‘Britain’s Bill Gates’ and his 18-year-old daughter are among six feared dead after his 180ft superyacht Bayesian was hit by ‘waterspout’ off Sicily and sank following ‘party to celebrate his acquittal in fraud case’ _ Hieuuk
British tech tycoon Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter are among six people feared dead after his 180ft superyacht Bayesian was hit by a freak waterspout and sank off the coast of Sicily this morning.
The luxury sailboat was anchored off the coast of Porticello, near Palermo, when a waterspout struck the area just before 5am, wrecking the boat and causing it to rapidly disappear beneath the waves.
‘The boat was all lit up. Around 4.30 am, it was no longer there,’ said one witness cited by Italian news agency ANSA. ‘A beautiful boat where there was a party. A normal joyous vacation day at sea turned into tragedy’.
Mr Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares, 57, was among the fifteen people who were rescued from the 180ft yacht, which she is reported to have owned and had been carrying ten crewmembers, the owner and 11 guests.
Mrs Bacares told Italian media that both her husband and their daughter Hannah, 18, are missing after the Bayesian sank.
Mr Lynch had invited guests from legal firm Clifford Chance as well as his own company Invoke Capital to celebrate him being acquitted of fraud charges in June, vindicating the entrepreneur after a 12-year legal battle over the £8.6billion sale of his firm, Autonomy, to Hewlett-Packard in 2011, the Telegraph reports.
One of the Clifford Chance lawyers on board the Bayesian when it sank was 36-year-old Ayla Ronald. Her father, Lin Ronald, confirmed that the sailing trip was supposed to be a celebration of Mr Lynch’s acquittal.
‘I have texted with my daughter and she hasn’t given me any updates about missing personnel or saved personnel. She has only said to me that there are deaths, and she and her partner are alive,’ Mr Donald told the Telegraph.
Mr Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares (right) was among the fifteen people who were rescued from the yacht
Experienced cave divers for deep sea recoveries arrive at the pier as a rescue operation continues for the missing people who were on board a sailboat that sank, in Palermo, Sicily, Italy, 19 August
Cave divers arrive to join in the rescue operation in Palermo, Sicily, on August 19
A handout photo made available on 19 August 2024 by Perini Navi Press Office shows the ‘Bayesian’ sailing boat, in Palermo, Sicily, Italy
A survivor leaves the Coast Guard Headquarters after a sailboat sank in the early hours of Monday, off the coast of Ponticello, near the Sicilian city of Palermo, Italy, August 19
A local Facebook group shared a picture of the yacht (left) at anchor last night. The vessel has been named as the Bayesian, and is said to sail under a British flag
One of the Clifford Chance lawyers on board the Bayesian when it sank was 36-year-old Ayla Ronald (pictured). Her father, Lin Ronald, confirmed that the sailing trip was supposed to be a celebration of Mr Lynch’s acquittal
Mr Lynch’s wife told Italian outlet La Repubblica that she and her husband woke up at 4am when the boat tilted. Mrs Bacares said that they were not worried initially and she got up to see what was happening, until glass shattered and created confusion.
She sustained abrasions on her feet during the sinking which have reportedly left her unable to walk and sitting in a wheelchair, La Repubblica reports, while she also has bandages elsewhere on her body. She appears to be in shock, the newspaper reports.
‘The survivors are very tired and are constantly asking about the missing people,’ Doctor Domenico Cipolla, Director of Paediatric Admission and Medicine and Surgery at ‘Di Cristina’ hospital in Palermo, said.
‘To my knowledge, there is only one body that has been found, the others are still missing. We have given the survivors this information, but they are talking and crying all the time because they have realised that there is little hope of finding their friends alive,’ he added.
British mother Charlotte Golunski and her one-year-old baby called Sofia were reported to be among those rescued by a nearby sailboat, with Dr Cipolla confirming that they were treated at the Di Cristina hospital.
‘By the way, I know that there were some young people on board, some very young people. They are very tired and they continually thank us for the care and attention we are giving them and the little girl. They are very tired but they are very sweet people,’ Dr Cipolla said.
He also said that Ms Golunski told doctors at the hospital that the sailing trip was part of a ‘corporate holiday’.
Ms Golunski, 35, who is listed as working for Mr Lynch’s company Invoke Capital on Linkedin, has described how she momentarily lost her daughter in the ‘fury of the waves’, before finding her and managing to get them both to safety.
Meanwhile six of the passengers – who include four British and two American citizens – still remain unaccounted for, with divers desperately searching the wreck 160ft beneath the water.
The rescue operation will continue overnight, Salvo Cocina of Sicily’s civil protection agency said.
Tragically, the body of Canadian Ricardo Thomas, who was working as the boat’s chef and was the only crew member unaccounted for, was found floating alongside the vessel earlier today.
There are fears that those who are still missing became trapped in their cabins, with divers earlier reporting that they saw ‘bodies through the portholes’ of the yacht, according to Italian media.
Francesco Venuto, the spokesperson for Sicily’s civil protection agency, also told the BBC that they ‘think [the corpses] must be there [in the boat]’.
He added: ‘We’ve been searching all day with helicopters and boats, we’ve found nothing. That wouldn’t make sense, in [these] conditions we should have found something by now.’
The tragedy comes just weeks after Mr Lynch was acquitted of criminal charges by a jury in San Francisco in June, vindicating the entrepreneur after a 12-year legal battle over the $11bn sale of his firm, Autonomy, to Hewlett-Packard in 2011.
The 59-year-old, who was a billionaire at the height of his wealth, has previously been dubbed Britain’s Bill Gates after he made his fortune thanks to his company. Its software drew on the Bayesian mathematical theory after which the yacht was named.
British tech tycoon Mike Lynch is understood to be among the British tourists who are missing after the the Bayesian superyacht sank
Italian Coast Guard Command teams and firefighters are carrying out search and rescue operations with helicopters and ships to find missing people after a yacht sank on Monday due to a storm east of Palermo in southern Italy on August 19
A frantic search is underway at the site of the shipwreck after the Bayesian sank this morning
The search area this morning off the coast of Porticello, Sicily
The passengers on board were mainly British, according to reports, while citizens from New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Ireland, Canada, the US and two dual British and French nationals were also said to be on board.
Some of the group are reported to have been colleagues and their family members who were on holiday together in Sicily.
The yacht is owned by Isle of Man-based firm Revtom, according to the BBC, the legal owner of which is Bacares, Mr Lynch’s wife.
A member of staff who worked at Mr Lynch’s Chelsea home has told The Times that the businessman ‘clearly had a lot of pride in the yacht’.
The vessel was still at anchor near the port when the waterspout struck, witnesses have said, with the storm breaking its mast and causing the vessel to lose its balance and capsize.
‘We didn’t see it coming,’ passenger James Catfield told La Repubblica.
The Italian Coastguard said in a statement that a nearby boat offered assistance to people before emergency services arrived.
The Sir Robert BP, a Dutch sailing ship which had been anchored by the Bayesian, is believed to have rescued the 15 survivors.
Karsten Borner, the captain of the boat, has described how his vessel was battered by strong gusts, with his team working to stabilise it and manoeuvre it to avoid hitting the Bayesian nearby.
‘We managed to keep the ship in position, and after the storm was over, we noticed that the ship behind us was gone,’ he said.
Once the storm subsided, Borner said he and his first mate noticed a flare in the water, and made their way towards it.
There they found the lifeboat with those who had escaped inside, including the one-year-old baby and mother Ms Golunski.
She told Italian media: ‘For two seconds I lost my baby in the sea, then I immediately hugged her again amid the fury of the waves.’
‘I held her afloat with all my strength, my arms stretched upwards to keep her from drowning,’ she added.
‘It was all dark. In the water I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I screamed for help but all I could hear around me was the screams of others.’
Incredibly, a group of 15 of the passengers managed to inflate a lifeboat and clamber aboard, before being rescued by a nearby vessel.
The mother, who is in hospital with her baby where she received treatment for a minor shoulder injury, described the ordeal as ‘terrible’, detailing how ‘in a few minutes the boat was hit by a very strong wind and sank shortly after.’
A British mother, named as Charlotte Golunski, and her one-year-old baby were also reported to be among those rescued by a nearby sailboat
The 59-year-old, who was a billionaire at the height of his wealth, has previously been dubbed Britain’s Bill Gates after he made his fortune thanks to his company Autonomy (file image)
The group were staying on the vessel, which has been named as the Bayesian – a luxury yacht which sails under the British flag
Ms Golunski ‘had injuries that we treated’, according to Dr Cipolla (pictured), with reports saying she suffered an injury to her shoulder
Italian Coast Guard Command teams and firefighters are carrying out search and rescue operations with helicopters and ships to find the missing people after the Bayesian sank
Ms Golunski and her little girl were taken to be assessed at the Children’s Hospital in Palermo. The baby is said to be doing fine and is unharmed, with tests only carried out as a precaution.
Ms Golunski ‘had injuries that we treated’, according to Dr Cipolla, with reports saying she suffered an injury to her shoulder.
‘[She] only has abrasions and a wound that needed stitching,’ Dr Cipolla said.
The child’s father, a British man called James Emsley, was taken ‘to the adult emergency room where his wounds were sutured’ before he was reunited with Ms Golunski and their daughter Sofia, Dr Cipolla said.
‘We reunited the whole family in a room in the emergency room. They are here with us,’ he added.
Five other people were taken to the Bagheria territorial emergency point. Others reportedly required no hospital treatment, and spoke to authorities about what happened as the incident is investigated.
A helicopter, coastguard vessels and firefighters been scouring the scene of the wreck for those who are still missing.
Expert divers reached the hull earlier this morning, with more specialist teams brought in as the day went on cables reportedly fixed between the yacht and the surface to allow easier descent.
‘The specialists are able to get into small spaces underwater,’ a spokesman said.
Nautical maps show the last known location of the Bayesian just after 2am local time, when it was at anchor.
The boat is thought to have arrived in Porticello after a stopping in Milazzo, around 100 miles up the coast towards the Italian mainland.
A local Facebook page shared a picture of the two yachts at anchor last night, just hours before the high winds hit.
‘The boat was not far from the port. It took very little to raise the anchor and head for the port. Evidently they were surprised by the storm that suddenly hit and they were unable to avoid sinking,’ a man in Porticello told Italian news agency ANSA.
Divers are scouring the wreckage of the superyacht, which is 160ft underwater off the coast of Sicily
Emergency response teams are seen at the harbour near where the boat sank this morning
Emergency and rescue services work near the scene where a sailboat sank in the early hours of Monday, off the coast of Porticello
A helicopter, coastguard vessels and firefighters have been deployed to search the scene
Fabio Cefalù, a fisherman who spotted the shipwrecked boat off the coast, said he called for help at 4.30 this morning.
‘At about 3.55 we saw the whirlwind. After a quarter of an hour we saw a rocket 500 metres away from the dock,’ he told Corriere.
‘At about 4.35 we went out to sea to provide assistance, but we only saw the remains of the boat floating. There were no men in the sea. So we immediately called the port authority.’
Another fisherman, Pietro Asciutto, said: ‘I was at home when the waterspout hit. I immediately closed all the windows. Then I saw the boat, it had only one mast, it was very large. I saw it sink suddenly’.
The ship is managed by Camper and Nicholsons International. The company says it is assisting in the search efforts in Palermo.
The firm said in a statement that the boat encountered ‘severe weather and subsequently sank’.
The ships managed by Camper and Nicholsons International. The company says it is assisting in the search efforts in Palermo.
A spokesperson told the BBC that they are currently ‘dealing with a situation onboard one of [their] managed vessels’, but would not give any further details.
According to an events worker who did work at Mr Lynch’s Chelsea home, the businessman had a miniature model of the yacht and photos of it on the water in his hallway.
Pictured above is Mick Lynch’s home, Loudham Hall, located two miles east of Wickham Market
‘When I asked him about he told me about it’s size and how much his family loved spending time on it,’ the anonymous staff member told The Times.
‘They had a personal chef who worked both on the boat and in their home. When I visited there were leftovers from their last boat trip in the fridge which he let the serving staff have.’
The 180ft yacht has a gross tonnage of 473 tons, and was built by the Perini Navi Viareggio shipyard in February 2008 before being refitted in 2020.
The deck area is 436 square metres and the six cabins occupy an area of 143 square metres.
It comprises of an aluminum hull, and is powered by two large engines, allowing it to cruise at 12 knots and reach a maximum speed of 15 knots.
The boat has the second tallest mast in the world and the largest aluminum mast of 75 metres.
Sicily is currently under a weather warning for wind, with video showing strong gusts battering the coast this morning.
CCTV footage from around 4am this morning shows a torrent of wind and rain slamming into Santa Nicolicchia – an area of Porticello where Bayesian was anchored.
Video posted by Vigili del Fuoco shows the rescue operation on a stretch of sea near Palermo
Search and rescue teams are still scouring the scene, with six people missing and one confirmed dead
The high winds throw umbrellas, plant pots, tables and chairs flying within seconds of hitting, with the local restaurant who shared the footage saying: ‘In a moment the hurricane took everything away!’
The owners of Baia Santa Nicolicchia said they were able to open later in the morning once the storm had passed, but added: ‘We have no memory of anything like this in our area.’
Shadow Foreign Minister for Europe, Alicia Kearns, wrote on X: ‘Desperately sorry to hear of the capsizing of the Bayesian – a heartbreaking incident.
‘My thoughts are with all the families of those lost at sea, and those recovering following the rescue operation, I’m sure the foreign office will be providing consular support to British Nationals and their families.’
The Foreign Office said in a statement: ‘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.’
