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Most people have certain expectations when they purchase a boat that sets them back around $1 million, and “not tipping over after it goes in the water” tends to be near the top of that list. However, a yacht that recently set off for its maiden voyage in Turkey firmly failed that test.
Boats existed well before the Greek thinker Archimedes dreamed up the principle that explained how they manage to stay afloat, and it’s been more than 2,000 years since he correctly posited “any object, totally or partially immersed in a fluid or liquid, is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the object.”
That reality has since served as the foundation for the construction of the massive vessels that would seemingly have no business being buoyant if you weren’t familiar with the scientific rationale that states they’re capable of remaining above the surface if they’re able to displace an amount of water that is, at the very least, equal to the boat’s weight.
It’s safe to assume the people who designed a nearly 80-foot yacht that hit the water for the first time in Turkey at the start of September took that into account, but it appears there may have been another design flaw that led to its inaugural outing ending about as soon as it began.
A luxury yacht tipped over and sank 15 minutes into its maiden voyage in Turkey
There’s a common adage that states the best two days of a boat owner’s life are the day they buy it and the day they sell it, which is a testament to the many costly issues you can encounter when you’re responsible for taking care of one.
Based on that maxim, September 2nd should have been a great day for the owner of the Dolce Vento, an approximately 78-foot yacht that was built over a five-month period at the Med-Yilmaz shipyard in Eregli, Turkey this year to the tune of an estimated 40 million lira (~$970,000).
On Tuesday, the Dolce Vento left dry land for the very first time after being launched into the Black Sea, and according to Boat International, its maiden voyage only lasted around 15 minutes before the Coast Guard was hailed to rescue the four people (the owner, captain, and two crew members) who had to abandon ship after the yacht capsized and sank in approximately 23 feet of water.
All of the people aboard were unharmed, and while it’s not entirely clear what went wrong, a number of armchair experts who took a look at the video surmised the yacht fell victim to a fairly inexplicable engineering oversight that led to the top-heavy vessel tipping over.