Bayesian sinking: The key questions for investigators

The Captain of the Bayesian, James Catfield, reportedly told Italian media that he couldn’t have foreseen the storm which battered the Bayesian.

But we do know that bad weather had been forecast beforehand.

Luca Mercalli, the president of the Italian Meteorological Society, said on Tuesday that the crew should have made sure that all the guests were awake and assigned them lifejackets, given the poor forecast.

One survivor reportedly told medical staff that the ship started sinking just two minutes after she fell asleep.

Bad weather is one thing, but a waterspout is something else entirely. And not something that the crew could have predicted.

One expert at the scene in Sicily told Reuters news agency an early focus of the investigation would be on whether the yacht’s crew had failed to close access hatches before the bad weather struck.

But on a boat of this size, open hatches alone would likely not have been enough to make the Bayesian sink, experts say.

There are also other entry points for water around the boat known as “down-flooding points”, which are there to allow the engine room to be ventilated, among other things.

“There will obviously be questions about the crew and what happened and whether they were prepared,” says Mr Souppez.

“But think it’s important to remember that the vessel sank in a matter of minutes, and so actually in the middle of the night for the crew to be able to keep so many people on board alive, deploy the flare, and act in the heat of the moment is a tough task”, he says.

“It is very difficult to say precisely what happened here,” said Dr Paul Stott, fellow of the Royal Institute of Naval Architects.

“But it is unlikely that the crew could have reacted in any way to save the yacht in the face of such a sudden and catastrophic weather event”