The Bayesian file has moved since we last wrote about it, and the new detail is unusually specific. According to leaked accounts of the Italian criminal investigation, attention has narrowed to one piece of hardware on the 56-metre Perini Navi: her lifting keel, reportedly kept fully raised when she went over off Porticello in the early hours of 19 August 2024.
That one reported decision now carries more weight than any argument about wind speed. If it holds up, the night stops being a debate about freak weather and becomes a question about a single operational choice.
The keel, and what it would have changed
A lifting keel does what the name says — it retracts into the hull to cut draft for shallow anchorages and drops down for stability under sail. On Bayesian, lowering it would reportedly have taken her draft from roughly 4 metres to nearly 10. That is no trim adjustment. It pulls the centre of gravity down and, per the leaked file, would have improved her righting moment — her tendency to come back upright after a gust lays her over.
The British technical work points the same way. The MAIB's modelling already flagged that Bayesian became vulnerable to a knockdown "with the keel raised," and that the weakness never made it into her stability book. The Italian leak puts a crew action where the MAIB put a documentation gap. Same physics, different finger.
One caveat that matters: every word of the keel detail traces back to leaked file material via Adnkronos. The Termini Imerese prosecutor's office has confirmed none of it on the record.
Who is actually under investigation
The case is led by Angelo Vittorio Cavallo, chief prosecutor of Termini Imerese, whose office has until February 2027 to complete the preliminary investigation and decide on liability. The technical assessment sits with a named panel — independent engineer Alessandro Biriaco, Antonio Scamardella of the University of Naples Parthenope, and Alberto Marinò of the University of Trieste.
Three men remain under investigation: former captain James Cutfield and crew members Tim Eaton and Matthew Griffith. They are indagati — persons of interest in the Italian probe, named in connection with suspected negligent manslaughter and negligent shipwreck. No charges have been filed, no indictment exists, and formal charges may never follow. Nothing here is a finding of guilt.
A separate film, asking the older question
A new BBC documentary runs alongside the leak and is distinct from it. Millionaire Superyacht: Why Ships Sink aired 22 June 2026 at 20.00 on BBC Two, with a repeat the next night at 23.05.
It says nothing about the keel claim. It reopens the original argument — weather versus design — to a mass audience, and it does so with two voices worth hearing: a former captain of Bayesian and a retired principal investigator from the UK's Marine Accident Investigation Branch, alongside eyewitnesses and first responders. Keep the two threads apart. The documentary re-examines the storm. The criminal leak points at the keel. The film did not reveal the keel detail.
The builder is already in court
There is more than one legal front here. Back in January 2026, The Italian Sea Group — owner of the Perini Navi brand — filed a €456 million civil claim at Termini Imerese, naming the captain, two crew members, and Revtom, the yacht's registered owner. TISG runs the inverse of the criminal-defence instinct: the yacht was structurally sound, and the loss came down to unsecured hatches, a mishandled response to weather warnings, and a keel left up.
The damages figure rests on a striking assertion. TISG claims demand for Perini Navi has collapsed to zero since the accident — that sales of the brand have stopped entirely. Treat it as litigation language, not audited market data. As a claim about how one casualty can hollow out a legacy yard's order book, you rarely see it argued so plainly on the record.
Two official narratives still refuse to reconcile. The British view: extreme wind plus an undocumented stability weakness. The Italian view: a survivable squall, mishandled. The keel detail sharpens the Italian case. It does not settle the contradiction.
What changed this month is the resolution, not the verdict. The dispute has gone from "weather or design" to a specific lever in a specific position, with a hard deadline of February 2027 hanging over it. Seven people died at anchor on a quiet August night. The instruments that might explain why are now, finally, very precise — and still pointing two ways.
Photo: Italian fire and rescue service (Vigili del Fuoco), August 2024 search operation off Porticello, CC BY 4.0. Source: Marine Industry News.
