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An skilled boat captain whose ship was anchored near Mike Lynch’s superyacht when it sank in a violent storm off the coast of Sicily on Monday has stated the stricken vessel appeared to capsize due to its extraordinarily excessive mast.
“In my view there’s something improper with the steadiness,” Dutch skipper Karsten Börner instructed the FT in regards to the sinking of the 540-tonne Bayesian, which prompted the deaths of the UK know-how entrepreneur and 6 others, together with Lynch’s daughter.
“The centre of gravity is simply too excessive with this excessive mast,” stated Börner, referring to the tallest aluminium boat mast on the planet.
He rejected an preliminary evaluation by the Italian coastguard that Bayesian was “within the improper spot on the improper time”. He stated: “I used to be on the identical spot. I’ve two masts and they’re 28 and 29 metres above deck, she has one, 73 metres above deck.”
From his personal boat, Börner witnessed the lack of Bayesian within the ferocious storm earlier than rescuing 15 survivors from the Lynch household’s yacht.
He stated the wind was “violent, very violent” and guessed it reached pressure 12 on the Beaufort scale — hurricane energy. “It was tonnes of water coming down. I by no means noticed that earlier than, there was a water twister,” he added.
Börner, 69, who has 41 years of business expertise, stated the survivors he rescued instructed him that Bayesian sank in lower than two minutes.
Closed-circuit TV footage from the shore reveals the yacht, its mast lit up, heeling over within the wind earlier than the picture is obscured by rain and the lights disappear.
Börner, who has seen the footage, believes it reveals Bayesian capsizing in a matter of seconds.
Giovanni Costantino, chief government of the Italian Sea Group, which owns the yacht’s builder, Perini Navi, beforehand instructed the FT that Bayesian “was designed to be completely steady” and carry its ultra-tall mast.
He urged the yacht’s crew had not adopted the correct security procedures. ISG declined to touch upon Börner’s conclusions.
Bayesian skipper James Cutfield has not up to now commented publicly on the catastrophe, although he has been interviewed by investigators.
Börner stated Bayesian’s crew instructed him that they had “closed the ship”, contradicting ISG’s suggestion that hatches on the yacht had been left open.
He additionally stated that Cutfield, who was among the many 15 survivors rescued by Börner’s boat earlier than daybreak on Monday, “was utterly concerned within the rescue”.
Cutfield stayed in Börner’s boat to proceed the seek for survivors after which transferred to the coastguard.
Sir Robert Baden Powell, the yacht captained by Börner, was anchored near Bayesian, in what ought to have been a comparatively sheltered anchorage off Porticello, when the storm hit.
Through the storm, Börner tried to maintain his ship in place, beginning the engine and protecting his bow into the wind.
Bayesian — with which he repeatedly seemed to keep away from a potential collision in the course of the storm — was behind them. “[They] did the identical, I assume,” Börner stated.
At one level, Börner’s passengers alerted him to what they thought was “a construction above the water” near them.
Borner stated he turned and, throughout a flash of lightning, noticed a big triangle. “I believe they noticed the ship capsize and after I rotated I noticed the bow, then it went down,” he added.
A public prosecutor investigating the sinking of Bayesian is probing the potential offence of “negligent shipwreck”, in accordance with an Italian official.
If the British-registered boat, designed by Ron Holland and inbuilt 2008, did capsize, one issue could have been the so-called lifting keel.
Based on ISG, when the yacht’s keel is raised to permit it to enter shallow anchorages or harbours, Bayesian can stand up to an inclination of as much as 73 levels with out capsizing.
When the keel is lowered — the safer place — she will tilt by as much as 88 levels, a virtually flat place with the mast on the water. It isn’t but identified if the keel was up or down.
Börner stated he had observed the affect of world warming on Mediterranean climate lately.
“Now now we have Medicanes — hurricanes within the Mediterranean — it’s a brand new factor,” he stated, including he began noticing an intensifying development of Mediterranean storms previously 5 to 10 years.
