Wednesday, October 30, 2024 – Two influencers who
refused to wear life jackets drowned when their boat was sunk by a huge wave
after a yacht party in Brazil.
Victims Aline Tamara Moreira de Amorim, 37, and Beatriz
Tavares da Silva Faria, 27, were found d£@d after their overcrowded
boat sank off a stretch of coast known as the Devil’s Throat.
Now nearly a month after the drownings, police say the women
died when their overloaded boat was swamped as it returned to the Brazilian
coast as they left the party.
Sao Vincente police commissioner Marcos Alexandre Alfino
says the influencers had refused to wear life jackets, local media
reported on 25th October.
He said: “Some didn’t want to put them on because they
were taking selfies. They said that they get in the way of their tanning.”
The revelation came after the boat’s skipper, not named by
police, had given extensive interviews to police over the deaths.
The captain, one of five survivors, said he had been ordered
to take six influencers to the shore despite his boat having a maximum capacity
of five passengers.
So when the craft was hit by a huge wave on 29th September,
reports local media, it was too heavy to ride it out and began to sink. The
skipper told police he had tried desperately to save everyone.
Beatriz’s body was found first drifting out to sea and was
recovered by Brazil’s Maritime Firefighters.
Aline was found dead a week later washed up on the coast of
Itaquitanduva Beach.
Police are now trying to establish if their de@ths were
simply a tragic accident or could have been prevented.
Commissioner Alfino explained: “All this is being
determined very calmly to conclude if the fatalities were based on recklessness
or negligence.”
Heartbreakingly mum-of-one Aline, who could not swim, had
posted her last social media images as she posed on the boat in a daring
bikini.
CrossFit trainer Beatriz had been a model since she was a
schoolgirl.
Local media named the survivors as Vanessa Audrey da Silva,
Camila Alves de Carvalho, Daniel Goncalves Ferreira, Gabriela Santos Lima and
Natan Cardoso Soares da Silva.
Vanessa later told local media that a group of friends and
influencers had met up to party on a luxury yacht and spent the day cruising
and drinking. They later split into two groups to get back to shore but one was
swamped by a wave on the return journey.
Vanessa said she had managed to scramble into a life jacket
and survived by clinging to rocks.
She said: “There was a moment in the water when no one
could see anyone. I was fighting for life.”
Another survivor Camila says she clutched a life jacket in
her hands and clung on for dear life.
She said: “There were very strong waves, we almost
died. We didn’t know how to swim. I knew that I couldn’t take it for long. I
hurt my foot and swallowed a lot of water. We threw ourselves into the
rocks.”
