Survivors and witnesses from a small nearby boat – along with official reports – initially helped piece together an account of how the disaster unfolded on Monday morning.
People reported seeing a “tornado” – later clarified as a swirling cloud of air known as a waterspout – hit the 246ft tall mast.
Officials have confirmed that this is what toppled the boat, causing it to capsize and take on water before it sank to the bottom of the sea.
Early reports suggested the disaster struck around 5am local time off the coast of Porticello Harbour in Palermo, Sicily.
The new data pulled from the boat’s AIS appears to suggest it happened an hour earlier at around 4am.
Some 15 of the 22 onboard were rescued, 11 of them scrambling onto an inflatable life raft that sprung up on the deck.
The smaller nearby boat – named Sir Robert Baden Powell – then helped take those people to shore.
More details about the disaster surfaced yesterday as emergency workers revealed how the passengers tried to flee the water as it gushed onboard.
Divers said the guests pulled from the wreckage fled their cabins on the right – or starboard – side of the boat and tried to “climb” to safety by heading for the left – port side – where they were found.
A source working in the investigation told Italian outlet Corriere : “We found them all on that side.
“We had maps with the layout of the cabins and the positions of the guests, and that’s not where we recovered them.”
Officials also revealed that the keel – a stabilising fin-like backbone underneath the vessel usually lowered for balance in deep waters – had been taken up before it sank.
He told The Sun: “Modern sailing ships, especially high-tech ones like the Perini, are designed to be extremely safe and stable.
“Even in very critical conditions, if procedures are followed, a sailing yacht like the Bayesian will return to an upright position.
“However, if the ship takes on water, this stability is compromised.
“Where the water entered will be determined by the investigators.
“What is certain is that the ship took on hundreds of thousands of litres of water.”
Mr Constantino also disputed claims the tornado had not been forecast and came as a shock and said it was “widely predicted”.
And referring to the AIS data obtained by prosecutors and available to Perini, he told the Financial Times: “The torture lasted 16 minutes.
“It went down, not in one minute as some scientists have said. It went down in 16 minutes.
“You can see it from the charts, from the AIS [Automatic Identification System] tracking chart.
“The captain should have prepared the boat and put it in a state of alert and of safety, just like the boat [the Sir Robert Baden Powell] anchored 350 metres away, which was built in 1957 and handled the [weather] event brilliantly.”
Dive rescue teams using a decompression chamber to recover after searching the wreck Darren Fletcher A Coast Guard vessel is pictured in front of the Domina Zagarella Sicily hotel where the survivors are staying Reuters AIS data is tracked on a map
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