Interim report on the sinking of the Bayesian released

I can’t link, not even with a URL shortened but it’s an article on the Accuweather website.

Trying again

For the benefit of any future readers: OP directed us here from another technical-difficulties failed thread he created. 0/10

Just thought people would be interested in an UPDATE on the Bayesian and for some reason the URL link was preventing the post from loading, god knows why, but it seems to have upset r3.

R3 is upset about the report. They pretty much just said: unavoidable disaster because the mast was big. Couldn’t they have at least turned the boat into the wind? IIRC they let the crew off easy too.

The captain was woken about 3:57 and the wind knocked the boat down about 4:06. Is that enough time to get up to the bridge, assess the situation, and start the engines to head the bow into the wind?

Report said captain was only woken up after the other guy had finished filming the storm and posting it to his social media.

Remember the forecast was for a rainstorm not hurricane force winds.

Here’s an in-depth narration of the timeline of events (including some re-created dramatizations) based on the information in the MAIB Interim Report. It’s VERY detailed, 24 minutes long.

The Board had access to the logs of the onboard computer monitoring system but obv not to the wreck itself which is in the process of being raised.

1) Thunderstorms were forecast. The captain left instructions to the deckhands to be woken if the wind went above 20 knots or if the anchor indicated it was starting to drag.

2) At 3:55, the deckhand made the video and then went to close the forward hatches as the rain started.

3) Approx 3:57, wind increased to 30 knots and he thought the anchor was starting to drag. Deckhand ran below and woke captain around 4:00. The chief engineer (actually the only engineering officer on board) also woke up at this time and went to the engine control room to make sure all three generators were running [i think this room is right next to his cabin] and then went to the wheelhouse [different than the bridge; the terms can be interchangeable] “to start the steering pumps and the hydraulic pumps for the controllable pitch propeller”.

Okay, this is important for all the “whyyyy didn’t they start the ennnngines.” crowd. It’s not like turning the ignition key in a car.

4) Some of the crew had woken up by the change in motion and got dressed. The boat was listing by 10°-20° to starboard due to the wind. The “owner” presumably the wife who survived headed to the bridge to ask if the scheduled disembarkation in the morning would be canceled due to the bad weather.

5) The captain on the bridge told the chief officer to wake the rest of the crew as the anchor was dragging. The Bayesian and the other boat were dragging at the same rate. A couple crew were already stowing cushions and loose items, the chef was up and stowing galley items. Two of the guests had woken up were proceeding to the saloon with their baby.

6) The chief officer returned to the bridge with an update of the crew status and was then sent to the chief engineer who replied that the boat was ready to maneuver. This information was shouted up to the bridge.

Continued

7) Approx 4:06. As the captain prepared to head the boat into the wind, it increased to 70 knots. The awning of the bridge (the flying bridge) ripped off and the boat heeled over 90° [The Angle of Vanishing Stability on this boat was very shallow, I forget exactly but something like 41° if the keel was up. This keel was an aid to stability when sailing and was not normally used at anchor especially in harbors. Some racing sailboats can heel over *more* than 90°. The tip of the mast can actually be 30°underwater and it will still recover.]

8) When the boat heeled over, the generators shut down and emergency lighting came on. [Imagine you are in your room. The entire thing lifts up and then is dropped hard on its side. Either you are thrown across the room and everything lands on top of you or you are pinned against the wall and everything lands on top of you and now the exit door is way above your head.]

9) With the knockdown, water poured over the sides and into the sunken center section of the deck and thence down the stairwells. The crew and the surviving guests rescued each other under pressure from the rushing water—the chief officer trapped in an air pocket actually swam down into the saloon and opened one of those sliding glass doors.

10) Approx 4:22. The captain instructed those who had made it topside that the hull was sinking and to avoid the boom and mast when jumping in the water. The chief engineer near the stern launched an EPIRB (emergency beacon) before joining them.

11) Approx 4:24. The captain and a deckhand attempted to release one of the life rafts; the chief officer managed to release another and it was towed over to the survivors and inflated. Shortly thereafter the Bayesian sank completely.

12) Approx 4:34 a flare was launched. Note: while this was happening, the captain of the other sailboat noted that despite starting his engines, his boat’s anchor had dragged 400 meters/a quarter mile in the storm. [It’s amazing that in the small harbor was he didn’t hit anything or run aground]. After a second flare and seeing the EPIRB light, the captain of the other boat launched their tender and rescued the survivors from the life raft. They returned twice more to look for other survivors and called the coast guard.

There’s more on the video having to do with the Stability Information Book provided by the ship builder and what it includes and does not include and some simulations conducted by MAIB. It gets technical but it’s very interesting, the balance of safety vs performance vs comfort vs money. A similar model of this ship by the same builder had escape hatches in at least some of the cabins, certainly the owner’s cabin, but they were eliminated in the Bayesian.

The captain didn’t go down with the ship? What a wuss.

Don’t trust your soul to no backwoods Italian prosecutor

Nick Sloane with SMIT Salvage is working on this recovery. He oversaw the Costa Concordia salvage, wow that was ten years ago.

There’s (sometimes) a live feed of the recovery but not much to look at. They are now using more remote operated stuff due to death of salvage diver from the nitrogen explosion underwater as he was cutting away the boom. It is slow going.

The Italian lawyer hired by the family of the chef who died in the sinking has gone on tv and, like the CEO of the ship building company, has regurgitated a lot of nonsense. “The crew was ashore that night” “the chief engineer wasn’t on board to start the engines!” All disproved by the ship’s monitoring system as detailed in the MAIB report.

It’s sad, he was in the galley doing what he had to do and most of crew were topside which is how they survived. The engineer might’ve been trapped in the engine room but he’d just come up on deck after starting the generators preliminary to starting the engines.