Specialist divers continue to search for six people who were onboard a luxury superyacht which capsized off the coast of Sicily on Monday morning – but questions have been asked about why the vessel sank.
According to vessel tracking app Vesselfinder, the boat left the Sicilian port of Milazzo on 14 August and was last tracked east of Palermo on Sunday evening, with a navigation status of “at anchor”.
It is believed the ship was struck by a tornado over the water – otherwise known as a waterspout – causing Bayesian to capsize.
There are separate reports the boat’s mast snapped during the freak storm and other factors in the boat’s sinking include water entering through hatches and doors which had been left open because of warm weather off the Italian coast.
Witnesses have described seeing a waterspout form during the storm before the sinking of the Bayesian.
Most are familiar with what tornadoes look like – they are rotating columns of destructive winds, protruding from the base of clouds down to the ground.
According to BBC Weather, waterspouts are just that too, but are over water rather than land.
Instead of dust and debris swirling around the core of strong winds, it is water mist whipped up from the surface.
Like tornadoes, most are only short-lived, narrow columns and are not easily picked out on weather radars, so many will go unreported.
However, they are not as rare as you may think.
According to the International Centre for Waterspout Research there were 18 confirmed waterspouts off the coast of Italy on 19 August alone.
In the northern hemisphere, waterspouts are most common in late summer and through the autumn, when sea temperatures are at their highest, fuelling the storm clouds.
However, with sea temperatures rising due to climate change there is a concern that they could become more common.
In the last week, the Mediterranean has registered its highest sea surface temperature on record, which has helped to energise this recent storm outbreak.
Did Bayesian’s mast snap?
The Bayesian was built by Italian shipbuilder Perini in 2008 and was last refitted in 2020.
According to Perini’s website Bayesian has a 75m (246ft) mast which it claims is the tallest aluminium mast in the world.
Karsten Borner, the captain of another yacht anchored nearby at the time of the storm, said there was a “very strong hurricane gust” and he had to battle to keep his vessel steady.
He saw the Bayesian’s mast “bend and then snap”, according to Italy’s Corriere della Sera daily newspaper.
But, providing an update on the rescue mission, Marco Tilotta, from the Palermo fire service divers’ unit, told AFP the ship was lying on its side in one piece.