Bayesian Lifting Operation

The famous 56 meter super sailing sloop Bayesian which stole the headlines in nineteen August and following days and weeks, has finally been floated again on Saturday 21 June, and then dry-docked on Sunday 22 June in nearby Termini Imerese.   An operation which started on first May and took fifty days to complete, for a lifting operation which saw Hebo-Lift 2 and Hebo-Lift 10 involved and rumoured to cost around thirty million Euros.  This lifting operation aims to put a clearer picture on those early hours of nineteen August, and how this World able super yacht sank so fast.

The Bayesian lifting operation also took a life, as on the ninth May a 39 year old diver lost his life during wreckage inspection.  Because of this, it was an operation that took longer then anticipated, and was fully completed on the 25 June, when the famous 72 meter long mast was taken near the yacht's wreck after being lifted the day before.  Interestingly the yacht was still in okay condition, with the hull reported to be fully intact.  You could actually refit it, and she will sail again.  Something which I believe will never happen, considering the pain all this sinking brought, she will most probably be scrapped after the investigation is completed.  

It will be now interesting what the outcome will be, and a decision of blame will come.  The Maritime Accidents Investigation Report had some outcome of its own, saying that the stability book did not cover the yacht's vulnerabilities with certain weather, and if it was hit by 63 knots of wind or greater at right angle, with its center board closed the yacht would capsize and sink in a short time once it goes beyond an angle of seventy degrees.

The Bayesian went down first and foremost for a few things all coming together and creating the perfect storm for it to sink and create this tragedy.  The crew not anticipating such a strong storm, the stability book not showing the yachts vulnerabilities, with this putting both Perini Navi and Ron Holland in the cross fire of the investigation, but also the class and the flag of the yacht.  Yacht Builders and designers do comply with the regulations given in reality.  In hind sight the regulation side should have asked for more, considering the record size of the mast, and the difference of the project versus the other 56 meters sister ships.  

Probably the primary lesson from this, is that much more with extreme projects, being it a super yacht, cruise liner, or a commercial ship, the regulatory side has to think beyond.  Navigation institutes had a big lesson about this with the most famous wreckage of them all, the m/v Titanic which took about 1500 lives as it went down in the Atlantic Ocean after striking an iceberg during navigation.  While we learned a lot of lessons from that tragedy of more then a century ago, it is interesting how we keep on coming back to the next fail of sea safety.