It is a puzzle, this sunken sailing ship. The more hours pass, the longer the list of questions becomes that find no answers, neither in the face of logic, nor by putting together the few certainties gathered so far. And as if this were not enough, also from the United Kingdom comes news that adds shadows – or perhaps it is better to call them suggestions – on a singular coincidence that we will discuss later.
Let’s start with him, Mike Lynch, the English magnate currently missing in the shipwreck of the Bayesian, the family megayacht (it is owned by his wife) sunk by a tornado in the night between Sunday and Monday in front of Porticello. Or rather: the tornado was the starting point of what happened but that sailing jewel – naval engineers and various experts repeat – had every chance of resisting very strong winds, lightning and walls of water. And yet, nothing: it sank in a very short space of time, to the 50 meters of depth where it is now, lying on its right side.
The remote-controlled robot of the Coast Guard that – with the Secondary Maritime Rescue Center of Palermo – coordinates the operations for the search for the six missing, was the first to go down there to explore the seabed and the wreck. Then the divers (of the Coast Guard and the Fire Brigade) went down. Electronic eyes and human eyes to tell the same story: the Bayesian is intact and its 75 meters of mainmast are also intact, contrary to what the captain of the ship that saved the 15 survivors in the storm had said.
The mast did not break and the hull has no leaks, at least not in the part that can be seen, the hatches are closed, the windows are intact. So “the boat held up”, claims “The Italian Sea Group”, owner of the Perini Group of Viareggio that built the sailing ship in 2008. Yes, but then what caused it to sink?
One of the hypotheses being studied by the Termini Imerese Prosecutor’s Office – which is investigating for negligent shipwreck – is that the speed and force of the water was so strong that it did not give the on-board emergency system time to “seal” the vessel when the water began to enter. Another hypothesis: the sailing ship lifted from the stern by a gigantic wall of water and quickly sank with the bow pointed towards the seabed. Possibility. How is it possible that the anchoring played a role in the tragedy. Another point to clarify: was it prudent to anchor in the roadstead with the weather warning? Was it safe enough?
For now each point is a simple working hypothesis, waiting to hear the versions of the crew members (10 of them safe except the ship’s cook) and to recover the bodies of the missing and the sailing ship itself.
There is a video (one minute and twenty seconds, published by Rai News 24) filmed by the camera of a villa that frames the roadstead right at the point where the Bayesian was moored. It shows the speed of the waterspout. It grows in intensity second after second and shows the lights of the sailing ship disappearing into the darkness “in a minute” as the owner of the house says. These are the most tragic moments. There are people struggling in the water and others trapped in their cabins. Among the six trapped passengers is Lynch with his daughter Hannah, 18 years old. And then Jonathan Bloomer, the president of the investment bank Morgan Stanley International, the London headquarters (but with international operations) of the American giant.
They didn’t have time to get out of their cabins and that’s where the divers are trying to get to: a very difficult undertaking due to the difficulty of moving in those spaces, a sort of small Concordia. Each diver can spend down there no more than 10-12 minutes; he enters the hull from the main entrance, let’s call it that: the one at the stern. He makes his way, removing the obstacles he encounters to free up a small passage for the colleague who arrives after him. So, one step at a time, up to the cabin area where perhaps they will be able to get to today.
All this while the survivors wait in dismay for news a few kilometers from the port. The British ambassador to Italy, Edward Llewellyn, met them and thanked our country on their behalf «for the commitment and humanity shown». And from the United Kingdom come two pieces of news: one on the links between Lynch and the secret services of half the world, in particular the Israeli ones, through his cybersecurity companies. And the other on his friend and trusted man Stephen Chamberlain: he died 48 hours before him in a car accident. He had ended up in the dock for fraud together with Lynch, in the USA, and like him he had been acquitted, two months ago. Not even time to rejoice.
This article is originally published on corriere.it
