The Bayesian's captain, James Catfield, reportedly told Italian media that he could not have foreseen the storm that struck the Bayesian.
But we already know that bad weather was forecast before that.
Luca Mercalli, president of the Italian Meteorological Institute, said on Tuesday that given the poor forecast, the crew should have made sure all passengers were awake and given life jackets.
One survivor reportedly told medical staff that the ship began to sink just two minutes after she fell asleep.
Bad weather is one thing, but water spray is something else entirely, and it's not something the crew can predict.
An expert on the scene in Sicily told Reuters that the initial investigation would focus on whether the yacht's crew failed to close the hatch before the bad weather struck.
But experts say an open hatch alone wouldn't have been enough to cause a Bayesian sinking on a ship of this size.
There are other points around the boat where water enters, known as “downwelling points”, which are there for purposes such as venting the engine room.
“There will definitely be questions about what happened to the crew and whether they were prepared,” Souppez said.
“But it’s important to remember that the ship sank in minutes. It’s a tough job for a crew to actually be saving that many passengers in the middle of the night, firing flares and dealing with the heat of the moment,” he says.
“It's very difficult to say exactly what happened here,” says Dr Paul Stott, a fellow of the Royal Institute of Naval Architects.
“But it is highly unlikely that the crew would have been able to respond in any way to save the yacht in the face of such a sudden and catastrophic weather event.”
