Vigili del Fuoco

The search is continuing today for six people still missing, including British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, after a superyacht sank in a freak maritime accident off the Sicilian coast.

The incident occurred around 4am local time yesterday (19 August 2024), when the Perini Navi-built sailing yacht Bayesian capsized amid severe weather conditions.

The £14m yacht was carrying 22 people. Among those still missing include Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter and Jonathan Bloomer, chair of Morgan Stanley International bank, and non-executive chairman of insurance provider Hiscox. Although not formally identified, Palermo’s coastguard has said a man pulled from the water dead shortly after the Bayesian sank is Canadian Ricardo Thomas or Recaldo Thomas, the ship’s cook.

A waterspout—a rare type of tornado that forms over water—which struck off the coast of Sicily on the night of the incident, is being blamed for the sinking. The waterspout snapped the aluminium mast, causing the boat to keel over and take on water before rapidly sinking.

Fabio Cefalù, 36, a fisher from Porticello, was among those to provide assistance to the Bayesian.

“I arrived at the port at 3:30am for a fishing trip,” he told the Guardian. “But when we saw the first flashes of lightning, we decided to stop. At 3:55am, a mini tornado arrived. The docks of the port diverted it and it hit the sailboat head-on. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Cefalù adds that the whirlwind lasted about “10 minutes with strong winds and rain.”

He recalls the crew “saw a flare 500 metres from the dock,” adding: “We went to see what had happened. We only saw the floating debris of the boat. We immediately called the coastguard.

“The sea was terrible. The wind very strong. The storm destroyed my solar panels. The vessel was hit head-on. I thought I would find someone in the sea. But nothing. The boat had disappeared from the radar.

“In my opinion, the missing passengers are still on board. They were caught in their sleep by the storm and didn’t have time to get out.”

The sinking of a vessel the size of the Bayesian in bad weather is “unprecedented”, a maritime expert has told UK media. Matthew Schanck, chair of the Maritime Search and Rescue Council, said he was surprised the yacht had gone down, even despite the conditions.

“It’s sort of unprecedented, really, to have a vessel of that size, being certified and commercially operated, to suffer such a significant event in weather that was pretty severe by all accounts, but should have been within the limits of the vessel itself,” he told GB News.

Teams of divers from the fire brigade arrived yesterday to inspect the wreck, which has been found lying on its side at a depth of 48m. This morning, a member of the dive team confirmed the wreck is “practically intact” on the seabed.

In an interview with the Italian daily newspaper Il Messaggero, Marco Tilotta, a firefighter diver from Palermo, described the wreckage.

“When we went down to the water around 5:30am, we found a yacht that was practically intact. It is resting on its side on the starboard side. It has no gashes, no signs of impact.,’ he says

Tilotta adds that divers have not yet been able to access the interior due to floating furniture and other debris.

The 56-metre yacht had a 72-metre aluminium mast from RSB Rigging Solutions. It was the world’s tallest aluminium mast and the second tallest overall, and could carry nearly 3,000 square metres of sail.

The captain of the Bayesian, James Catfield, is being treated in hospital. He told Italian media, “We didn’t see it coming,” but has not commented further.

Catfield was among the 15 passengers and crew members rescued from life rafts after the boat went down. Due to the sudden nature of the event, it’s understood those who were rescued had boarded the life rafts from sea.

A spokesperson for Camper & Nicholsons, the firm that manages the 2008-built boat, told BBC: “Our priority is assisting with the ongoing search and providing all necessary support to the rescued passengers and crew.”

The Bayesian‘s registered owner is Revtom Ltd, which is based on the Isle of Man. Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares, who was rescued from the wreck, is named as the firm’s sole legal owner.

It’s understood Lynch—one of the UK’s best-known tech entrepreneurs—was aboard the yacht celebrating the recent conclusion of a US fraud trial related to the sale of his firm Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard in 2011 for $11bn (£7bn).

Stephen Chamberlain, Lynch’s co-defendant in the trial, died on Saturday (17 August) after being “fatally struck” by a car while jogging in the English county of Cambridgeshire. The driver has not been arrested and is assisting police with their enquiries.

Both Chamberlain and Lynch had been cleared of fraud in June, following a lengthy trial in Silicon Valley, marking the end of an almost 13-year saga.

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