“No member of the crew gave us the alarm.” This is the story of the survivors of the Bayesian shipwreck, according to the reports collected by the investigators. The only alert was that of the emergency rocket, at 4:38, when the sailboat had sunk 50 meters, taking with it 7 lives. No one knocked on the cabins, no one shouted to go up on deck, no indication from the loudspeaker. Those who escaped, as Corriere della Sera explains today, did so because they were in the right place at the right time, that is, outside the accommodation, because they were frightened by the tilting of the boat. The underestimations follow one another, initiated by the New Zealand commander James Cutfield, who had placed a guard on the deck, that is, one of his men on duty during the night.
Bad weather? They all saw it coming or at least heard it
Yet the bad weather was there. Monitoring by the automatic identification system (AIS) reveals that at 3:50 in the morning, the sailboat was already feeling bad weather and strong winds. The gust, as the prosecutor specified, was already shaking the boat moored at anchor. Precious minutes before the unhooking, before the tragedy. At 4:05, explains the Corriere, the last centimeter of the sailboat is underwater and a few seconds later (it is 4:06) its emergency device “Epirb” detaches from the top of the mast and automatically gives the alarm. From that moment, the signal reaches the satellite station “Cospas Sarsat” of Bari managed by the Coast Guard.
In his first contact with them, Commander Cutfield stated generically that “we have 12 people at sea”. He and his crew (except the chief) were all safe on the raft. A small boat with automatic opening, on which 11 people boarded, becoming 15 after the rescue of some guests who ended up in the water (including the one-year-old girl). However, according to the law of the sea, the captain must be the last to leave the ship. Prosecutors are trying to understand if he was one of the 4 rescued from the water or if he was already safe from the first moments. The signal flare was launched, reports Corriere, 48 minutes later.
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