Search resumes for British tech tycoon Mike Lynch after Bayesian yacht sinks off Sicily

British-flagged Bayesian went down after being struck by a waterspout during bad weather

Divers operate in the sea to search for the missing, including British entrepreneur Mike Lynch, after a luxury yacht sank off Sicily, Italy August 19, 2024. Vigili del Fuoco/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. DO NOT OBSCURE LOGO.

Rescue personnel on boats on the sea near the scene where the yacht sank, off the coast of Porticello. Reuters

A survivor leaves the Coast Guard headquarters. Reuters

The 56-metre-long British-flagged Bayesian was carrying 22 people. EPA

Fifteen people were rescued and a search operation for those missing, including British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, CEO of Autonomy Group, is continuing. AFP

Emergency services carry a body bag after a sailboat sank in the early hours of Monday. Reuters

Emergency and rescue services work near the scene. Reuters

The last known location of the yacht Bayesian. PA

Specialist divers resumed the search on Tuesday for six people, including British technology entrepreneur Mike Lynch, 59, and his teenage daughter, who went missing after their luxury yacht sank after a tornado struck off the coast of Sicily.

The British-flagged Bayesian, which had 22 people on board, capsized about 5am on Monday after being battered during intense storms off the coast of Palermo.

Firefighter divers trained to work in tight spaces were flown in from Rome and Sardinia late on Monday. Officials in southern Italy said the missing were now feared dead aboard the sunken wreckage of a luxury yacht.

“Never say never is our motto,” Vincenzo Zagarola, spokesperson for the Italian Coastguard, said. “But, at this point, it would be reasonable to think that we are more likely to find the missing people inside the boat.”

But a first search of the wreck about 50 metres below the sea surface failed because they were unable to access the below-deck cabins that had become blocked by overturned furniture.

“Access was limited only to the bridge, with difficulty due to the presence of furniture obstructing passage,” the firefighters said on X.

They returned on Tuesday to tag-team in 12-minute underwater search shifts where the yacht sank. The rotating search teams, each made up of two specialised cave divers, were working to open up other access points to enter the wreckage.

British entrepreneur Mike Lynch leaves the High Court in London. He was celebrating a recent legal victory when his luxury boat sank. Reuters

Rescue crews said they assume the six passengers will be found in the cabins, given the time of the shipwreck.

A body, believed to be that of the vessel's chef, Ricardo Thomas, was discovered at the scene on Monday.

Feared dead

Mr Lynch and his daughter Hannah, 18, who The Times reported had secured a place to study English literature at the University of Oxford, are feared dead.

The school Hannah attended, Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith, London, said on Tuesday it was in shock at the news that the former pupil and her father were missing.

The school told The National: "We are all incredibly shocked by the news that Hannah and her father are among those missing in this tragic incident and our thoughts are with their family and everyone involved as we await further updates."

Stephen Chamberlain was killed while running in the village of Stretham in Cambridgeshire. PA

His close friend, Morgan Stanley International Bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer, is also missing, as is Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo. The wives of both men are also unaccounted for, according to authorities in Sicily.

They were invited on the trip to celebrate Mr Lynch’s recent acquittal of fraud charges in the US.

The tragedy came only days after the death of Mr Lynch’s former colleague and co-defendant, Stephen Chamberlain. The former vice president of finance at Autonomy was hit by a car in the UK while out running on Saturday and placed on life support but later died.

Intense storms

Prosecutors in the nearby town of Termini Imerese have opened an investigation into the sinking.

Four inspectors have also been sent by the UK's Marine Accident Investigation Branch to conduct a “preliminary assessment”. A basic assessment of the scene will be made by the team, with no investigation launched at this stage.

One expert at the scene of the disaster, who declined to be named, said an early focus of an investigation would be whether the yacht's crew had had time to close access hatches into the vessel before the storm struck.

More thunderstorms are forecast on Tuesday in Sicily. Italy is hit by about 100 tornadoes a year, according to AtmosphericG2, a company that provides weather data to traders. On average, more than 70 are “marine spouts,” occurring off the coast, with another 30 onshore.

Superyacht sinks off coast of Sicily during storm

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Acquitted

Mr Lynch, who co-founded software giant Autonomy in 1996, was awarded the Order of the British Empire for services to enterprise in 2006.

He was acquitted by a jury in San Francisco of fraud charges linked to the sale of Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard (HP)for $11 billion in 2011.

The sale cemented his reputation as Britain's answer to Bill Gates but it quickly turned sour after HP wrote down Autonomy's value by $8.8 billion.

Mr Lynch said he was “elated” to be cleared in the criminal trial, during which he took the stand in his own defence, denying to jurors any wrongdoing and blaming HP for botching the integration of the two companies.

Mr Bloomer, who is also chairman of insurance provider Hiscox, appeared as a defence witness in the case for Mr Lynch, according to the Financial Times. Mr Lynch appointed Mr Bloomer to Autonomy’s board of directors in 2010, where he served as chairman of the audit committee at the time of the HP deal.

Emergency services at the scene of the search for the stricken yacht, in Porticello, Sicily. AP

Night of panic

Fifteen people, including Mr Lynch's wife Angela Bacares, who owned the boat, were rescued.

Another survivor, British guest Charlotte Golunski, said she lost hold of her one-year-old daughter in the waves “for two seconds”, before managing to grab her “while the sea raged”.

“It was terrible. The boat was hit by really strong wind and shortly after it went down,” she said.

“Lots of people were screaming” in the dark, said Ms Golunski, who managed to clamber on to a life raft.

Ayla Ronald, a New Zealand citizen working at Clifford Chance in London, also survived. Her father Lin Ronald confirmed to The Telegraph she had been invited on board as thanks for assistance in Mr Lynch's recent court case.

“I have texted my daughter and she hasn't given me any updates about missing personnel or saved personnel. She has only said that there are deaths and she and her partner are alive,” he said.

“Ayla is a lawyer who is part of the legal team that were invited to go sailing as a result of the success in the recent United States court case.”

The 56-metre yacht was carrying 10 crew members and 12 passengers. It was anchored 700 metres from Porticello when it was struck by a waterspout, a column that descends from a cloud to form a rotating mixture of wind and water, often during severe thunderstorms.

The Italian coastguard is involved in the search. Reuters

World's tallest mast

Experts suspect the yacht's 75-metre high mast – which was the tallest aluminium sailing mast in the world, according to the Charter World website – may have caused it to sink by snapping in the storm, forcing the vessel to roll.

Fabio Cefalu, a fisherman who witnessed the freak storm, told Italian media he stayed on site for several hours.

“After 10 minutes we saw a flare in the sky, we waited about 10 minutes to see the intensity of the tornado and we went out to sea,” he said.

“We were first to give rescue but we found no one at sea, we only found cushions and the remains of the boat.”

Karsten Borner, the captain of a nearby boat, said there was a “very strong hurricane gust” and he had to battle to keep his vessel steady.

He saw the Bayesian's mast “bend and then snap”, according to Italy's Corriere della Sera daily newspaper.

His crew took on board some survivors who were on a life raft, three of whom were seriously injured. “I think they are inside, all the missing people,” he added.

A spokesman for the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said on Monday: “We are in contact with the local authorities following an incident in Sicily and stand ready to provide consular support to British nationals affected.”

The Bayesian completed a number of sailings in recent days, calling at various ports in Sicily, according to ship-tracking website VesselFinder.

The superyacht can accommodate up to 12 guests in six suites.

It was built in 2008 by Italian company Perini Navi and named after the Bayesian theory – a mathematical formula for determining conditional probability – which was the topic of Mr Lynch's doctorate thesis.

Mr Lynch is of Irish heritage but was born in Ilford in east London and raised in England.