Definitely not! That’s very true, and I apologize for the hyperbole. But there came a time, I’d say starting around 1990, when DEC appeared to be in decline, and certainly well past its heyday of the 60s, 70s, and most of the 80s when it appeared it could do no wrong. I remember, as a customer, flying in a DEC private plane to Boston, from where we were picked up by a DEC helicopter to take us to the facility we were visiting. This must have been around the recession of 1973-75, because I remember looking out the window and thinking, there may be a recession down there, but all is well with DEC up here in the clouds.
Even in the early 90s, my impression was that it was mostly the marketing and product managers who were sensing bad weather ahead. Many engineers stayed loyal to DEC’s vision and commitment to innovation and product quality. It was a great company run by a great leader, Ken Olsen, and it forged a momentous period in tech history. It is very much missed.
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According to the U.S. Coast Guard’s Office of Boating Safety, an infant should not travel on a boat until they weigh at least 18 pounds and can wear a personal flotation device (PFD). Most babies will reach that weight when they are between 4 and 11 months old.
I was on a boat at 1 and at 2 years old. Granted it was an ocean liner on an Atlantic crossing, not a large yacht (which is considerably smaller than a ship), but still a boat.
All of the bodies have been recovered from the vessel now. I am curious, I have a morbid streak, what their final moments alive must’ve been like. Trapped in their sleeping quarters and drowning while fighting to escape. Could it have been instantaneous like a blow to the head. Could some have just died while sleeping and never knew what was happening? It must’ve been total chaos, but Lynch’s wife got out alive, presumably was in the same cabin as her husband and he perished.
The fact that one crew member died and the rest were rescued is very curious, and not a good look for the captain.
He added that its sinking was due to a chain of human errors given that the storm was expected, speaking in interviews to Italian media.
Had the crew shut all doors and hatches, turned on the engine, lifted the anchor, lowered the keel and turned the yacht to face the wind, they would have suffered “zero damage”, the CEO said.
I am thinking all of the passengers were notified of bad weather approaching: but that only a few decided to come to the recommended location–while the rest “knew” the boat was unsinkable and decided to remain in their quarters.
Eh I don’t rightly think so. Passengers are first priority I d hve a hard time believing they’d disregard an order out right. Instead the vessel capsized and sunk in a matter of minutes.
An arduous and really technical effort to retrieve the victims. Hampered by extraordinary conditions within the wreck.
Why would they have been anywhere other than their quarters for a storm occurring at night or early morning? You don’t muster topside for a storm, you stay within the interior of the ship because that’s where one will be safe from the more customary hazard of high winds and breaking waves/sea spray.
What I am expecting is that the crew have/had their quarters higher in the ship, nearer to or above the weather decks for easy access to the pilot house (where the ship’s controls and navigation equipment are) and so had an easier egress route. They might also (almost certainly would) have been more familiar with the ship’s layout, allowing them to better navigate the ships corridors if they were still onboard when it capsized. A ship on its side or upside down can be disorienting for anyone, but greater familiarity with the ship’s layout, plus training, can improve one’s chances of escaping something like that before the ship sinks.
Finally, it’s possible (but I haven’t seen anything saying as much) that the crew never warned anyone the ship was in danger of sinking. Whether because they neglected to do so, or because it all just happened so fast (I don’t know: did they plow into this water spout as if no one was paying attention, or did it set down on them with no warning beyond the usual “a storm is expected”?).
All that to say, much as I’d like to attribute the disparity in outcomes to the hubris of the billionaire class, I suspect there will be more mundane explanations for how almost the entire crew survived, but most of the passengers didn’t.
I’d think the crew quarters are lower down in the ship, after all, they’re plebeian crew, they can walk a little bit further. Rooms up high give you better views, whether that’s on a commercial cruise ship or a penthouse apartment.
Other than that first sentence, I agree with the rest of your paragraph. With the exception of the owners some of the guests were probably first timers, I could see there being NO safety briefing upon boarding for the well healed on a private boat & even on a cruise ship or airplane I know a significant portion is not paying any attention to the safety briefing.
I haven’t read the whole thread, but i read several articles about this. Eyewitnesses said it happened extremely quickly. The ship suddenly tipped on its side and sank.
I expect that people who were more familiar with the layout, people who just have faster reflexes, and people who happened to be lucky were more likely to escape.
This is not the report i read previously, but it’s consistent with that one:
Pietro Asciutto, a local fisherman, told ANSA he was at home when the storm hit. “I immediately shuttered all the windows, then noticed the boat,” he said. “It had only one mast, quite big.”
“It was floating, still, then suddenly vanished,” he said. “I saw it sink with my own eyes.”
British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch missing after yacht sinks off Sicily
Here’s a gift link to a WSJ article that gives a lot of background and more information than I’ve seen elsewhere about how the survivors were rescued. (The ship managed to set off a flare, many people got into a life raft, and a nearby vessel put it’s stern to the wind to avoid capsizing, and was able to help in the rescue efforts after the short-lived storm passed.)
Anyway, I just think it’s ironic that a ship that shares its namesake with a search methodology used to find sunken vessels and other things lost at sea… sank. Albeit with too much searching required.
I mean, Bayes theorem is used for lots of stuff, and the boat was named after it because that’s how the owner made his money.
I think it’s a lot more ironic that the guy was killed by a storm while celebrating his legal victory from charges that would have jailed him for life.
That’s how the owner’s husband made his money: it was his wife’s boat:
The yacht, allocated IMO Number 9503392, was ordered by Dutch entrepreneur Eric Albada Jelgersma [nl] (1939–2018), but in 2005 he was paralysed in a yachting accident; on completion it was sold in 2008 to Dutch property developer John Groenewoud and named Salute.[2][16][17] In November 2014, it was sold to Revtom Ltd., an Isle of Man company owned by Angela Bacares, wife of the technology entrepreneur Mike Lynch, and renamed Bayesian
I don’t think this has been posted yet, but apparently the revised theory is that this was not a waterspout, but a downburst (often associated with a thunderstorm system? IANAM):