Proteksan-Turquoise YOGI superyacht sinking investigation

Clearly all reasonable evidence points to the crew, some of which were unexperienced. Most of the yard's shortcomings would have been picked up during delivery and registration, the vessel was only a few months old. But even with all that is hard to believe the yacht sank.

Yes, if I was anything to do with the MCA I would be asking for an investigation into Beamer.

A captain leaving his ship without his written up logbook (he had eight hours to find it - and anyway he should have been filling it in every 10 or so minutes during an emergency recording all the problems and recording all his and the crew actions). His licence should be taken away (unless if fell out of his pocket when he was lifted up to the heli maybe).

The report is so amateur and most of the questions asked the wrong ones. Where are the captain and crew interviews, where is the record of conversations with the yard, where are the conversations with the shore agent.

The report sounds like there were eight people wandering around, not communicating with each other.

And if I was the insurer I would not be paying out to an owner with such a crew.

Basically the report is that EVERYONE top to bottom or bottom to top involved amounted to a bunch of bumbling *****... forming a la grande Boobgeoisie.

Hi,

What a white wash.

To decide that the strainers did not allow for enough flow on a boat that has been across the Atksntic without this problem is crazy.

The CAT's in use would have Plate Coolers fitted, the installation requirements call for a 2.5mm screen in the SW Inlet. It does not take much grass or plastic to block such small holes.

I have argued strongly with surveyors that usng one of these engines for direct bilge suction with no form of strainer is risking a complete shutdown at a time when you obviously have other serious things to deal with.

We will never know the exact truth but with the white wash publication I can only think it is a combination of poor design and execution of the construction and installation , inexperience of the key crew. If luck was on their side neither thing would be a major issue , a small change in something caused the eventual total loss of a reasonably new yacht.

Owners who want to use these lower tier builders should be nade aware that they will need to spend more on the Specufication and build supervision if they want to get the vessel they have been told they will get.

Thank you for the welcome.

Looking at the pictures of the hinges and pins this vessel looks 20 years old.

How is it that the sea strainers were only discovered to be defective by the engineer in an emergency and after a successful year of navigation without mention of insufficient flow previous to her foundering.
On my vessels, checking and or cleaning the sea strainers is a monthly maintenance check item as well as a mandated item before any passage of more than 24 hours. Common sense for most engineers I would think?

Does common sense not dictate safety checks while underway of the vessel at the top of every hour by a member of the bridge team? How did the water level in the beach areas rise without notice?

In inclement weather the hatches come off the steering gear assembly in the lazarrette and they are also checked with every engineering check at the top of the hour. Also, reading this report makes it sound as if the crew scarcely knew where to find the emergency steering compartment, let alone how to operate it.

Can they elaborate as to why the high water alarms were not functioning correctly? Again a monthly maintenance item and this far after the vessels launch should be a maintenance item and not a shipyard defect.

My stewardesses carry UHF radios at all time while on duty, you mean to tell me that Yogi's Engineers did not, especially in a time of crisis?

Reading this report leads me to believe that simple watch keeping duties and engineering preventative measures could have mitigated or prevented completely this 'accident'.

Aparently Beamer doesn't employ any full time investigators, they hire consultants, and the chief one this time was a naval arquitect. A lot about stability, and very little about all the human factors that made Yogi sink.

I also found it interesting that the crew couldn't actually get to the liferaft due to poor design... I personally don't house off any of my decks with this kind of importants on it. You can see it in the picture and Y/Tube clip that the liferafts (on the port side anyway) are still untouched, even when she's 3/4's under.

Far

The shipyard response to the BEAmer report raises quite a few good questions.


Dockwalk - Yogi Accident Report Released

It appears to me that several issues in the yards response are concerning:

First the time and distance calculation supporting 16.7 knots and 100 % loading of engines. Likely this was pushing the envelop for the conditions as it was a yacht and not a naval or rescue vessel on duty. This makes the overheating issue more critical. It calls into question the crews accurate reporting of events. Why would they be doing basically emergency speed in a simple transit under not the best conditions? Fuel consumption issues would seem to be considered as well as conditions and reason for the transit. If doing maximum speed with a following sea... they certainly weren't in a race in a sail boat... and the immediate results were much like an unexpected jibe/gybe with a canting keel. This is either pure stupidity or something was wrong and they needed that speed for some reason... no one mentioned pirates chasing so it must have been some mechanical, leakage or stability issue. Maybe the unexpected shutdown of an engine put them sideways and they had watertight integrity issues which were either aggravated or brought on by that.

Second, the confusion as to the beach club doors... this indicates to me the crew was not either fully debriefed or very well confused as to true state of affairs and the fact that cushions were outside the boat when they could only be there through an open door. It seems to me likely mistakes were made by the crew and they felt compelled to cover up the true situation. This is natural and experienced investigators should have been employed in the debriefs as the inconsistencies would have been discovered and gotten to the bottom of... why would you open the doors if things are flooded? This could be the only explanation for the cushions outside and very likely purposeful for some reason. The only reason to open the doors is to attempt to seal a leak by clearing debris... or reseating a seal issue... or a closing issue such as binding.

Third the stability test which was requested then forgotten about... their is no determination from interview with the owner... why?

Forth loss of the log or not keeping logs is worrisome. I suppose it is better than modified or madeup logs after the fact. Likely the sinking situation was either damaging to the crew or the logs could not be 'fixed' in the mist of the evacuation. If no logs were kept this would indicate gross negligence either by the crew being overwhelmed in a slow developing emergency or being totally inexperienced... or likely both. Any, of these are bad unless the logs did get accidentally lost in the evacuation.

Hi,

You and I both have similar thoughts.

Just given what the report shows certainly raises more questions than it answers.

It would appear the ring in experts hired by BEAmer have done their best to muddy the waters and not criticise anyone or anything directly particularly the beloved Tricolore.

There won't be much of a change of anything as a result of this except I would hazard a guess that those involved in the fiasco onboard have probably left the yacht YOGI off their CV's.

As is the simple question why the boat sunk.

Reread everything... other than my surmises from reading between the lines in my previous post the actual details of what happened are murky.

So it just sunk is the answer>>> really?

Its like people were asleep at the wheel... woke up and found they were in deep ****. But I cannot see from anything in the report there was a real cause scenario.

It was stated the crew was not panicked but why were the survivor suits put on so quickly by the senior staff ... this is counter to the goings on and the apparently lack of understanding or concern of what was going on at the time on the boat.

I think the following was going on...
1. After getting underway he boat had an apparent stability issue as the conditions increased.
2. The cause of the stability issue was not diagnosed or investigated meaning they thought it was normal for the boat, or the master thought it due to fuel loading just completed and guesses made as to stability calculations which did not pan out in the conditions faced while underway.
3. Likely the following wind and sea the boat was more stable when powering away and running from the following sea to create an apparent head sea.
4. No one checked the beach clubs or no alarms were noted so until flooding was significant it was not understood or realized by the crew, and the combination casualty of flooding and engine problems increased instability.
5. Until the cracking of exhaust and shutdown of the first engine shutdown the stability issue was discounted... as not dangerous, whereupon the loss of the ability to power away from the following wind and sea was not possible.
6. The crew had insufficient time to discover the real issue of the stability and diagnose it. Noting this should have been priority from time noticed.
7. The casualty of the exhaust was not either corrected or repaired or understood to be ship safety critical as to keeping the engine running... we do not know if emergency operation of the engine despite the exhaust problem was possible... I suspect it was or quickie damage control measures were possible.
8. The discovery of the flooding with the exhaust problem confused the crew as to priority and ships safety.
9. The about short time later loss of the second engine due to overheating was not determined whether due to coolant loss or overloading or both.
10. With the loss of both engines without full understanding of cause and proper casualty procedures aggravated the stability and flooding issue.
11. Crew gave up without a fight.

Not being an expert on megayachts I wonder if there are no black boxes on board of such ships. If not for the log, then for sake of limiting insurance fees, like it is the case for either planes or even cars. With integrated bridge and monitoring systems, this seems to me simple from a technical perspective.

Hi,

VDR 's are not required on any yachts under 3000 ton yet

http://www.imo.org/ourwork/safety/navigation/pages/vdr.aspx

Maybe after this **** up, that can come down to 500 ton... or anything over 98' (30m)... boats of that size aren't cheap, and if anything there's more of them...

Far

response from the yard

i've read a response to the report from the yard. the yard states that although there is no log available; they must have steamed at full (100%) power after passing Dardannelles pilot point (time is recorded in the logs of the pilot point) till the point the boat has gone under. the calculation based on the max speed achieved during the sea trials based on 100% engine load and the corresponding distance they have covered.

Were they at 100%WOT cause they wanted to beat the weather...?

Also, boats will be more stable at a higher speed with fins on... maybe that was the skippers thoughts...?

Far