By Matteo Negri for Reuters
Divers return to shore in Porticello harbour near Palermo with one of the bodies recovered from the yacht that sank on Monday. Photo: AFP
A series of "indescribable, unreasonable errors" by the crew led to the shipwreck in which British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and six others died earlier this week, the yacht manufacturer's chief executive has told Reuters .
The British-flagged Bayesian, a 56-metre-long superyacht with 22 people aboard - 12 passengers and 10 crew - capsized and sank within minutes of being hit by a pre-dawn storm while anchored off the coast of northern Sicily.
"The boat suffered a series of indescribable, unreasonable errors, the impossible happened on that boat ... but it went down because it took on water. From where, the investigators will tell," Giovanni Costantino said in an interview.
The British-flagged Bayesian, a 56-metre-long superyacht with 22 people aboard sank during a storm this week. Photo: VesselFinder
It was also reported he was spoken to for about two hours by Italian investigators.
Earlier this week media, including the BBC and ABC, reported the yacht's captain was James Cutfield who is from New Zealand. He had told local media of the waterspount that engulfed the yacht, saying they "just didn't see it coming."
Costantino helms The Italian Sea Group, which includes Perini Navi, the Italian high-end yacht maker that built the Bayesian in 2008. The vessel has been refitted twice, last in 2020, but not by Perini.
The chief executive ruled out any design or construction errors, which he called unlikely after 16 years of trouble-free navigation, including in more severe weather than on Monday.
He blamed the Bayesian's crew for the "incredible mistake" of not being prepared for the storm, which had been announced in shipping forecasts.
"This is the mistake that cries out for vengeance," he said.
Costantino said passengers should have been summoned out of their cabins and assembled at a point of safety while the boat was being prepared for the storm by pulling up the anchor, closing doors and hatches, lowering the keel to increase stability and other measures.
Six out of 12 passengers died in the shipwreck, and five bodies were found inside the wreck. Emergency services are still trying to locate the body of the last missing person, Lynch's daughter Hannah.
Had correct procedures been followed, all passengers would have gone back to sleep after one hour "and the next morning they would have happily resumed their wonderful cruise," Costantino said.
Another yacht anchored near the Bayesian escaped unharmed. The captain of the sunken yacht and other crew members have not commented publicly on the disaster, while Italian prosecutors investigating it are due to hold a press conference on Saturday.
Reuters / RNZ