The rumour I heard on “The Yacht Report” youtube channel is that when the retractable keel was down it was noisy. (Probably because there was enough play in the mechanism so it was banging around as the waves passed.) And the thought was, again according to this unverified rumour, that they only needed to extend the retractable keel when they had the sails up.

Now obviously nobody sane would make the knowing trade to risk their life for a bit of quiet. But it is easy to imagine the crew getting into the habit of retracting the keel so they can keep the rich guests comfortable. And especially if they were doing that on the regular and nothing bad happened ever people would normalise it and see it as the correct operating procedure. One might view this as a form of normalisation of deviance. “The gradual process through which unacceptable practice or standards become acceptable. As the deviant behaviour is repeated without catastrophic results, it becomes the social norm for the organisation.”

(Technically speaking of course it is only normalisation of deviance if this was unacceptable practice. If it is true that the ship’s operating manual did not require them to have the keel down in that configuration then it is not deviance and then the term does not apply.)

Will be interesting to read the exact findings about this in the investigation report once it is out.

From what I understand, leaving the keel up would be reasonable enough if a boat was rigged as designed. Typically the boat would be ballasted differently if you have a retractable keel/centreboard. Sounds like converting the rig from a ketch to a sloop is probably the root of the design issues, combined with some troubling risks of down flooding from the various vents mounted close to the water line.

You should have positive righting moment with the keel up and sails rigged, otherwise it's totally unsafe. When you're sailing downwind you have the keel up for speed. If you get knocked down in this situation--a broach, for instance--the boat needs to be able to right itself otherwise you probably die. This boat sank when it got knocked down, and it doesn't seem the keel had anything to do with it.

The keel should have helped stop it from being knocked down, by shifting the center of gravity down.

Do you know that raising the keel when sailing downwind was standard procedure on ships like this, or are you extrapolating from experience on dinghies and small keelboats? There are many yachts where keels are retractable, but left down when sailing downwind (the Hobie 33 comes to mind).

I thought the keel only needed to be down when they were something like 70 knots out at sea with the sails out, otherwise it was in the 'keel lite' position.

Like yourself, I await the investigation report, however, I suspect that will be a bit underwhelming and only confirm speculation. It is not good to speak ill of the dead, so it will take a lot longer before someone tells the unvarnished truth. I suspect that will be a story of folly, with the big mast being the 'invisible clothes'.

We have lots of these stories at the moment, from Oceangate all the way to the Boeing 'projects' that have been off the mark. You could 'explain it like I am five' to write a really good story book for bedtime reading for kids, going from the depths of the ocean to space, with follies that follow the same story, all the way. What a great time to be alive.

> You could 'explain it like I am five' to write a really good story book for bedtime reading for kids, going from the depths of the ocean to space, with follies that follow the same story, all the way

I love that concept!

>I thought the keel only needed to be down when they were something like 70 knots out at sea

60 nautical miles out to sea according to a write up by a former captain of the yacht (https://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2024/08/27/former-bayesia...)

>One section of the Bayesian Stability book related to the use of the moveable keel… and defines when it must be lowered. In this vessel’s case it was required to be lowered when using sails, and/ or when over 60 nautical miles offshore (regardless of whether sailing or only using engines). At all other times, it could be in the raised position.

Perhaps interesting for people, 'knots' is actually a measure of speed rather than distance and relates to the practice of counting how many knots in a line (rope) went over the stern of the boat during a certain time, giving the speed of the boat relative to the water (https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/knots-measuring-speed-s...)

Edit: typos

> 'knots' is actually a measure of speed

Absolutely right. My first interpretation of that "something like 70 knots out at sea" was that it is the purported limit speed over which they must lower their keel. But that interpretation would be... improbable to say the least.

70 knots (~130 km/h, ~80 m/h) is ridiculously fast for a sailing ship.

I just checked and the fastest ever instantaneous speed reported by a sailing ship is lower than 70 knots. (68.33 knots to be precise)

I felt that I had misspoke with 'knots'! I only know miles, but miles are a land thing and I knew they used something else on the water. Should have checked sources!

Check out the link somewhere here in this discussion above from the previous Captain of this boat explaining the architecture of the boat and the keel situation. It sounds like that probably had less to do with it than the vents being opened to run the HVAC.