Billionaire missing after waterspout sinks superyacht
A tech billionaire known as “Britain’s Bill Gates” and five other people are missing after their $50 million luxury superyacht sank when it was hit by a freak waterspout off Sicily.
Tech magnate Mike Lynch was among 22 on board the Bayesian when a sudden fierce storm battered the area, striking precisely where the 56-metre British-flagged vessel had been moored.
Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares and 14 other people survived, but his daughter is reported among the six missing.
The chartered sailboat sank off Porticello when a tornado over the water known as a waterspout struck the area, Salvo Cocina of Sicily’s civil protection agency said.
One body had been recovered, and police divers were trying to reach the hull of the ship, which was resting at a depth of 50 metres off Porticello, near Palermo, where it had been anchored, rescue authorities said.
It had a crew of 10 people and 12 passengers, the Italian coast guard said.
“They were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Cocina, noting that another superyacht nearby was not as badly damaged and helped rescue some of the 15 survivors.
The Bayesian was notable for its single 75-metre mast – one of the world’s tallest made of aluminium. The mast was lit up at night just hours before it sank.
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Online charter sites listed it for rent for up to €195,000 ($321,130) a week.
One of the survivors, identified as Charlotte Emsley, said she momentarily lost hold of her one-year-old daughter Sofia in the water.
Desperately trying to stay above the lashing waves, she held her baby afloat “with all my strength, my arms stretched upwards to keep her from drowning”.
“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,” she told Italian newspaper La Republica.
“For two seconds I lost my daughter in the sea then quickly hugged her amid the fury of the waves.”
She held the child until a lifeboat inflated and they were both pulled to safety, Italian news agency ANSA reported, quoting the mother.
The baby’s father, James Emsley, also survived, Cocina said.
Eight of the 15 people rescued and taken ashore at Porticello were hospitalised while the others were taken to a hotel.
One body believed to be the cook was found near the wreck.
Six others were unaccounted for and believed inside the hull, Italian fire rescue service spokesman Luca Cari said.
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Rescue crews had found the vessel and deep-water police divers were trying to access the hull, Cari said.
The operations, which were visible from shore, involved helicopters and rescue boats from the Italian coast guard, fire rescue and civil protection service.
It comes just after Lynch was acquitted in June in a big US fraud trial.
Reuters reports he had spent more than a decade building Britain’s biggest software company, Autonomy, and then almost as long again fighting fraud charges related to its multibillion-pound sale.
Fisherman Francesco Cefalu said he had seen a flare from shore about 4.30am and immediately set out to the site. By the time he got there, the Bayesian had already sunk, with only cushions, wood and other items from the superyacht floating in the water.
“But for the rest, we didn’t find anyone,” he said from the port hours later.
He said that he immediately alerted the coast guard and stayed on site for three hours but didn’t find any survivors.
“I think they are inside, all the missing people.”
He said he had been up early to check the weather to see if he could go fishing, and surmised that a sudden waterspout had struck the yacht.
“It could be that the mast broke, or the anchor at the prow pulled it, I don’t know,” he said.
Cocina said the crew and passengers hailed from several countries: in addition to Britain and the US, passengers and crew were from Antigua, France, Germany, Ireland, Myanmar, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Spain, he said.
UK authorities said they were “providing consular support to a number of British nationals and their families”.
Dutch foreign ministry spokesman Casper Soetekouw said the lone Dutch citizen on board, a man, had been rescued and was not in a life-threatening condition.
– TND with AAP
