Why did the Bayes yacht sink in 16 minutes?

Matteo Cannia sat on a bench overlooking the sea in Porticello until midnight last Sunday. It was too hot to sleep.

The 78-year-old, who has been a fisherman since he was 10, saw the first flashes of lightning. “I heard the thunder and the wind and decided to go home,” he told me.

“As the storm got stronger, everyone woke up. Water was entering my friend's house.”

At around 4:15 a.m. local time, Fabio Cefalù – a fisherman who had planned to go out on that wild Monday morning but, like others, decided against it – suddenly saw a torch rise up.

He changed his mind and went out to sea to find out what was going on – and discovered only pillows and floating wooden boards.

A luxury superyacht called Bayesian, anchored just a few hundred meters away, had already sunk.

It all happened in one 16-minute time window of the disasterChaos and agony that catapulted a sleepy Sicilian fishing port into the center of world news.

All but seven of the Bayesian's 22 passengers had taken refuge in a life raft when the yacht began to capsize. The others never managed to get out.

Charlotte Golunski, a British woman, was thrown into the water with her one-year-old daughter Sophie. She said she held her baby up in the air with all her strength to avoid drowning. “Everything around me was black,” she said, “and the only thing I could hear were the screams of the others.”

She, her baby and her husband James were among those rescued by a nearby sailboat captain. Her colleague was in the sinking Bayesian Michael Lynch – one of Britain’s leading tech entrepreneurs, also known as “Britain’s Bill Gates”.

Mr Lynch had brought family, friends and colleagues together for an idyllic holiday on his luxury boat: a magnificent 56-metre (184-foot) sailing yacht that had won design awards and boasted the world's tallest aluminium mast.

In June, after a lengthy trial in the US, he was acquitted of charges that he fraudulently inflated the value of his company Autonomy before selling it to Hewlett Packard in 2011. The trip was planned as a celebration of freedom to mark his rehabilitation in the public eye.

Three days after the yacht sank, his body was recovered from the wreck by divers.

A day later, the body of his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, who was due to begin her studies at Oxford University next month, was recovered.

Others killed included Morgan Stanley investment bank president Jonathan Bloomer and his wife Judy, Lynch's lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda, and the yacht's cook Recaldo Thomas. Lynch's wife, Angela Bacares, survived.

The family spoke of their “unspeakable grief” in a statement, adding that they were “devastated and in shock.”

How the superyacht could sink so quickly while other smaller vessels nearby survived the storm undamaged has left experts speechless.

In a Press conference this weekend In what was the first public statement from officials since the disaster, local prosecutors said they had launched an investigation into possible crimes including manslaughter and negligent ship handling.

The region's prosecutor, Ambrogio Cartosio, told reporters that while the investigation was still at a very early stage and no one was being investigated in detail, there were “many possibilities for guilt. It could just be the captain. It could be the whole crew… we are ruling out absolutely nothing.”

In addition, a small team of British marine investigators was sent to Sicily to work with their Italian colleagues.

Prosecutors said they now believed A downburst was the weather phenomenon that hit the ship: a localized, strong wind that originates from a thunderstorm and spreads unpredictably.

This contradicted earlier reports that stated the cause was: Waterspoutor a mini tornado at sea.

Whatever the case, it is clear that extreme weather conditions played a major role.

A large part of the investigation team's attention is of course focused on the conduct of the captain, 51-year-old James Cutfield from New Zealand. He survived along with eight of his crew members and is now being questioned.

“We didn't see this coming,” he told Italian media, referring to the storm. This was his only public comment so far.

The problem is, many others did too. After days of scorching heat, fierce winds and rain were forecast. The head of the company that built the Bayesian, Giovanni Costantino, told me he was convinced there were a whole series of errors on board.

“There must have been a hatch left open at the stern of the boat,” he said, “but there may also have been a side entrance through which water could have entered.

“Before the storm, the captain should have closed all the openings, raised the anchor, started the engine, pointed into the wind and lowered the keel.”

A keel is a large, fin-like part of the boat that protrudes from the base.

“That would have stabilized the ship, they would have been able to weather the storm and continue their cruise comfortably,” he said.

Instead, rescue workers found the wreck of the Bayesian 50 meters underwater with its almost 10 meter long keel lifted.

Had it been deployed, it could have counteracted the wind shaking the Bayesian-class's 75-meter-high aluminum mast and kept the ship stable. But without it, gusts of 100 kilometers per hour would have been enough to capsize the ship, experts told the newspaper La Repubblica – and Monday's storm far exceeded that speed.

“The Bayesian was a model for many other ships because of its stability and exceptionally high performance,” said Costantino. “There were absolutely no problems with it. If water hadn't entered, it would have been unsinkable.”

He told me that 16 minutes passed between the ship's power failure at 3:56 a.m. – indicating that water had flooded areas where electrical circuits were located – and the loss of GPS signal, indicating the moment of sinking.

This period, as well as all measures taken to mitigate the extreme weather, will be examined in detail by investigators, especially if they find the ship's flight recorder.

Rino Casilli, one of Sicily's leading ship surveyors, also believes that errors may have made the yacht vulnerable to the extreme weather conditions.

“Given the storm warning, two crew members should have taken turns keeping watch overnight,” he told me as he took me aboard his boat – which was about a third the size of the Bayesian. “And it should have been anchored in port, not at sea.”

It is not yet clear how many people were on guard that night.

From his sailboat we were given rare access to the spot where the Bayesian went down.

An Italian police ship sailed around us and warned us. Suddenly there was a frenzy of activity among the divers as more rescue ships arrived.

We didn't know it at the time, but they had just found more bodies.

The teams found it an extremely demanding operation to recover the people trapped in the wreck. Given the depth of 50 metres underwater, each diver had 10 minutes to resurface for safety – a total of 120 dives. They were assisted by remotely operated vehicles that could operate on the seabed for much longer.

In a press conference this weekend, rescue workers said passengers trapped inside the ship during the sinking had sought refuge in cabins on the left side of the ship, where the last air bubbles had formed.

Five of the bodies were found in the first cabin on the left, they said, while the last body – confirmed to be Hannah Lynch – was in the third cabin on the left.

Access for rescue workers was extremely difficult as the yacht was largely intact and its furniture blocked access.

The Coast Guard compared it to an “18-story building full of water.” As Ms. Lynch's body was brought to shore, rescue workers at the port applauded their colleagues.

All seven dead people were taken to a morgue for an autopsy.

Rescue workers must now decide whether and how to recover the wreckage, which would undoubtedly provide important clues as to what happened. But bringing the Bayesian to the surface could take six to eight weeks and cost €15 million (£12.7 million), according to some estimates.

While the divers' painstaking work to recover the dead has ended, the investigators' painful search for answers has only just begun.

She and the survivors have barricaded themselves in a hotel near Porticello, which is strictly off-limits to journalists. Security guards immediately asked us to leave the hotel.

Solving the mystery surrounding the Bayesian woman's fate will be crucial not only in providing closure to the victims' families, but also in allowing the shipping industry to draw conclusions.

Captain James Cutfield's brother said he was a “respected” seaman who had worked on boats all his life. Could it be that the experienced seaman had made a series of catastrophic mistakes? The Nautilus union, which represents sailors and captains, called for restraint in judging the Bayesian's crew.

“Any attempt to question their conduct without knowing all the facts is not only unfair, but also harms the process of uncovering the truth and learning from this tragedy,” it said.

The media from all over the world are gradually leaving Porticello. The town is gradually returning to the tranquility of its pre-Bayes days. Stray cats roam among the old fishing boats and children play while their families eat in one of the few restaurants by the sea.

But the events of the last week have shocked and traumatized many here.

“Last Sunday evening we experienced the end of the world in Porticello,” said local resident Maria Vizzo. “We have never experienced anything like it. Everyone here is shocked – and everyone is crying.”