One man has died and six people – including British tech tycoon Mike Lynch – are missing after a luxury yacht carrying foreign tourists was struck by an unexpectedly violent storm and sank off the Sicilian capital Palermo.
The 56-metre sailboat was identified as the British-registered Bayesian and sank with 22 people on board shortly before sunrise on Monday, the Italian Coast Guard said.
The missing people were of British, American and Canadian nationality. The 15 people rescued included a one-year-old child.
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A source told CNN, on the condition of anonymity, that Lynch, the founder of software giant Autonomy, was a passenger on the yacht. His wife, Angela Bacares, was rescued.
“The wind was very strong. Bad weather was expected, but not of this magnitude,” a coast guard official in Palermo told Reuters.
Storms and heavy rain have swept down Italy in recent days – with floods and landslides causing major damage in the north of the country – after weeks of scorching heat.
Eight of those rescued were transferred to local hospitals in a stable condition.
The captain of a nearby boat told Reuters that when the storm hit he turned the engine on to keep control of the vessel and avoid a collision with the Bayesian.
“We managed to keep the ship in position and after the storm was over, we noticed that the ship behind us was gone,” Karsten Borner told journalists.
He said his crew then found some of the survivors on a life raft, including three who were seriously injured and took them on board before the coast guard picked them up.
Borner said “a little baby and the wife of the owner” were among the survivors, while the owner of the sunken ship and another child were among those missing.
The coast guard said the boat had been found at a depth of 50m and divers were inspecting the wreck.
Prosecutors in the nearby town of Termini Imerese have opened an investigation to look into what went wrong.
The Bayesian was built by Italian shipbuilder Perini in 2008, was last refitted in 2020, and was managed by yachting company Camper & Nicholsons.
It won a string of awards for its design and can accommodate up to 12 guests in six suites and a crew of 10, according to online specialist yacht sites.
Formerly known as Salute, or health in Italian, its 75m mast is the tallest aluminium mast in the world, Perini said on its website.
The boat 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 vessel tracking app Vesselfinder.
A UK foreign ministry spokesperson said British officials were in contact with local authorities over the incident and were ready to provide consular support for Britons who were affected.