By Matteo Negri
MILAN (Reuters) – A series of “unspeakable and unreasonable errors” by the crew led to the shipwreck that killed British technology entrepreneur Mike Lynch and six others earlier this week, the chief executive of the yacht maker told Reuters on Thursday.
The Bayesian, a 56-metre (184-foot) long British-flagged superyacht with 22 people on board (12 passengers and 10 crew), capsized and sank on Monday within minutes of being hit by a pre-dawn storm while anchored off the coast of northern Sicily.
“The ship suffered a series of indescribable, unreasonable errors. The impossible happened on that ship… but it sank because water got in. The investigators will say where it came from,” Giovanni Costantino said in an interview.
Costantino heads The Italian Sea Group, which includes Perini Navi, the high-end Italian yacht manufacturer that built the Bayesian in 2008. The boat has been refitted twice, most recently in 2020, but not by Perini.
The director general ruled out any design or construction errors, which he described as unlikely after 16 years of trouble-free sailing, even in more severe weather conditions than those on Monday.
He blamed the crew of the Bayesian for the “incredible mistake” of not being prepared for the storm, which had been announced in the navigation forecasts. “This is the mistake that cries out for revenge,” he said.
Costantino said passengers should have been summoned from their cabins and gathered at a safe spot while the ship was prepared for the storm by raising the anchor, closing doors and hatches, lowering the keel to increase stability and other measures.
Six of the twelve passengers died in the sinking and five bodies were found inside the boat. Emergency services are still trying to locate the body of the last missing person, Lynch's daughter, Hannah.
If proper procedures had been followed, all passengers would have gone back to sleep within an hour “and happily resumed their wonderful cruise the next morning,” Costantino said.
Another yacht anchored near the Bayesian has emerged unscathed. The captain of the sunken yacht and other crew members have not commented publicly on the disaster, while Italian prosecutors investigating it are scheduled to hold a news conference on Saturday.
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