Dead or on the lamb?

[l0st]

I've held off saying anything up until now.  Ironically enough, I've been on a ship myself for the past 2 weeks!  LOL!  Anyway...

So a couple things here.

First, I strongly doubt any sort of a waterspout or downdraft type event.  I've been through the edge of a waterspout once in Florida in a 30' foot sportfish.  It was violent beyond imagination!  I've also been through microbursts while flying.  Neither of these was intentional, and both were violent almost beyond description.  In the waterspout incident, we were in the Gulf of Mexico about 15 miles off shore.  We saw the squall line percolate up and headed for shore.  Within minutes the squall line hit us and it was a complete white/blackout with rain; you couldn't see 10 feet.  All of a sudden we saw the rain start going sideways, and then upward diagonally.  I swung hard to port and pushed the throttles to the console.  The waterspout was so powerful it cleared out an area of rain around it like a tunnel up through the rain cloud.  We narrowly missed it, probably by 70 or 80 feet.  Even as it was, it ripped every piece of canvas off the boat and violently ripped anything not securely fastened down off the deck and hurled it in the water.  Fortunately none of us got thrown off (there were 3 of us).  It tore the plexiglass windshield clean off the center console!  Ripped the glued down cork off the console where the main compass was. 

I've watched the video on the first page.  There is canvas covering boats and furniture all over the deck.  None of it even lifted up.  That boat was NOT hit by a waterspout.  It just wasn't.  It may have encountered some sort of a rogue wave, but it wasn't a waterspout.  Neither was it a microburst, as they do the same thing but almost in reverse.  They are an intense sustained gust of wind (usually in excess of hurricane speeds (70+ knots)) directly downward (vertical).  When they hit the surface they blow horizontally across the surface (picture a hose spraying directly down against a concrete driveway, same basic idea).  Winds of that force would have ripped every shred of fabric and sent anything not attached to the deck (like bolted down, not just tied) flying in all directions.    I saw none of this in the video.  I see wind and rain in the video, but nothing severe enough to sink a vessel of that size.

Okay, next thing...vessels of that size just don't sink that fast; they just don't.  Leave every single hatch and water-tight door open, doesn't matter; they won't sink that fast.  There are too many spaces which trap air.  The vessel may heel over, or even capsize, but it's not going to sink...no unless it has a hole in it big enough to drive a tractor trailer through, and even then I doubt it would sink that fast.  Something ain't right.  I've seen yachts literally break in half and they still take longer than 16 minutes to sink.  Again, something ain't right.

When you add all these factors together, and couple them with the fact that nearby yachts were untouched and, I'm sorry, but I don't believe a single word of the published version of the events.  Not a word.

Now, I don't have a theory about what really happened, but I darn sure do have an opinion about the version of the events being circulated to date, and that is there is a lot more to this story than is being told.  I can completely believe the vessel went down stern first, and even believe that it half-submerged, BUT the events which led up to this happening would have been not only terrifying but also have given plenty of notice to all passengers that something was seriously wrong.

One other thing I find strangely missing from the story.  Vessels of this length, under charter, are required to carry life rafts equalling 150% of the maximum capacity of the boat.  On this boat, this requirement would have meant multiple life rafts.  Life rafts are mounted on deck in such a way that they automatically inflate when they become bouyant in water (there are also other things which will auto-inflate them, often things like the EPIRB going bouyant).  Why were none of these deployed?  This is something you can't even fuck up if you tried...it's all automatic.  UNLESS, of course, someone prevented them from deploying, but this would be a conscious event.

Bottom line...there's way more to this story than is being told.  This vessel absolutely needs to be re-floated immediately and investigated thoroughly for what really happened, because the real story isn't even close to being told yet.  It's only in 200 feet of water, so it's a slam dunk to re-float and any competent salvage company could do it in a single day.  Now that the bodies are off, there is no reason not to re-float it...like NOW!  (before the evidence gets further damaged).

I completely agree with you. FWIW, I've been on a similarly sized yacht (although not a sailing yacht) called the Braveheart. Crew were very attentive and would have been on top of something like this immediately. There would have been warning that such a storm was coming in or on the horizon and the crew should have been ensuring that everything was secured at that time with an "all hands" call. You also have to keep in mind that these vessels are designed to float - even upside down.

I also strongly doubt a waterspout by looking at the video. I will, however, disagree about it being a microburst. I think this can't be entirely ruled out. However, I personally don't think a single microburst could sink a ship of this size. The rogue wave theory crossed my mind, but we don't see that in the video, and for a ship this size, it would need to be a pretty damn large wave.

Totally on board about there needing to be a giant hole somewhere for the ship to sink this quickly. And I also agree, definitely tractor trailer sized like perhaps a bomb went off. I'm still not clear on the design of the rear of this ship with the supposed flip down deck. I don't know if that's still open to the outside when its deployed or not. I would think there would be water-tight doors immediately behind that deck that would remain closed at all times when the deck is in use. I would assume with modern tech that these doors would very likely close automatically if water is detected.

Absent some other hole in the hull, there would have been nowhere for the air to escape, and the yacht would have remained floating if capsized. It appears that this ship was specifically designed for this scenario as well.

I don't believe the official story either, not to mention that the story keeps changing.