The crew members who survived the sinking of the Bayesian yacht off Sicily have been staying at a seaside hotel – and running up a hefty bar tab while trying to process the tragedy, according to a local report.
Nine boat staff survived the ordeal in which the $40m superyacht belonging to British tech tycoon Mike Lynch sunk in minutes during a freak storm.
“The survivors, young guys, were having parties,” local site Dillinger News reported in Italian, citing a hotel worker. “Even spending – said our source – 2,500 Euros a day just for drinking.”
The crew have been staying at the 4-star Domina Zagarella Hotel in the town of Santa Flavia in the Palermo city district, while Italian investigators figure out what happened.
A hotel staffer confirmed to The Post the crew had been staying at the hotel, but declined to comment further. It’s not clear from the report which members of the crew were alleged to have been hitting the bar.
The crew members have been handled by the Protezione Civile, an Italian disaster relief agency, since the tragedy and have given statements to authorities.
Three members of the crew, Captain James Cutfield, ship engineer Tim Parker Eaton and sailor Matthew Griffith, have been announced as under investigation. Italian authorities have made clear the move is a procedural step and does not imply wrongdoing.
Authorities named the rest of the crew as: Tijs Koopmans, chief officer, from the Netherlands; Htun Myint Kyaw, boatswain from Burma; Sasha Murray, 29, chief stewardess from Ireland; Katja Chichen, junior hostess, from Germany, Leah Randall, third stewardess on board, from South Africa and Leo Eppel, a 19-year-old sailor from either Spain or South Africa.
Italian prosecutors are investigating Cutfield, 51, over possible manslaughter and culpable shipwreck charges after the yacht sunk on Aug. 19.
Cutfield, a New Zealand national, underwent his third round of questioning on Tuesday, according to his lawyer.
Prosecutors questioned him about whether the tender door — separating the tender room from the engine room — had been opened; the position of the movable centerboard, and the exact timing of the events that transpired, according to reports from the courtroom.
Cutfield declined to answer prosecutors’ questions.
“The captain exercised his right to remain silent for two fundamental reasons,” one of Cutfield’s lawyers, Giovanni Rizzuti, told the media after the hearing
“First, he’s very worn out. Second, we were appointed only on Monday and for a thorough and correct defence case, we need to acquire a set of data that at the moment, we don’t have.”
Parker Eaton, who is British, was in charge of the engine room at the time of the sinking which includes securing the room and operational systems.
Griffith, believed to hold dual British and French nationality, is said to have been on watch at the time of the sinking, according to the BBC. Neither has appeared in court yet.
Prosecutors have already said the investigation will take some time given the wreck still needs to be salvaged from the sea.
The company which owns the Bayesian, Revtom, could not be reached by The Post for comment on this story.
The sinking has baffled naval marine experts who say the boat, built by Italian high-end yacht manufacturer Perini, should have been able to withstand the storm.
Prosecutors said the event was “extremely rapid” and could have been a “downburst” — a localized, powerful wind that descends from a thunderstorm and spreads out rapidly upon hitting the ground.
“I absolutely think it was a downburst, or what we also call a microburst,” Peter Lake, a veteran sailboat racing champion from Marblehead, Mass, told The Post.
“It’s one of the most powerful meteorological forces and I think this boat was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Italians are trying to find out if the crew was negligent in not taking precautions.
“But either way, what happened to Mike Lynch and the others trapped in the cabins was truly nightmarish. Water pours in at an extraordinary rate and there was nothing they could do to get out.”
The sailboat had been carrying 22 passengers and crew when it went down.
Those on board were there to help Lynch celebrate his recent acquittal in a major US fraud trial.
The body of the on-ship chef, Ricardo Thomas, was discovered shortly after the Bayesian sank.
The others who died after getting trapped in the hull included Lynch, his daughter, Manhattan attorney Christopher Morvillo and his wife, Neda, and Morgan Stanley exec Jonathan Bloomer and his wife, Judy.