The yacht’s six missing passengers are feared dead, as search efforts continue.
Vincenzo Zagarola of the Italian coastguard told the PA news agency that “our search and rescue activity by sea and air has gone on for around 36 hours.”
“Of course, we do not exclude that they are not inside the boat, but we know the boat sank quickly,” he said, adding that “we suppose that the six people missing may not have had time to get out of the boat.”
Asked about the likelihood of them being alive, he replied: “Never say never, but reasonably the answer should be not.”
The shipwreck of a luxury yacht moored off the coast of Sicily is the latest sign that the Mediterranean is becoming a more dangerous sea to sail in, according to climate experts and sailors.
Luca Mercalli, president of Italy’s meteorological society, said the sea surface temperature around Sicily in the days leading up to the shipwreck was about 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), almost three degrees more than normal.
“This creates an enormous source of energy that contributes to these storms,” he told Reuters.
Giuliano Gallo, a former skipper who crossed the Atlantic and has written several books on sailing, said the Mediterranean was becoming more like the Caribbean, which has areas that many boats steer clear of at certain times of the year.
“But things are less predictable in the Mediterranean,” he said.
Karsten Borner, the captain of a boat that was moored alongside the Bayesian but escaped harm, said Monday’s storm had been “very violent, very intense, a lot of water and I think a turning system like a tornado”.
He also blamed more frequent episodes of intense heat during the summer months for playing a role in causing such storms.
“The water is … way too hot for the Mediterranean and this causes for sure heavy storms, like we had one week ago on the Balearics, like we had two years ago in Corsica and so on.”
Six people are still missing and feared dead after a yacht capsized off Sicily early on Monday.
A search operation continued today involving specialised divers.
The missing individuals have been named as Mike Lynch, a British tech entrepreneur once regarded as the UK’s Bill Gates, Hannah Lynch, his 18-year-old daughter, Chris Morvillo, a lawyer who represented Lynch during a trial, and his wife Neda Morvillo, as well as Jonathan Bloomer, the chair of Morgan Stanley International bank, and his wife Judy Bloomer, a charity trustee.
Vincenzo Zagarola of the Italian coastguard said “we suppose that the six people missing may not have had time to get out of the boat.”
The national director of Italy’s firefighting department divers, Giuseppe Petrone, said that his team has managed to locate a breach in the sailboat’s hull and is working to open a passage to reach the cabins.
The British ambassador to Italy, Edward Llewellyn, told reporters he spoke with survivors. “I wanted to express my solidarity and that of the British embassy. But I also came to speak with the Italian authorities,” he said.
Karsten Borner, the captain of a nearby sailboat that was right next to the Bayesian, said that “I have never seen a vessel of this size go down so quickly. Within a few minutes, there was nothing left. Then we saw the raft with the 15 passengers. It was a tragedy,” he added.
With so few details of precisely what occurred to the Bayesian during its sinking, the sailing community has pondered the exact set of circumstances that could have tipped over such a large vessel and well crewed at anchor so suddenly.
One possibility that has occurred to some is that the 75m mast either broke or ended up very quickly below the surface of the water as the yacht was blown over, with a holding anchor in the sea bed creating a pivot point for the massive energy striking the exposed hull.
One of those suggesting an extraordinary coincidence of different circumstances, all occurring in rapid succession, is the celebrated yachtsman and author Skip Novak, a well known figure in ocean racing who has sailed extensively in Arctic and Antarctic waters.
Novak told the Guardian: “My theory with what little is out there is when the mast broke – an incredible thing in itself – that went over the side and that weight, combined with the side wind, and combined with the anchor holding caused an extraordinary lever to increase the heeling moment.
“All that combined put her on her side. Then those big side windows blew out and/or an open aft deck to the interior and she flooded in a jiffy. Hard to imagine what else it could have been.”
Lorenzo Tondo reporting from Porticello
The national director of Italy’s firefighting department divers, Giuseppe Petrone, told the Guardian that his team has managed to locate a breach in the sailboat’s hull and is working to open a passage to reach the cabins where they hope to find the bodies of the six missing individuals.
“We have finally located a breach,” Petrone says. “Our men are working to open it. We are hopeful.”
The yacht’s six missing passengers are feared dead, as search efforts continue.
Vincenzo Zagarola of the Italian coastguard told the PA news agency that “our search and rescue activity by sea and air has gone on for around 36 hours.”
“Of course, we do not exclude that they are not inside the boat, but we know the boat sank quickly,” he said, adding that “we suppose that the six people missing may not have had time to get out of the boat.”
Asked about the likelihood of them being alive, he replied: “Never say never, but reasonably the answer should be not.”
A spokesperson for law firm Clifford Chance said it is “deeply saddened” by the sinking of superyacht Bayesian.
We are in shock and deeply saddened by this tragic incident.
Our thoughts are with our partner, Christopher Morvillo, and his wife, Neda, who are among the missing.
Our utmost priority is providing support to the family as well as our colleague Ayla Ronald, who together with her partner thankfully survived the incident.
Our thoughts extend to the other passengers and crew and all those affected.
We have no further comment at this time. We, and the families, ask that their request for privacy is honoured during this period.
The British ambassador to Italy, Edward Llewellyn, told reporters he spoke with survivors.
“It’s a tragedy, I met with the survivors, I wanted to express my solidarity and that of the British embassy. But I also came to speak with the Italian authorities,” he said.
“The investigations are being carried out by the Italian authorities, from the United Kingdom we have sent our officers, as always in cases like this,” the ambassador added.
Lorenzo Tondo in Bagheria
All fifteen survivors of the Bayesian yacht shipwreck are now at the Hotel Domina Zagarella in Bagheria.
At about 1 pm, one-year-old survivor Sophie arrived with her mother and father. The hotel is guarded outside by security personnel preventing access to journalists.
The survivors received a visit from the British ambassador to Italy this morning and are being supported by a team of psychologists.
The hotel is just a few metres from the coast. The survivors are awaiting news from the divers involved in the search, with helicopters flying overhead visible from the hotel balconies.
The latest dive conducted by firefighters appeared to have yielded no results thus far.
Six people are still missing following the sinking of the Bayesian. They include four British nationals and two Americans. A number of those people worked with Mike Lynch on his recent trial in the US, where he was acquitted of fraud.
Those who have been named are Mike Lynch, a British tech entrepreneur once regarded as the UK’s Bill Gates, and Hannah Lynch, his 18-year-old daughter. Chris Morvillo, a lawyer who represented Lynch during his trial, and his wife Neda Morvillo as well as Jonathan Bloomer, the chair of Morgan Stanley International bank, and his wife Judy Bloomer, a charity trustee have also been named.
Among the 15 people rescued are nine members of the yacht’s crew. One man, the yacht’s chef, has died.
According to the US National Ocean Service, waterspouts are a whirling column of air and water mist. They fall into two categories: fair-weather waterspouts and ones found during oceanic tornadoes that form during storms.
Tornadic waterspouts, which develop downward in a thunderstorm, can either form over water or move from land to water and have the same characteristics as a land tornado. According to the NOS they are “often accompanied by high winds and seas, large hail, and frequent dangerous lightning”. Fair-weather waterspouts, in contrast, usually form along the dark flat base of a line of developing cumulus clouds.
The waterspout that struck Lynch’s yacht appears to have been a tornadic waterspout, caused by one of the many storms that 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.
What is the danger of being hit by a waterspout?
The energy from the winds in a waterspout can cause damage and injury, but the biggest risk involves a so-called knock-down, which can tear off a boat’s mast.
While yachts are generally more difficult to capsize than smaller dinghies, a knock-down occurs when the yacht is struck by wind or waves with sufficient force to push the mast parallel with the water. The most serious scenario occurs when the mast drops below the water line. Lynch’s yacht was fitted with a 75-metre mast, the world’s second-tallest.
One of the earliest mentions of Mike Lynch in the pages of the Guardian was a piece in 1997 profiling the tech tycoon, who was a rare beast: an internet entrepreneur who was actually making money. Even more improbable, he was British.
At a time when the biggest players in the IT industry, mainly from the US, burned money as they grappled with how to profit from fledgling internet technology, Lynch, managing director of Autonomy, a Cambridge-based startup, designed systems that could make sense of the vast information available online, mimicking the thought processes of the human mind when searching.
Autonomy further cemented its success by realising the commercial opportunities of designing technology that gave online service providers an insight into their user’s search habits, allowing them to serve adverts to their specific interests.
The buzz created by Automy’s success led to an eye-catching increase in its valuation; the £10m it raised to start the company helped increase its valuation to £80m within 18 months. Lynch also had designs on a partial flotation of Autonomy on the Nasdaq stock exchange.
Lynch told Ian Katz, then the Guardian’s internet editor, that despite Autonomy’s success, his US customers and rivals were puzzled by the firm’s rapid rise, adding: “I have actually heard the comment, ‘England, software? I thought you made bone china’.”
Another operation is currently under way to search for the bodies of the six missing individuals. The team of 19 firefighters’ divers descend to the depths in groups of three and will attempt to create an opening at the stern from a window in the “living” area of the main deck to access the interior of the yacht.
The search is challenging due to the furniture that has been dislodged and is blocking access to the cabins. The divers will have to first inspect the side of the yacht resting on the seabed.
According to the rescuers a huge amount of water seems to have entered the yacht during the storm from the stern or bow in a very short time, causing the hull to pitch up and sink within minutes.
Italian divers are struggling to access the cabins of the Bayesian, having started diving at 8am local time.
According to a post from Vigili del Fuoco, Italy’s fire and rescue service, underwater teams are yet to get inside the yacht and are now planning alternative ways to access the sunken boat.
Earlier Marco Tilotta, who is in charge of the firefighter divers from Palermo, said that the boat is positioned at 90 degrees. It is sitting 49 metres below the surface of the water.
A team of psychologists from the Palermo Health Authority and the civil protection is providing assistance to the survivors who have been accommodated at the Domina Zagarella hotel.
Among them is Angela Bacares, the 57-year-old wife of Mike Lynch and mother of teenager Hannah Lynch, who are both missing.
Yesterday, Bacares received medical treatment at a hospital in Termini Imerese before being transferred to the Domina Hotel, visibly in shock and using a wheelchair.