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 dead 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 d!ed 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 deaths 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.”
