[nexus6]

The yacht had the 2nd tallest mast (tallest aluminium mast). The tornado/waterspout snapped the mast, which made the ship unbalanced and capsize. It sank quickly after that.

Not that out of the ordinary. There was another waterspout photographed in Italy that same day; they’re not that uncommon.

[rightbyte]

> snapped the mast, which made the ship unbalanced and capsize. It sank quickly after that.

Hardly.

The weight of the mast is bogger all compared to the keel. You are supposed to have sails in those which give a perpendicular force to the mast.

[trhway]

>snapped the mast, which made the ship unbalanced and capsize.

that sounds strange for a sailboat designed to keel a lot. And the unbroken mast has higher leverage, yet the boat keels without capsizing. And capsizing is usually not that great an issue too.

[katzinsky]

As someone with a sailboat who sails just about every week (since I live on it and have to keep moving) I'm also having a pretty hard time understanding this one.

In high winds removing the mast should make it less prone to capsizing just like reefing would.

EDIT: Oh I see they're thinking it's the waves not the wind.

[foldr]

Lots of independent sources suggest that the mast can increase resistance to capsizing and that losing a mast can make a boat more prone to capsizing.

https://www.morganscloud.com/2008/08/01/sailboat-stability-c...

Overall, the topic of sailboat stability is complex enough that books have been written on the subject: https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=o3edvBByudgC&o...

I would not dive into conspiracy theories on the basis of whatever back-of-an-envelope intuitions you might have here.