Sicily, 20 August 2024 (TDI): Morgan Stanley International bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer and Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo are among the 6 people missing after a luxury yacht sank in a storm off Sicily on Monday.
UK tech tycoon Mike Lynch, 59, and his daughter Hannah, 18, were earlier also reported unaccounted for after the yacht incident about 700m from the Mediterranean island’s shore.
The 56m Bayesian was carrying twenty two people including Brits, Canadians and Americans. Fifteen people were rescued, including a one-year-old British girl. Sicily’s Civil Protection said that the body of the ship’s cook was recovered.
The yacht capsized at about 05:00 local time after a heavy storm caused rotating columns of air and waterspouts.
The British-flagged yacht with ten crew and twelve passengers sank near the port of Porticello, just east of Sicily’s capital Palermo, on Monday.
Witnesses said that the Bayesian’s anchor was down when the storm struck, causing the mast to break and the yacht to lose its balance and sink.
Mike Lynch, one of the missing passengers, is also known as “the British Bill Gates”.
He co-founded software company Autonomy, before selling it to US computing giant Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2011 for 11 billion dollars.
The yacht’s name is believed to be based on the Bayesian theory, which Lynch’s PhD thesis was based on.
Lynch’s wife Bacares is named as the sole legal owner of Revtom, which is registered in the Isle of Man.
Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, was one of the fifteen people rescued.
A British mom and her one-year-old daughter were also rescued.
Survivors said the trip was arranged by Lynch for his work colleagues.
In the initial aftermath, a nearby Dutch-flagged ship rescued survivors from the waves, tending to them until emergency services arrived.
After the storm had passed, Captain Karsten Borner said his crew noticed the yacht that had been behind them had disappeared.
Eight of those rescued are under treatment in hospital, the Italian coastguard said.
The UK Foreign Office said it is supporting a number of British citizens and their families following an incident in Sicily.
