PALMERO/ROME: Divers scoured the wreck of a luxury yacht off Sicily’s coast on Tuesday to find six missing people, including British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his daughter, following an intense storm that sank the vessel on Monday.

The British-flagged Bayesian, a 56-metre-long (184-ft) superyacht, was carrying 22 people and anchored off the port of Porticello when it was hit by the fierce, pre-dawn storm.

Witnesses said the boat disappeared beneath the waves in a matter of minutes, baffling naval experts who said a boat as large as the Bayesian would have been designed to stay afloat for many hours despite taking on water.

Fifteen people escaped before it capsized and the body of one person who died was swiftly recovered. That left six passengers unaccounted for – Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah; Judy and Jonathan Bloomer, a non-executive chair of Morgan Stanley International; and Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife, Neda Morvillo.

‘UK’s Bill Gates’ Mike Lynch, Morgan Stanley official and other high-powered guests still missing

However, there was little chance of finding more survivors, rescuers said. “The fear is that the bodies got trapped inside the vessel,” said Salvatore Cocina, head of civil protection in Sicily.

The boat was lying at a depth of 49 metres (160 feet), giving divers only 8-10 minutes at the wreck site before they had to resurface. Entering the boat was also proving difficult, said the fire brigade, which is leading the search operation.

Who was on board?

Lynch, 59, is one of the UK’s best-known tech entrepreneurs. He built the country’s largest software firm, Autonomy, and was referred to as Britain’s Bill Gates.

Jonathan Bloomer has been non-executive chair of Morgan Stanley International since 2016, and is the chair of international specialist insurer, Hiscox. He was also chief executive of insurance and investment company Prudential from 2000 to 2005.

Christopher Morvillo, a partner at law firm Clifford Chance in New York City, was part of Lynch’s defence team, fighting a long legal battle to acquit his client.

Lynch sold Autonomy to HP for $11 billion in 2011, after which the deal spectacularly unravelled with the US tech giant accusing him of fraud, resulting in a lengthy trial. Lynch was eventually acquitted by a jury in San Francisco in June.

Morvillo represented Lynch in the case, while Bloomer had appeared as a character witness on his behalf.

Stephen Chamberlain, Mike Lynch’s co-defendant in the trial, also died following a road accident in Britain over the weekend, his lawyer said on Monday.

The Bayesian was owned by Lynch’s wife, who survived the disaster, and other guests on the yacht included Lynch’s colleagues. The only body so far retrieved was that of the onboard chef Ricardo Thomas, an Antiguan citizen.

Dangerous tides

The shipwreck off the coast of Sicily is the latest sign that the Mediterranean is becoming a more dangerous sea to sail in, climate experts and skippers say.

Climatologists say global warming is making such violent and unexpected tempests more frequent in a sea used as a summer playground for millions of tourists, including a wealthy few sailing its waters on superyachts.

Luca Mercalli, president of Italy’s meteorological society, said the sea surface temperature around Sicily in the days leading up to the shipwreck was about 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), almost three degrees more than normal.

“This creates an enormous source of energy that contributes to these storms,” he told Reuters.

The changes in “Mare Nostrum” (Our Sea), as the ancient Romans called the Mediterranean, are also being noticed by experienced skippers such as Massimo Aramu, who runs the Akua sailing school on the coast near the Italian capital.

Currently sailing around Greece, Aramu said he did not like navigating Italy’s Tyrrhenian coast around Sicily or the Spanish Balearic islands because there are “often critical situations with little warning”.

Last week, a storm similar to the one that sank the Bayesian hit the Balearic archipelago, which includes the islands of Ibiza and Mallorca, leaving several yachts washed up ashore.

Published in Dawn, August 21st, 2024