Photo Confirms That Side Hatch Was Closed Aboard Lost Superyacht
A photo taken just minutes before the sinking of the superyacht Bayesian appears to confirm the crew's account that a side hatch in the hull had been closed on the night of the casualty.
The photo was taken by passengers on a nearby yacht, the Sir Robert Baden Powell, about 14 minutes before the Bayesian went down. The blurry photo (to be released by ITV on Thursday) shows the sailing vessel's port side, including the location of the large side hatch for tender operations on the port quarter. The image of the well-lit yacht was taken in darkness, and it shows no light in the vicinity of the hatch, suggesting it was closed in the minutes before the Bayesian was hit by high winds from a severe thunderstorm.
Belowdecks arrangements aboard Bayesian. The port side shell hatch is highlighted in orange (Perini)
In comments shortly after the sinking, the owner of Bayesian's shipbuilder, Italian Sea Group CEO Giovanni Costantino, placed blame for the casualty on the crew. He accused them of failing for prepare for the storm and said that they had committed a "mistake that cries out for vengeance."
Among other specifics, he said that the crew had not lowered the yacht's retractable keel, a detail which was not required by the yacht's stability booklet when in port. He also asserted that they had failed to close the stern hatch and should have mustered passengers - and said that the status of the side hatch on the port quarter was an essential unanswered question.
"It is much more important to know if the port hatch, where the tender is moored and from which guests get on and off, was open, which is much more dangerous," Constantino told Italian media.
The Bayesian's former captain from 2015-20, Stephen Edwards, said that he is certain that the crew would not have left the yacht's port-side shell hatch unclosed. Because the hatch was positioned so close to the waterline, it "was rarely used" and would only be opened in flat calm conditions. "100% it was not open at night," he wrote in a recent analysis of the sinking.
Bayesian (ex name Salute) was a 180-foot aluminum-hulled sailing yacht built by Perini Navi in 2008. She was owned by billionaire Mike Lynch, one of the UK's most prominent tech executives. The giant sailing yacht went down suddenly in an extreme thunderstorm in the early hours of August 19. 15 passengers and crew were rescued minutes after the sinking; the remains of six people were recovered, including Lynch and his daughter Hannah.
An autopsy determined that Lynch and three others died by asphyxiation, trapped in an air bubble in a cabin belowdecks.
Three crewmembers are under investigation by prosecutors in Sicily, but have not yet been formally charged. An inquest into the deaths is scheduled to begin in a UK court on Friday.