A team of specialist divers is continuing the search for four people who are missing after the luxury yacht Bayesian sank on Monday off the coast of Sicily, Italy.
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Among the missing are Morgan Stanley chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife Judy, as well as British technology tycoon Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah.
Also among those still unaccounted for are Lynch’s American attorney Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda Morvillo.
This Tuesday Authorities confirmed the discovery of the body of Recaldo Thomas, the chef of the boat, as well as two other bodies inside the boat, which have not yet been identified.
But as the search continues, questions about the possible causes of the tragic shipwreck have begun to emerge.
According to the Vesselfinder satellite tracking app, the vessel left the port of Sicily on August 14 and was last recorded east of Palermo on Sunday afternoon, with the status “anchored.”
Experts believe the yacht was hit by a tornado over the water, known as a “waterspout,” and that this phenomenon was what caused the sinking.
Other factors include the possibility that water has leaked through hatches and doors, which were probably open due to the high temperatures on the Italian coast.
BBC Mundo explains the possible causes of the shipwreck.
What are waterspouts?
Witnesses described seeing waterspouts forming during the storm that occurred before the Bayesian sank.
To understand what this natural phenomenon is about, we must refer to the most familiar appearance that tornadoes take: they are rotating columns of very destructive winds that spread from the base of the clouds to the ground.
According to the BBC Weather Channel, waterspouts occur in the same way but over water, rather than on land.
And instead of dust and debris, what swirls around in the strong winds is water spray carried up from the sea surface.
Like tornadoes, most waterspouts don’t last very long. And they are usually very narrow columns that are not detected by radar, so they are never reported to boat pilots.
But that doesn’t mean they’re rare.
According to the International Centre for Waterspout Research, 18 of them were recorded off the coast of Italy on 19 August alone.
In the Northern Hemisphere, waterspouts are most common in late summer and through fall, when sea temperatures are higher and serve as “fuel” for these storms.
However, with sea temperatures rising due to climate change, there is concern that these phenomena could become more common.
Over the past week, the Mediterranean Sea has reached its warmest temperature on record, helping to fuel this outbreak of thunderstorms.
Doors and hatches open
A shipping expert says hatches and doors on the yacht left open overnight may have certainly helped sink the Bayesian.
It is estimated that the day before the shipwreck Temperatures in the area had reached 33 degrees Celsius.
Sam Jefferson, editor of sailing magazine Sailing Today, believes the yacht’s occupants left the doors and hatches open to allow air to circulate while they slept.
“My guess is that the ship was hit very hard by the wind, which caused it to turn onto its side,” Jefferson noted.
“I imagine all the doors were open because it was hot, so there were enough open spaces that allowed the boat to fill up with water very quickly,” he added.
According to the expert, the mast, which was enormous, helped the ship to turn on its side.
“It acted almost like a sail. The mast pushed the ship hard to one side,” the expert said.
“The yacht would have taken on water before it could return to its normal position. This is all speculation, but it is the only logical explanation,” he added.
The mast broke?
The Bayesian was built in Italy in 2008 and underwent a refurbishment in 2020.
According to the Italian construction company Perini, the yacht’s mast, measuring some 76 metres, is considered the second tallest in the world and the tallest built in aluminium.
Karsten Borner, the captain of another yacht that was anchored nearby when the storm hit, said there was a “strong gust of hurricane-force winds” and he had to struggle to keep his boat stable.
Borner told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that he saw the mast “bent and broke.”
However, a spokesman for the rescue mission, firefighter Marco Tilotta, told the AFP news agency that the boat was lying on its side, but in one piece.
For the head of the UK’s Maritime Search and Rescue Council, Matthew Schanck, it is difficult to explain what happened to the Bayesian.
“I think, and this is pure speculation, that the evidence we are getting from the divers indicates that the boat is basically intact, supposedly lying on its side,” he told the BBC.
“If the mast had broken, that would be an important piece of information to report.”
Schanck added that what happened to the Bayesian was “a rare event.”
“These ships are not designed to sail in that climate: 100 to 135 kph, which is the maximum speed at which a ship could sail, and that is with the sails down,” he explained.
“They are not designed to go through tornadoes or waterspouts,” he added.
Record temperatures in the Mediterranean Sea
Since mid-June, the sea around Sicily (the western basin of the Mediterranean) has been experiencing a severe heat wave.
The European Union’s climate change service, Copernicus, has been reporting that sea surface temperatures in the region have repeatedly exceeded 30°C, four degrees higher than the 20-year average for this time of year.
Spanish researchers from the Institute of Marine Sciences in Barcelona confirmed last Thursday, August 15, the record for maximum sea surface temperature in the Mediterranean had been broken.
Both 2023 and 2024 will see the highest average temperature recorded worldwide in one day.
Scientists attribute the rapid rise in temperatures to climate change: the oceans have been hardest hit by rising temperatures, absorbing around 90% of the excess heat.
Following record ocean temperatures last year, Professor Mike Meredith of the British Antartic Survey told the BBC: “The fact that all this heat is going into the ocean and actually is warming in some respects even more rapidly than we thought, is a cause for great concern.”
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