Captain questioned Shock and speculation at speed with which vessel foundered

Some fishermen in the Sicilian village of Porticello who witnessed the superyacht Bayesian sink rapidly in a violent storm on Monday, say the vessel was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

- Lorenzo Tondo

But for Italian prosecutors investigating the incident, their focus will be on whether the captain and crew took all necessary safety measures to prevent the tragedy.

Prosecutors from the nearby town of Termini Imerese questioned the yacht's captain, 51-year-old James Cutfield from New Zealand, for more than two hours on Tuesday.

"I have never seen a vessel of this size go down so quickly," said Karsten Borner, 69, the captain of a nearby sailboat that was the first to assist it on Monday. "Within a few minutes, there was nothing left." Rescuers are working on the assumption that the boat sank quickly after being hit by a tornadic waterspout. The fact that other vessels nearby-like Borner's small boat - did not sink indicated the localised nature of the event.

According to La Repubblica, divers who carried out underwater inspections of the boat reported that the hatch was open, though officials have not confirmed the detail. If this was the case, large amounts of water could have entered through the gap, potentially destabilising the vessel.