One body has been recovered but six others are still missing after a superyacht, most of whose passengers were British, sank in a storm off the coast of Sicily.
About 15 people were rescued from the 55-metre (180-foot) boat, including a one-year-old British girl named Sophia and her mother, 35-year-old Charlotte Gornski.
Local media reports said those missing were Mr Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter Hannah, four Britons, including a lawyer, and two Americans.
Here’s everything we know so far about the luxury cruise liner sinking.
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1:11 Tornado capsizes yacht, one killed
What caused the sinking?
According to ship-tracking website Marine Traffic, the British-flagged luxury cruise liner Bayesian capsized off the coast of Palermo at around 4:30 a.m. local time.
According to the Italian Coast Guard, the ship sank with 22 people on board, including 12 passengers and 10 crew members.
Local media said a waterspout, a tornado that originates over water, was seen as strong winds and ripped through the area throughout the night.
Image: A shipwreck off the coast of Palermo. Photo: Fabio La Bianca
What is a water tornado?
Water tornadoes usually occur during thunderstorms and can develop very quickly, within minutes.
Rotation speeds typically range from 75 to 200 mph, but can reach speeds of up to 300 mph or more.
Image: An example of a water tornado in the Mediterranean Sea in 2018. File photo: Reuters
They typically travel at about 10 to 20 miles per hour, but sometimes much faster, making them difficult to avoid, especially on slow-moving vessels like yachts.
Matthew Shank, president of the Maritime Search and Rescue Council, said reports of tornadoes and waterspouts were “rare” and “very concerning.”
Image: Rescue operations. Photo: Vigili del Fuoco/PA Image: Body bags being pulled out of the water. Photo: Reuters
“The vessel was anchored at its designated anchorage,” Shank said.
“Depending on wind direction and sea conditions, the captain will decide if it is a safe place to anchor or not. From my perspective, there were no indications of concern. Overall, the captain used the information he had available to make a safe decision.”
Who owns the yacht?
Among those missing is British IT tycoon Mike Lynch.
The yacht’s owner, a 59-year-old man known as the “British Bill Gates”, has been in the news in recent months for a number of high-profile fraud cases.
Image: Mike Lynch. Photo: Reuters
A US jury in June acquitted him of all charges related to the 2011 sale of his software company, Autonomy, to Hewlett-Packard.
HP accused him of knowingly stating the company’s value before it was acquired by the American technology company.
Lynch was extradited to the US to stand trial in May last year and spent 13 months under house arrest in San Francisco awaiting trial on 17 charges of conspiracy and wire fraud brought by the US Department of Justice (later reduced to 15 charges).
He always denied any wrongdoing and was acquitted.
Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacalez, has been identified as among those rescued.
0:50 Surveillance camera captures storm that capsized superyacht
Who was on board the ship when it sank?
The Italian coast guard said the ship was carrying passengers from Britain, the United States and Canada.
Italian media reported that most of those on the yacht were British, with the rest from New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Ireland and British French.
One of the Britons rescued from the ship was Ms Gornski, who is a partner at Mr Lynch’s firm Invoke Capital and has worked there since 2012, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Pictured: Charlotte Gornski was rescued with her one-year-old daughter.
After the incident, Gornschi told Italian media he lost his daughter Sofia for “two seconds” in the “ferocious” waves of the ocean but managed to get her back.
She said she held her baby above the waves until a lifeboat was ready.
“Many people were screaming. Luckily the lifeboat inflated and 11 of us got on board,” she told ANSA.
The girl’s father, James Emslie, also survived, according to Salvo Cocina of Sicily’s Civil Defense.
Prior to joining Invoke Capital, Gornski worked at Hewlett-Packard for 11 months and studied history at Oxford University.
Pictured: Emergency workers at the scene. Photo: Reuters
Eight of those rescued were taken to a local hospital and all were in stable condition, local media said.
During the rescue operation, divers spotted a “corpse through a porthole” of the sunken ship as they retrieved the man’s body at a depth of 50 metres (164 feet), Salvo Cocina, head of Sicily’s civil defence, said.
Luca Cali, a spokesman for Italy’s Fire and Rescue Service, said the body found was believed to be the ship’s cook.
Image: Palermo port after the storm. Photo: Fabio La Bianca. Image: Storm damage.
Shank said authorities should have been warned about the emergency fairly early, given the size of the ship.
He said what made the search and rescue effort difficult was the time the incident occurred.
Visibility [would have been hampered] “Given that it was night or early morning and most of the passengers were asleep below the ship, it may have been difficult for them to escape to safety, especially if the incident had unfolded quickly,” he said.
What do we know about the ship?
The Baysian is known for its unusual 75 metre (246 ft) single mast, one of the tallest aluminium masts in the world.
The yacht’s name comes to Lynch’s mind because the software that made his fortune was based on a statistical technique called Bayesian estimation, which is based on 18th century theory and helps forecasters predict outcomes with more certainty.
The vessel was built by Italy’s Perini Navi in 2008 and was last refurbished in 2020.
According to online rental sites, the property was being rented out for up to 195,000 euros (£166,000) a week.
Managed by yacht company Camper & Nicholsons, the luxury vessel can accommodate up to 12 guests in six suites.
Image: Photo: Danny Wheels
According to an online yacht specialist site, the vessel has won numerous awards for its design.
Mr Shank said the yacht would have also been fitted with a “high standard” of life-saving and radio communication equipment, adding that it would have met all international standards and UK coastguard regulations before setting sail.
According to ship-tracking website Vessel Finder, the vessel left the Sicily port of Milazzo on August 14 and was last tracked east of Palermo on Sunday evening, with its navigation status listed as “at anchor.”
The Bayesian had travelled to other parts of Sicily before being last spotted off the coast of Porticello.
Image: Bayesian past 24 hour track. Photo: MarineTraffic
According to MarineTraffic data, the vessel was spotted yesterday off the coast of Cefalù before heading towards Porticello.
Previously, the yacht has toured four islands in the Aeolian Islands, just north of Sicily.
The plane was previously named “Salute,” which means “health” in Italian, when it flew under the Dutch flag. The plane’s minimalist interior features light wood with Japanese accents, designed by French designer Rémi Tessier, according to the charter site.
Prosecutors in the nearby town of Termini Imerese have opened an investigation into the sinking.