Here is another thought - pure speculation, of course, and we are most unlikely to ever learn the "truth" of what really happened here. The vessel was a pleasure vessel and the crew was "foreign nationals" as far as
Portugal is concerned, and of no known political significance either to the nation where the sinking took place or to their native land. Hence, there will be no enquiry.
As Boatie pointed out (and he should know), the
water is skinny where the sinking occurred. In videos, breakers can be seen further from the shore than the yacht was, which gives rise to the thought that there, where the breakers were to
seaward from the yacht's position at the moment of
capsize, the sea was "feeling bottom", and that the yacht was in RELATIVELY deeper water, between two "bars", at the time it was lost.
In seas such as these the
depth of water from the bottom of a wavetrough to the sea bottom would be less than it is when the sea is "flat", and this
depth is continually changing. It is possible - pure speculation - that a sea, higher than most, came rolling along followed by a trough deeper than most, and deep enough to make the Bavaria's
keel touch bottom as she was in the bottom of that trough, and cause it to be torn off. As the next wave came, it rolled the boat which had lost her righting moment. The loss of righting moment would have happened so quickly that the crew would have been taken entirely by surprise, and would have had no time at all to take any remedial action either for the boat or for themselves.
In videos of the
salvage work on the beach one can see that a part of the boat's bottom has been torn away - a panel perhaps about 4' x 6' feet. Looking at the profile view given in SailboatData, I don't think it is farfetched to think that the keel-to-hull interface is of minimal integrity on those boats. We see also in the video of the upturned
hull lying on the beech, that the
keel is gone, but the spade
rudder is still there.
That IMO lends credence to my "theory" that the
capsize was a result of the keel being torn off PRIOR to the capsize so the boat stabilized in the inverted position accounting for the
rudder not being torn off by touching bottom.
As I say - speculation. But not without credence for those of us who were warned with some emphasis, and early in life, against the skinny waters on the west costs of
Europe
TP