Bayesian yacht: Video shows storm-tossed boat before sinking in Sicily

CNN
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Security camera footage showing the moments before a tornado sank a luxury yacht off the coast of Sicily has emerged as rescue workers face tough conditions in the ongoing search for six missing people.

The black and white video appears to show the British-flagged yacht Bayesian being hit by a violent storm on Monday. As rain pelt the harbor, the grainy video shows the boat rocking violently from side to side before capsizing.

CNN could not independently verify the location or date of the video, but the profile of the ship shown in the footage appears to match the Bayesian design.

The ship sank early Monday morning – killing at least one of the 22 people on board – after its mast, one of the tallest in the world, broke in half during the storm. Fifteen people were rescued.

The body recovered from the ship was that of the ship’s cook, Ricardo Thomas, an Antiguan national, Reuters reported.

According to the Sicilian Civil Protection, the missing people include British technology magnate Mike Lynch, Jonathan Bloomer, director of Morgan Stanley International, and Chris Movillo, a well-known American lawyer.

Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter is also missing. His wife, Angela Barcares, survived. Bacares told Italian daily La Repubblica that she woke up at 4 a.m. local time when the boat tipped over while she was sitting in a wheelchair in a Sicilian hospital.

She and her husband were not worried at first, she said, but when the yacht’s windows shattered, they panicked.

The yacht sank after a small waterspout – a type of tornado – swept across the Mediterranean island, likely capsizing the boat as it was anchored about half a mile from Porticello harbor. Witnesses reported violent storms and hurricane-force winds that left a mountain of debris near the pier.

A witness, the owner of a villa overlooking the Bayesian’s anchorage, said that after news of the sinking yacht emerged, he looked again at the video footage from his surveillance cameras and could see the boat sinking.

“In just 60 seconds you can see the ship disappear,” he told Italian broadcaster ANSA. “You can clearly see what is happening. There was nothing more that could be done for the ship. It disappeared in a very short time.”

Rescue workers resumed their search for missing people on Wednesday. The operation is taking place underwater and on the surface. The Italian fire service warned that divers will only have up to 12 minutes at the wreck site – probably about 50 meters underwater – before they have to resurface.

Divers were able to enter the interior of the wreck on Tuesday, the brigade said, including some rooms under the yacht’s bridge. However, operations were “complex” due to numerous obstacles and narrow passages inside the ship, it said. Wednesday’s operation will attempt to open some of these passages.

Three days after the accident, investigators are still baffled as to how the ship sank so quickly. Matthew Schanck, chairman of the Maritime Search and Rescue Council, said on Tuesday that such incidents are extremely rare.

“When you look at the extreme weather, I would call it a black swan event if it was a waterspout, and that appears to be the case,” he said, referring to a rare, unpredictable event. “Even outside of the shipping industry, all industries deal with black swan events,” he added.

And although Sicily is not exactly “known” for tornadoes or waterspouts, there is “a risk” that one could happen – but not every day, said Schanck.

“I think it is important to see what comes out of this, which may suggest changes to ship design and stability,” he said, stressing that all shipbuilding regulations “are designed with safety in mind.”