[maxlamb]

People have not been making vessels with 237ft masts for thousands of years. That boat literally had one of the tallest mast ever to exist on a boat. You combine the “extreme” nature of this boat with an extreme weather event and you get an extremely outlier outcome

[randomNumber7]

I did some resarch because i didnt believe your comment at first.

It seems true, the preussen had a similiar height and was a really big ship.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preussen_(ship)

It shows how utterly insane the design of the bayesian was.

[jabl]

Materials science has advanced quite a bit since the Preussen though. Aluminum, or even carbon fiber masts, rod standing rigging, Dyneema (UHMWPE) ropes, etc., all add up and drastically reduces weight.

Not saying the Bayesian design was or wasn't insane, I don't know, but my point is that it shouldn't be judged compared to what was done over 100 years ago.

[potato3732842]

It's only ~10% taller than the top end of stuff that was cranked out for commercial use 150yr ago. Forgive me for being unimpressed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Republic_(1853_clipper)

Yes, the yacht is a much smaller ship but it has half as many masts it's masts are aluminum, it has engines so it doesn't have to run sail in poor conditions to maintain control authority and benefits from 150yr of improvements to watertightness.

I get that everyone wants to act smug because "everybody knows that you don't put big weight high up, hehehe, stupid billionares" but I'm betting that when the dust settles, the circle jerking dies down and the reports get published the end result will be the mast being a contributory factor (I'm betting on the reduction in righting moment rather than wind area) at best and that the outcome would not have been that much more unavoidable had the same other currently unknown errors been made on the other ships of the class.

A modern ship in good state doesn't just sink in minutes from capsizing. Other stuff had to have gone wrong here too. These vessels are designed that you can spend all day burying the bow in wave after wave. A little dip of one gunnel into the water should not be catastrophic. TFA discusses this.

[maxlamb]

Ok true but that boat was much much heavier and bigger. So the ratio of mast height to weight/size on the Bayesian was extreme