Rescuers from the Vigili del Fuoco of the Italian Firefighters Corps patrol a small boat in Porticello, near Palermo, two days after the British-flagged luxury yacht Bayesian sank, on August 21, 2024. Rescuers with divers and an underwater drone are searching for six people who were trapped when the boat sank. | Photo credit: AFP
On Wednesday (August 21), divers resumed the search for survivors. British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch’s yacht sinks off the coast of Sicily However, the hopes of finding alive the six people who went missing two days ago had diminished.
The British-flagged 56-metre-long (184ft) superyacht Bayesian was carrying 22 people and was anchored off the port of Porticello, near Palermo, when it capsized during a severe storm on Monday.
Fifteen people survived, the body of one crew member was recovered and six passengers remain missing, including Lynch, his 18-year-old daughter and Jonathan Bloomer, non-executive chairman of Morgan Stanley International.
The fire department said on social media that the underwater inspection of the wreck resumed on Wednesday morning after being halted late Tuesday night. It had earlier described the operation as “long and complicated.”
The boat lay tilted at a depth of about 50 metres, giving divers 8-10 minutes to inspect it before surfacing. Fire department spokesman Luca Cari said efforts were hampered by “very limited” space inside the wreck.
Missing passengers
Mr Lynch, 59, is one of Britain’s best-known tech entrepreneurs. He founded the country’s biggest software firm Autonomy and has been called Britain’s Bill Gates.
He sold the firm to HP for $11 billion in 2011, after which the deal unexpectedly fell apart and the US technology giant accused him of fraud, resulting in a lengthy trial. In June a jury in San Francisco acquitted Mr Lynch of all charges,
The other missing passengers include Bloomer’s wife, Judy, Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife, Neda Morvillo. Mr. Morvillo represented Mr. Lynch in the San Francisco trial, while Mr. Bloomer was a character witness on his behalf.
Experts are unable to explain how a large luxury ship, believed to have high-class fittings and safety features, sank within minutes, as eyewitnesses reported. Another yacht anchored next to it due to the storm did not suffer any damage.
Bayesian was the victim of a “high-impact” and rare weather event, said Matthew Schanck, president of the Maritime Search and Rescue Council, a Britain-based nonprofit that trains maritime rescue workers.
“If it was a water fountain, as it appears to be, I would treat it as a black swan event,” he said. Reuters,
He said he was confident authorities would be able to determine the cause of the sinking based on accounts from survivors, eyewitnesses and examination of the ship, which lay intact on the seabed.