Well there’s extreme weather and there’s extreme weather. There have been reports that the yacht was struck by a waterspout, which is basically a tornado but over the water. I’m not sure if the strength of it has been reported or not, but given tornadoes have been known to throw trucks and train cars it doesn’t surprise me that it was likely powerful enough to capsize the yacht.
Unlike trucks & trains, a sailboat is designed to roll side-to-side. One current theory I’ve read is that the waterspout damaged the mast, causing it to unbalance the yacht (and possibly damaging the hull). The combination of being unbalanced and being slammed by the waterspout likely rolled the hull enough to flood it within seconds. Even if the mast wasn’t damaged, a tornado striking the yacht broadside would have likely been catastrophic depending on the strength of the storm. And waterspouts that powerful are still rather rare so I wouldn’t blame the captain for not anticipating it.
There are now some reports as well that the yacht sank in roughly one minute. If that’s the case then it means the yacht indeed rolled very quickly and took on a huge volume of water in very little time, so much that it was unable to right itself or that its bilge pumps could contend with it. Again, not something that could have really been anticipated.
Well there’s extreme weather and there’s extreme weather. There have been reports that the yacht was struck by a waterspout, which is basically a tornado but over the water. I’m not sure if the strength of it has been reported or not, but given tornadoes have been known to throw trucks and train cars it doesn’t surprise me that it was likely powerful enough to capsize the yacht.
Unlike trucks & trains, a sailboat is designed to roll side-to-side. One current theory I’ve read is that the waterspout damaged the mast, causing it to unbalance the yacht (and possibly damaging the hull). The combination of being unbalanced and being slammed by the waterspout likely rolled the hull enough to flood it within seconds. Even if the mast wasn’t damaged, a tornado striking the yacht broadside would have likely been catastrophic depending on the strength of the storm. And waterspouts that powerful are still rather rare so I wouldn’t blame the captain for not anticipating it.
There are now some reports as well that the yacht sank in roughly one minute. If that’s the case then it means the yacht indeed rolled very quickly and took on a huge volume of water in very little time, so much that it was unable to right itself or that its bilge pumps could contend with it. Again, not something that could have really been anticipated.