The sailing yacht Bayesian was caught in an unexpectedly violent storm and sank near the Sicilian capital Palermo early Monday morning. One person was killed and six people are missing, including British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his daughter.
The 56-metre (184-foot) British-flagged Bayesian sailing boat, with 22 people on board, was anchored close to shore near the port of Porticello when fierce bad weather struck, the Italian coastguard said in a statement.
Witnesses said the yacht quickly disappeared beneath the waves shortly before dawn. Fifteen people managed to escape before the yacht went down, including Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, who owned the yacht, and a one-year-old girl.
The names of the dead and missing were not immediately released, but a person familiar with the rescue operation confirmed that Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah had not been found.
Salvatore Cocina, head of Sicily’s civil defence, said Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of Morgan Stanley International (MS.N) and Chris Morvillo, a lawyer at Clifford Chance, were also among the missing.
The Italian Coast Guard said the missing had British, US and Canadian citizenship. Survivors said the trip was organised by Lynch for his work colleagues.
Lynch, 59, is one of Britain’s best-known technology entrepreneurs. He created the country’s largest software company, Autonomy, from his pioneering research at Cambridge University and became known as Britain’s Bill Gates. He sold the company to HP for $11 billion before the deal spectacularly collapsed and the US tech giant accused him of fraud in 2011.
Lynch, once vaunted by academics, scientists and politicians, has spent much of the last decade in court defending his name. In June, a jury in San Francisco acquitted him after he spent more than a year virtually under house arrest. At the time, he said he was “happy” to have been acquitted in a criminal trial in which he denied any wrongdoing and blamed HP for the failed integration of the two companies.
Rescuers continue to search for survivors
The Coast Guard said divers were inspecting the Bayesian wreck, which lies at a depth of 49 metres. Prosecutors in the nearby town of Termini Imerese have launched an investigation to find out what happened.
Storms and torrential rain have hit Italy in recent days after weeks of intense heatwaves, with floods and landslides causing severe damage to the northern part of the country.
According to vessel tracking app Vesselfinder, the Bayesian left the Sicilian port of Milazzo on 14 August and last appeared on radar east of Palermo on Sunday evening, with a navigational status of “at anchor.” The eight people rescued were taken to local hospitals. All of them are in stable condition, local media reported.
The Bayesian yacht was built by Italian shipbuilding company Perini in 2008 and was last refitted in 2020 under the management of UK-based Camper & Nicholsons. The vessel has won several awards for its design and can accommodate up to 12 guests in six cabins and a crew of 10. Perini’s website claims that the yacht’s 75m mast is the tallest aluminium mast in the world.
