. Also, as is standard under Italian law, the captain and crew are under investigation for criminal negligence, manslaughter, maybe worse.

Of course the superyachts of the mega-wealthy exist in an alternate universe. According to the article:

The world of superyachts is incredibly opaque, the exclusive realm of some of the richest people on the planet, and exactly how these multimillion dollar boats are designed, approved and owned remain closely guarded secrets.

The principal point of the NYT article is that the yacht's single-mast, unique compared to sister-ships in the same class, was approaching limits of stability. If knocked on its side, could it right itself before flooding down numerous openings in the hull?

But where this ballast was placed was curious, maritime experts said. Rather than spreading the ballast evenly across the bottom of the boat — which would have guaranteed the best stability — the builders stacked it toward the rear of the ship’s hull.

“When I first saw this, I couldn’t believe it,” said Mr. Roberts, the naval architect. “It made no sense to me.”

The ballast seems to have been pushed toward the rear of the boat to offset the single, heavy mast closer toward the front, Mr. Roberts concluded. He said he had never seen the main ballast used in such a design tactic before.

That was not the only change, experts said. A single mast would have plunged almost directly through the wheelhouse, an interior station where the ship can be controlled, so that was moved, too. A deck lounge was added, along with two tall doors on the sides. None of the other Perini yachts in the 56-meter series have these design elements.

Frank Reed

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