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The 5 tragic minutes that sank a superyacht
PORTICELLO, Italy — Survivors of a storm that sank a superyacht off Sicily recounted their ordeal to one of the doctors who rushed to their aid, with some saying it took mere minutes for the 180-foot ship to go down.
Dr. Fabio Genco, head of the Palermo Emergency Medical Services, told NBC News on the phone Thursday that he arrived in the seaside village of Porticello before dawn Monday, about an hour after the $40 million Bayesian sank in the violent and sudden storm.
Of the 22 people onboard, 15 survived despite storm conditions and darkness, climbing onto a lifeboat before being rescued by a nearby sailboat. The crew members have made no public statements so far, though some have been interviewed by investigators.
“They told me that it was all dark, that the yacht hoisted itself up and then went down,” Genco said, recounting what the survivors told him. “All the objects were falling on them. That’s why I immediately made sure, by asking them questions, if they had any internal injuries,” he said.
It appears they had just minutes to abandon the sinking ship, Genco said.
“They told me that suddenly they found themselves catapulted into the water without even understanding how they had got there,” he said, “And that the whole thing seems to have lasted from 3 to 5 minutes.”
Giovanni Costantino, CEO of The Italian Sea Group, which owns Perini Navi, the Bayesian's shipbuilder, told Sky News that there were no flaws with the design or construction of the yacht. He said their structure and keel made boats like that “unsinkable bodies.”
In an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, he disavowed responsibility, blaming instead the actions of the crew. “Mistakes were made,” he said.
Genco said one of his colleagues who arrived at the scene before him initially thought that only three people survived, but the coast guard reported there were other survivors and more emergency services were called in.
When Genco arrived, he found scenes of panic and despair.
“Unfortunately, we are used to such panic scenes because we are used to the shipwrecks that happen on Lampedusa ,” Genco said, referring to the island southwest of Sicily, where the wreckage of boats carrying migrants on the sea journey from North Africa to Italy are often found .
Six of the passengers were declared missing Monday, and by Thursday, the bodies of five had been recovered from the wreck , some 160 feet underwater.
Among those who survived is Angela Bacares, wife of the British tech mogul Mike Lynch , whose body was recovered Thursday.
Another survivor has been identified as Charlotte Emsley, 35. She told the Italian news agency ANSA that she had momentarily lost hold of her year-old daughter, Sofia, in the water but managed to retrieve her and hold her over the waves until a lifeboat inflated and they were pulled into safety.
Dr. Domenico Cipolla at the Di Cristina Children’s Hospital in Palermo is also part of a team of medical professionals treating the shipwreck survivors. He told the BBC on Wednesday that Emsley and her daughter, as well as the father of the child, who Cipolla said also survived, are continuing to receive psychological help.
“Psychological support was constant and is constant even today, because basically it is the wounds of the soul that are the most in need of healing in these cases,” Cipolla said.
Genco also told NBC News that he was especially concerned about the child. “She did not understand anything. She was soaking wet and cold,” he said.
Karsten Borner, the Dutch captain of the Sir Robert Baden Powell, a yacht that was anchored near the Bayesian, said by phone Wednesday that he saw a thunderstorm come in at around 4 a.m. local time (10 p.m. ET) Monday, followed by what looked like a waterspout, a type of tornado that forms over water.
The International Centre for Waterspout Research noted on X that there was a “waterspout outbreak” off Italy on Monday, the day the Bayesian sank.
“I turned on the engine and made maneuvers so that we wouldn’t collide with the Bayesian, which was anchored about 100 meters from us,” Borner said. “Then all of a sudden it disappeared. Then the wind calmed down, we looked around and saw a red flare.”
Borner said he got into his boat’s tender and saw a life raft with 15 people on it. Members of the crew were administering first aid.
“I don’t know why it sank so quickly, but it may have something to do with the mast which was incredibly long,” he said. Questions have been raised about whether the mast was to blame for the accident as tall masts, even with the sails down, have more surface area exposed to the wind, which can contribute to tipping a vessel in a storm.
The CCTV footage that emerged Tuesday showed the yacht’s 250-foot mast, believed to be one of the tallest aluminum sailing masts in the world, lashed by the storm as it appears to tilt to one side before disappearing.
Claudia Rizzo is an Italy based journalist.
Claudio Lavanga is Rome-based foreign correspondent for NBC News.
Yuliya Talmazan is a reporter for NBC News Digital, based in London.
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Divers find 5 bodies during search of yacht wreckage off Sicily
The Associated Press
Italian firefighter divers bring ashore in a green bag the body of one of the victims of the U.K.-flag vessel Bayesian on Wednesday. The luxury sail yacht was hit by a violent sudden storm and sunk early Monday, while at anchor off the Sicilian village of Porticello near Palermo, in southern Italy. Salvatore Cavalli/AP hide caption
PORTICELLO, Sicily — Divers searching the wreck of a superyacht that sank off Sicily found the bodies of five passengers Wednesday and searched for one more as questions intensified about why the vessel sank so quickly when a nearby sailboat remained largely unscathed.
Rescue crews unloaded three body bags from rescue vessels that pulled into port at Porticello. Salvatore Cocina, head of the Sicily civil protection agency, said two other bodies had also been found in the wreckage for a total of five.
Who are Mike Lynch and the other people missing after a yacht sank in Sicily?
The discovery made clear the operation to search the hull on the seabed 50 meters (164 feet) underwater had quickly turned into a recovery one, not a rescue, given the amount of time that had passed and that no signs of life had emerged over three days of searching, maritime experts said.
The Bayesian, a 56-meter (184-foot) British-flagged yacht, went down in a storm early Monday as it was moored about a kilometer (a half-mile) offshore. Civil protection officials said they believed the ship was struck by a tornado over the water, known as a waterspout, and sank quickly.
Fifteen people escaped in a lifeboat and were rescued by a nearby sailboat. One body was recovered Monday — that of the ship’s chef, Recaldo Thomas, of Antigua.
Thomas was born in Canada, according to his cousin David Isaac, but would visit his parents’ homeland of Antigua as a child, moving permanently to the tiny eastern Caribbean island in his early 20s. Italian officials previously listed Antigua as the nationality of someone on board.
The fate of six missing passengers had driven the search effort, including British tech magnate Mike Lynch , his 18-year-old daughter and associates who had successfully defended him in a recent U.S. federal fraud trial.
Lynch’s spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Emergency services at the scene of the search for a missing boat, in Porticello, southern Italy, on Tuesday. Salvatore Cavalli/AP hide caption
What caused the ship to sink so quickly?
Meanwhile, investigators from the Termini Imerese Public Prosecutor’s Office were acquiring evidence for their criminal investigation, which they opened immediately after the tragedy even though no formal suspects have been publicly identified.
Questions abound about what caused the superyacht, built in 2008 by Italian shipyard Perini Navi, to sink so quickly, when the nearby Sir Robert Baden Powell sailboat was largely spared and managed to rescue the survivors.
Was it merely the case of a freak waterspout that knocked the ship to its side and allowed water to pour in through open hatches? What was the position of the keel, which on a large sailboat such as the Bayesian might have been retractable, to allow it to enter shallower ports?
“There’s a lot of uncertainty as to whether it had a lifting keel and whether it might have been up,” said Jean-Baptiste Souppez, a fellow of the Royal Institute of Naval Architects and the editor of the Journal of Sailing Technology. “But if it had, then that would reduce the amount of stability that the vessel had, and therefore made it easier for it to roll over on its side,” he said in an interview.
The captain of the Sir Robert Baden Powell sailboat, which came to the Bayesian’s rescue, said his craft had sustained minimal damage — the frame of a sun awning broke — even with winds that he estimated reached 12 on the Beaufort wind scale, which is the highest, hurricane-strength force on the scale.
He said he had remained anchored with his engines running to try to maintain the ship’s position as the storm, which was forecast, rolled in.
Search teams scour waters along Italy’s southwestern shore, where a luxury yacht sank
“Another possibility is to heave anchor before the storm and to run downwind at open sea,” Karsten Bornersaid in a text message. But he said that might not have been a viable option for the Bayesian, given its trademark 75-meter (246-foot) tall mast.
“If there was a stability problem, caused by the extremely tall mast, it would not have been better at open sea,” he said.
Yachts like the Bayesian are required to have watertight, sub-compartments that are specifically designed to prevent a rapid, catastrophic sinking even when some parts fill with water.
“So for the vessel to sink, especially this fast, you are really looking at taking water on board very quickly, but also in a number of locations along the length of the vessel, which again indicates that it might have been rolled over on its side,” Souppez said.
Italian coast guard and fire rescue divers continued the underwater search in dangerous and time-consuming conditions. Because of the wreck’s depth, which requires special precautions, divers working in tag teams could only spend about 12 minutes at a time searching.
The limited dive time is designed in part to avoid decompression sickness, also known as the “bends,” which can occur when divers stay underwater for long periods and ascend too quickly, allowing nitrogen gas dissolved in the blood to form bubbles.
“The longer you stay, the slower your ascent has to be,” said Simon Rogerson, the editor of SCUBA magazine. He said the tight turnaround time suggests the operation's managers are trying to limit the risks and recovery time after each dive.
“It sounds like they’re operating essentially on no decompression or very tight decompression, or they’re being extremely conservative,” he said.
Additionally, the divers were working in extremely tight spaces, with debris floating around them, limited visibility and oxygen tanks on their backs.
Search resumes for British tech magnate and 5 others after yacht sinks off Sicily
“We are trying to advance in tight spaces, but any single thing slows us down,” said Luca Cari, spokesman for the fire rescue service. “An electric panel could set us back for five hours. These aren’t normal conditions. We’re at the limit of possibility.”
“It’s not a question of entering the cabin to inspect it,” he added. “They’ve arrived at the level of the cabins, but it’s not like you can open the door,” he said.
The Italian coast guard said they had reinforced their dive teams and were using underwater remote-controlled robots, which can stay out for six or seven hours at a time and record the surroundings.
The lack of any signs of life and the recovery of bodies led outside experts to conclude that the search was now a recovery effort and investigation to determine how the tragedy had unfolded.
“I think the fact that there’s been quite a lot of diving presence around the vessel and that they haven’t been able to pick up any signs of life inside the vessel, is, is unfortunately, not a particularly good sign,” said Souppez.
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Who Was on the Sunken Yacht? Tech Mogul Mike Lynch, His Family and Friends.
Mr. Lynch, the former chief executive of the software firm Autonomy, who was acquitted on fraud charges in June, was with friends and family when the yacht went down in a severe storm.
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By Michael J. de la Merced
Michael de la Merced reported on Mike Lynch’s career and legal battles over the course of 13 years across two continents.
A cruise on the Mediterranean Sea aboard a superyacht was supposed to be a celebratory event for the British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch , who was acquitted in June of fraud charges tied to the sale of his company, Autonomy, to the tech giant Hewlett-Packard.
Instead, it turned into a disaster after the yacht, a 180-foot boat called the Bayesian, sank off the coast of Sicily in a violent storm. Of the 22 people aboard, 15 were rescued and seven others died . Search operations ended on Friday after the final body was recovered from the site of the sunken yacht .
Here’s what we know about the passengers.
Mike Lynch and his family
Mr. Lynch, 59, is a British software entrepreneur who had once been described as his country’s Bill Gates. He founded the software firm Autonomy, which analyzed clients’ unorganized data, and turned it into one of the most prominent British technology companies of its time. He became a widely known corporate leader, who advised David Cameron, the British prime minister at the time, and joined the board of the BBC.
In 2011, Mr. Lynch sold Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard for $11 billion, which was far above its market value, earning him hundreds of millions. But HP investors almost immediately soured on the transaction, and the American tech giant quickly fired its chief executive — and then Mr. Lynch.
HP later accused Mr. Lynch of misleading it about the state of Autonomy’s business, setting off a decade-long legal ordeal for the British executive, who denied the accusations. U.S. prosecutors charged him and other executives with fraud, and Autonomy’s chief financial officer was convicted in 2018.
Despite appeals to the British government, Mr. Lynch was extradited to the United States last year and was confined to a townhouse in San Francisco ahead of his criminal trial, which began in March. Facing the possibility of decades in prison if convicted, Mr. Lynch and another colleague were instead acquitted of all charges.
An official in Palermo, Sicily’s capital, said on Thursday that Mr. Lynch’s body had been recovered. His wife, Angela Bacares, 57, accompanied him on the yacht, and she was rescued on Monday when it sank. She was a consistent presence at his trial in the United States. Records show that she controlled Revtom, the company listed as the owner of the Bayesian.
The body of Hannah Lynch , Mr. Lynch and Ms. Bacares’s 18-year-old daughter, was thought to be recovered on Friday.
The other guests
Jonathan Bloomer, 70, chair of Morgan Stanley’s international arm and the chairman of Hiscox, an insurance provider that trades on the London Stock Exchange, was on the yacht when it sank, along with his wife, Judy Bloomer, 71. Their bodies are thought to be among those recovered, but Italian authorities have not identified them.
Christopher J. Morvillo, 59, a New York-based partner at the international law firm Clifford Chance, was also on the yacht. A former federal prosecutor who comes from a family of prominent lawyers, Mr. Morvillo represented Mr. Lynch during his criminal trial in San Francisco. His wife, Neda, 57, was with him on the yacht. Their bodies are also assumed to be among those recovered.
“We are in shock and deeply saddened by this tragic incident,” a representative of Clifford Chance said in a statement.
Surviving passengers rescued from the yacht include Charlotte Golunski, a partner at Mr. Lynch’s venture firm, Invoke Capital; Ms. Golunski’s husband, James Emslie; and their one-year-old daughter Sophie. Also rescued were Ayla Ronald, a lawyer at Clifford Chance, and her partner, Matthew Fletcher.
The yacht had a crew of 10, and nine were rescued. The body of the chef, Recaldo Thomas, was recovered from the water, the Sicilian Civil Protection Department said.
Elisabetta Povoledo contributed reporting, and Kitty Bennett and Susan Campbell Beachy contributed research.
Michael J. de la Merced has covered global business and finance news for The Times since 2006. More about Michael J. de la Merced
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