By Matteo Negri
MILAN (Reuters) – A series of “unspeakable, unbelievable mistakes” by the crew led to the sinking of the luxury yacht that killed British businessman Mike Lynch and six others earlier this week, the chief executive of the luxury yacht maker told Reuters on Thursday.
The British-flagged 56-metre luxury yacht “Baizian”, carrying 22 people – 12 passengers and 10 crew – capsized and sank on Monday minutes after it was hit by a pre-dawn storm while anchored off the coast of northern Sicily.
“The boat suffered a series of indescribable and unbelievable errors,” Giovanni Costantino said in an interview. “The impossible happened to this boat… but it sank because it entered the water. Where will the investigators tell us?”
Costantino heads the Italian Sea Group, which includes Perini Navi, the Italian luxury yacht builder that built the Baysian in 2008. The vessel has been refitted twice, most recently in 2020, but not by Perini.
The company’s chief executive ruled out any design or construction errors, which he said was unlikely after 16 years of trouble-free navigation, including in more severe weather conditions than Monday.
He blamed the Bayesian crew for the “grave mistake” of not being prepared for the storm, which had been reported in the marine forecast. “This is the mistake that calls for revenge,” he said.
Costantino said the passengers should have been called from their cabins and assembled at a safe point while the boat prepared for the storm by raising the anchor, closing the doors and hatches, lowering the keel to increase stability and other measures.
Six of the 12 passengers died in the sinking, and five bodies have been found in the wreckage. Emergency services are still trying to locate the body of the last missing person, Lynch’s daughter Hannah.
If the correct procedures had been followed, all passengers would have gone back to sleep within an hour, Costantino said, “and the next morning they would have happily resumed their wonderful journey.”
Another yacht, anchored near the Bayezid, escaped unharmed. The captain of the sunken yacht and other crew members have not commented publicly on the disaster, while Italian prosecutors investigating the matter are due to hold a news conference on Saturday.
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