British superyacht sinks in Sicily

[j.sabourn]

#18 Any body or vessel will sink if it displaces more of its own weight in water without reserve buoyancy. What did the yacht have life jackets for itself ? Maybe it had like most naval vessels ping pong balls of various sizes in double bottoms and various compartments to act as a lifejacket ? Even with such in the past warships have gone down .No such thing yet as an unsinkable ship. Nearest thing to it that I know of is a ships fast rescue craft
with an automatic inflation bag . JS

[happy daze john in oz]

Latest news, six bodies have been recovered.

Yes Ivan, I understand that, but tome 72 meters is something close to 100 meters in Olympics

[Raymond Gibbons]

Waterspouts are rare but I saw quite a few in my days at sea. I remember one in particular off the coast of Brazil near Recife which I estimated to be about a qarter mile wide at the base. The Royal navy in days gone by have benn known to collapse them by firing cannon balls through them. Somrthing passing through them, or when they reach shore, collapses them. The tremendous suction generated at the centre of one makes a hole (depression) in the sea surface due to the water being sucked up into the spout (this may be thousands of tonnes of water in a big one). They can move across the sea surfacew at great speed. If one passes over you (especially a smaller vessel) your vessel sinks into the depression in the sea surface and because you have interupted the airflow the spout collapses on top of you. You end up literally under the sea. It is not surprising that the yatch sank. If she was at anchor she almost certainly could not have got out of the way of the spout in time even if she saw it coming from a distance. These things are a natural phernomenon to be avoided if seen.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

I witnessed two in my time at sea but they where only on the small side. I can well imaging what I saw on TV was big enough to sink that yacht under those cirumstances.
Des

[happy daze john in oz]

Saw one a few years ago just off the Indonesia coast.

But in the Great Australia Bight a number of ships have gone down and it is thought that a sea spout could be the cause in a number of occasions.

[John Arton]

Don't think the waterspout passed directly over this yacht. The Dutch registered sailing yacht anchored ahead of it got there engine started and we're able to unsuccessfully ride out the storm and pick up the survivors from the yachts liferaft.
It was announced today by the Italian authorities that a manslaughter investigation is going to held into the sinking of the yacht. I guess this will run in conjunction with the M.A.I.B investigation, the results of which can lead to criminal charges being made.
Rgds
J.A

[James Curry]

New Zealander James Cutfield, captain of a super yacht that sunk off the coast of Sicily could be facing manslaughter charges.
The Italian authorities have opened an investigation considering manslaughter.

[J Gowers]

I only ever saw one water spout and it was well in the distance but it was in the Med if my memory is correct, it collaspsed before we reached it see 2nd photo. Taken from the the Sir John Hunter 1978

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[James Curry]

I used to run down the Florida keys into the Caribbean and witnessed plenty of water spouts

[Allen James Jones]

Hi Brenda. Huge interest in this tragedy. As far as the keel issues are concerned I understand that the builders, Perrini, issued an operating manual for the yachts technical aspects. This included when and where the keel was to be lowered. This information came from the previous skipper. He covered quite a bit of technical stuff and there is an interesting insight on "youtube" under eSysman SuperYachts. The narrator gives a good account of what is known todate without pontificating or apportioning blame.