Italian Prosecutors Appear To Rule Out Weather in Bayesian Disaster

Considering Manslaughter Charges Against Captain and Crew

Peter Swanson May 2

READ IN APP

Italian prosecutors deciding whether to prosecute the captain and crew of the Bayesian have concluded that high winds were not to blame—directly contradicting British accident investigators and experts who spoke to Loose Cannon.

Seven of the 22 people on board the 184-foot sailing yacht were drowned, including owner Michael Lynch, a tech billionaire. Bayesian sunk on August 19, 2024 while at anchor off the coast of Sicily. Italian authorities are considering multiple counts of manslaughter and negligence for the yacht’s captain and two of its crew members.

A British television news channel broke the story yesterday, writing:

Sky News understands they have found it amounted to “little more than a squall, a sudden increase in wind speed that precedes thunderstorms and downpours”, which should have been manageable for the crew.

According to the preliminary findings, the yacht therefore sank due to the crew’s improper actions, their underestimation of the weather, and certain safety devices not being activated properly.

By definition, a squall can contain sustained winds of more than 60 knots.

Share

Loose Cannon quoted several naval architects for stories published in the months after the sinking. Among them were Roger Long (now retired), Tad Roberts of Tad Roberts Yacht Design and Guillermo Gefaell of Spain’s Association of Naval and Ocean Engineers. These three—among others—concluded that windage from Bayesian’s extraordinary 246-foot mast combined with a high center of gravity meant the yacht was liable to capsize even in moderately high gusts of around 65 knots.

As part of that conclusion, Long had calculated that Bayesian would have been “committed” to capsizing once the angle of heel reached 50 degrees. He is an expert on large sailing vessel stability.

The British Marine Accident Investigation Branch in May 2025 reached essentially the same conclusion as these experts. The MAIB report also challenged the Bayesian builder’s claims that the yacht could recover from a 73-degree heel.

Giovanni Costantino, the chief of The Italian Sea Group, has described the yacht as “unsinkable” and claimed the crew must have left doors or hatches open, allowing water in. TISG is the parent company for Bayesian builder Perini Navi.

The reason experts around the world were able to dissect the accident ahead of official inquiries was because someone in the yachting industry had leaked the Bayesian Stability Booklet to Loose Cannon, which turned around and published it.

Stability booklets are required for large yachts and must be approved by relevant national government bodies or classification societies—the Coast Guard in the U.S. or Yacht Designers & Surveyors Association in Britain. They contain engineering data that define the limits of a vessel in various sea and loading conditions.

The individual who leaked the booklet had anticipated that Italian authorities might try to blame the captain and crew for the disaster rather than vessel design flaws.

In January Perini Navi sued the Bayesian owner’s widow, her captain and two crew members, blaming them for the ship’s 2024 capsize and sinking and seeking $540 million for a collapse in sales.

Angela Bacares Lynch survived the sinking and inherited the Isle of Man-registered entity that owns the yacht. Besides her, Perini Navi’s lawsuit named three other defendants: James Cutfield, the boat’s captain, and Timothy Eaton and Matthew Griffiths, two crew members.

The latter three are the people now in the Italian prosecutors’ crosshairs.