British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch is missing after a superyacht sank off the coast of Sicily during a violent storm.
The British-flagged Bayesian, a 56-meter sailboat, was carrying 22 people and anchored near the port of Porticello when it was struck by a tornado in the early hours, according to a statement from the Italian coastguard.
One man, believed to be the vessel’s chef, was confirmed dead, and six others, including Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, were still unaccounted for on Monday evening. The missing individuals have British, American, and Canadian nationalities, the coastguard reported.
Fifteen people were rescued, among them Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, who owned the yacht, and a one-year-old girl saved by her mother.
A spokesperson for Lynch declined to comment.
A spokesperson for the UK Foreign Office stated: “We are providing consular support to a number of British nationals and their families following an incident in Sicily, and are in contact with the local authorities.”
Lynch co-founded Autonomy, a software firm that became one of the UK tech scene’s most prominent companies in the mid-90s.
Once dubbed Britain’s Bill Gates, Lynch has spent much of the last decade defending himself in court against fraud allegations related to the $11 billion sale of Autonomy to the US tech giant Hewlett-Packard.
In June, the 59-year-old was acquitted by a jury in San Francisco after spending over a year effectively under house arrest.
Upon his acquittal, Lynch told reporters: “I am looking forward to returning to the UK and getting back to what I love most: my family and innovating in my field.”
In a separate development on Monday, Lynch’s co-defendant from that trial, Stephen Chamberlain, died after being hit by a car while out running in Cambridgeshire.
Chamberlain, the former vice-president of finance at Autonomy, was struck on Saturday morning and placed on life support, according to Reuters.
Chamberlain’s lawyer, Gary Lincenberg, stated that he had died after being “fatally struck” by a car while out running.
Lincenberg added: “He was a courageous man with unparalleled integrity, and we deeply miss him. He fought successfully to clear his good name, which lives on through his wonderful family.”
Lynch was awarded an OBE for services to enterprise in 2006 and was appointed to the science and technology council of then-Prime Minister David Cameron in 2011. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2008 and the Royal Society in 2014.
The Italian coastguard said: “This morning at about 5 am, following a violent storm, a 56-meter yacht called Bayesian flying the British flag sank near Porticello.”
The yacht had a crew of 10 and 12 passengers.
Rescue divers are attempting to reach the hull, which sank to approximately 49 meters. The public prosecutor’s office in Termini Imerese is investigating the incident.
Ten of the rescued, including the one-year-old child, were taken to hospitals, all in stable condition.
Domenico Cipolla, a chief physician at Di Cristina hospital in Palermo, where the one-year-old girl and her mother were admitted, said: “The baby is doing well. The mother is also in good condition, albeit with some minor abrasions. The father will also be discharged from the hospital soon.
“They said most of the passengers were colleagues of Lynch’s. They are deeply traumatized. As time passes, they realize more and more that they lost many friends this morning.”
The mother of the one-year-old child, Charlotte Golunski, 36, reportedly said she kept her daughter afloat by holding her arms outstretched to prevent her from drowning.
“It was all dark,” she told Italian media. “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.”
She said the passengers, all Lynch’s colleagues, had traveled to the Aeolian Islands, Milazzo, and Cefalù.
The coastguard stated that the yacht was built by the Italian shipbuilder Perini in 2008. The luxury vessel had an aluminum hull, could reach a maximum speed of 15 knots, and could carry 12 guests and a crew of up to 10, according to online yacht sites.
The yacht left the Sicilian port of Milazzo on August 14 and was last tracked east of Palermo on Sunday evening, with a navigation status of “at anchor,” according to the tracking app VesselFinder.
Local media reported that a waterspout had hit the vessel. A waterspout, which resembles a mini-tornado, is a column that descends from a cloud to form a rotating mixture of wind and water over a body of water.
Fishers reported seeing a small tornado off the coast at about 3:55 am. Shortly after, they spotted a distress flare allegedly launched from the vessel. The fishers approached but saw only “scattered remains of the sailboat floating in the water.”
Storms and heavy rainfall have swept through Italy in recent days, with floods and landslides causing severe damage in the north of the country after weeks of scorching heat.
The captain of a nearby boat said that when the winds surged, he had turned on the engine to keep control of his vessel and avoid colliding with the Bayesian, which was anchored alongside him.
“We managed to keep the ship in position, and after the storm was over, we noticed that the ship behind us was gone,” said Karsten Borner. The other boat “went flat on the water, and then down,” he added.
His crew then found some of the survivors on a life raft – including three seriously injured, a baby girl, and her mother – and took them onboard before the coastguard picked them up.
