The British entrepreneur Mike Lynch is among six people missing after a luxury yacht sank off the coast of Sicily during a storm. The Guardian reports that 22 people were onboard when the vessel sank, of whom 15 have been rescued by the Italian coastguard and firefighters, including a one year-old child, while one person has died.
Lynch and his 18 year-old daughter Hannah are among three Britons that remain missing, while his wife, Angela Bacares, has been rescued. Two Americans and a Canadian are also missing.
A statement from the Italian coastguard reads: “This morning at about 5:00 am, following a violent storm, a 56-metre yacht called Bayesian flying the British flag sank near Porticello.”
Local reports said the boat sank after being hit by a waterspout, a mix of wind and water that can form in storms and is often referred to as a mini-tornado. The BBC reports that fishers saw the waterspout off the coast at around 3:55 am local time, and shortly afterwards saw a distress flare that may have come from the Bayesian. Approaching, they found only “scattered remains of the sailboat floating in the water.”
Eight of those rescued, including the baby, are now in local hospitals in a stable condition. The captain of a nearby boat told reporters he had taken on 15 survivors from a life raft, and that the Bayesian was “heeling” (listing to one side) before it went under.
The one year-old was saved by her mother, who held her daughter’s head above the water while screaming for rescue. “It was all dark,” said the woman, named by the BBC as British citizen Charlotte Golunski. “In the water, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I was screaming for help, but all I could hear around me were the screams of others.”
The Bayesian is owned by Revtom, a firm registered in the Isle of Man of which Angela Bacares is the sole owner. The luxury yacht can carry 12 guests and a crew of ten.
Lynch is best-known for founding Autonomy Corporation in the 1990s, a software company that was bought for $11.1 billion by Hewlett-Packard in 2011. In recent years he had been in the news after HP launched legal action against Lynch and others over the sale, alleging they had exaggerated the firm’s numbers and misled regulators to dupe HP into the sale. Lynch was extradited to the US, and won the case earlier this year. Dubbed “Britain’s Bill Gates” by some, Lynch is also a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society.
After being acquitted in the HP case and returning to the UK, Lynch said “I am looking forward to returning to the UK and getting back to what I love most: my family and innovating in my field.”
The Italian Coastguard remains searching, with both divers and helicopter teams involved. They have located the wreck approximately 50 metres below the surface. The operation will continue through the night, with further specialist teams travelling to the scene.
“We think [the bodies] must be there [in the wreckage],” Francesco Venuto of Sicily’s civil protection agency told the BBC. “We’ve been searching all day with helicopters and boats, we’ve found nothing. That wouldn’t make sense, in these conditions we should have found something by now.”
“We are in contact with the local authorities following an incident in Sicily,” said a spokesperson for the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, “and stand ready to provide consular support to British nationals affected.”