Very mysterious event, only announced by a press release from Oyster a couple of weeks after, otherwise it had been kept very hush-hush with Oyster promising a "full investigation" of what happened...

Well, a few days ago, her captain showed up over on Cruiser's Forum, to give his version of what REALLY happened...

Absolutely extraordinary, basically the keel fell off, and peeled a gigantic section of the adjacent bottom of the boat off with it:

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f106/oyster-problems-151112-6.html#post1969977

Here's his account from a bit deeper in the thread:

"Hello guys, in your posts there are a lot of questions to reply, I will try to reply to all of that and at the same time I will tell some "facts" about our story and about this building. I'm speaking about "facts" because the funny declarations released by Oyster can confuse the readers.(nl)FACT 1: (why I know what I know)(nl)The owner built the boat with the target to sail around the world, then he asked to me to follow the commissioning, to prepare the boat for this long trip and to choose and to organize the crew. I arrived in the shipyard in the April 2014, and I stayed there every day up to the launch of the boat in July, then I have sailed on her as captain about 10.000 miles: Southampton- Norway and back, Southampton-Las Palmas, ARC rally, cruises in Caribe, Antigua-Alicante (we never arrived).(nl)FACT 2: (the crew)(nl)The boat had two permanent crew member, to be able to manage this aspect I have organized a tourn-over of 5 people:(nl)Alessio Cannoni(nl)Dafne Mele(nl)Giulia Visintin(nl)Monica Rosini(nl)Riccardo Salimbeni(nl)during last trip the professional crew was: me and Dafne.(nl)FACT 3the boat design)(nl)the boat was not extended, she was designed and built by Oyster exactly as you can see in the pictures.(nl)FACT 4: (the meteo)(nl)we sunk in a sunny day we were reaching in 18 kn of TW with about 1.3 m of wave, sailing with staysail and 80% main sail.(nl)FACT 5: (SHORT DESCRIPTION OF THE ACCIDENT)(nl)3 JULY 2015 TIME 14:07'(nl)strong noise with vibration from the hull(nl)14:07'15"(nl)big flooding in the engine room(nl)14:07'30"(nl)water over the service batteries; all systems KO(nl)14:07'45"(nl)I bear away, the crew prepare emergency bilge pump, life rafts, grab bags, furl manually the stay sail, send the may-day by standard-C and by VHF(nl)14:13'(nl)the keel disconnected completely and the boat capsized, in that moment I was standing up in front of the chart table (deck-house) sending the may-day, the water was already cooling down my balls.(nl)a fishing boat "fished"us after a couple of hours.(nl)FACT 6:(nl)we made a video from the life raft, it show the two rudders pointing the sky perfectly intacs, a big hole in to the hull; the relic float upside down all night long, the following morning we found the boat still floating about 15 miles from the capsizing point, one missing rudder, the other one partially broken.(nl)FACT 7:(nl)the CEO of Oyster knows exactly this story, he sent two people on site the following day, I told them every single detail of the accident and I gave to them all the pictures and movies that I had and that I still have.(nl)The relic of the boat and the keel was rescued in October. This operation was a month-long, I participated to this operation and I participated also to the survey performed by all the insurance company's surveyors. We are waiting for the response. "

The boat was eventually raised, and a number of photos have emerged of the damage as she sits in a Spanish yard...

They are remarkable, I must say I have NEVER seen anything like this failure before... Browse thru the thread over there to see them, and there are also more recently published on this German yachting site:

http://www.yacht.de/panorama/news/oyster-825-krasse-bilder-eines-wracks/a103137.html

Only time will tell, but one has to assume this will be a MASSIVE hit to the reputation of the Oyster "brand"

Wow, just WOW...