Cruel sea can show little mercy

Even as the last body was retrieved from the sunken superyacht Bayesian, the Italian authorities announced they had opened a “manslaughter and negligent shipwreck investigation”.

This might be a matter of form but, more likely, they want to pin the blame on someone.

The question being asked repeatedly is why the Bayesian sank, while another large yacht moored nearby escaped more or less unharmed.

The answer the Italians will probably find — but might not want — is that tornadoes, like God, move in mysterious ways, on land and sea.

Still, investigators are already pondering why all but one of the crew survived, but six of the guests went down with the vessel.

They might be remembering another yacht tragedy, this one off the Californian coast in 2019, when the dive boat MV Conception caught fire while at anchor, killing all 33 passengers and one of the six crew.

The captain of that sad vessel has just been given four years in the slammer for criminal negligence. He was one of the first to abandon ship — though it’s fair to point out he was forced into the water by the furious blaze that trapped the guests below deck.

The captain of the nearby unharmed yacht has reportedly said the Bayesian’s 72m mast snapped during the downburst, causing the yacht to “lose its balance”.

Meanwhile, Bayesian’s builder, Italian shipyard Perini Navi, had reportedly called the yacht “unsinkable”, which maritime history shows us is a bad idea.

All the speculation misses the point that it doesn’t matter how hi-tech your boat is: ships have been sinking in Homer’s wine-dark sea for thousands of years and, as long as bad weather, the sea and humans collide, they will keep on doing so.