Six people are missing, including a man dubbed the British Bill Gates, after a luxury yacht sank off the Sicilian coast.
British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch — freshly acquitted from a decade-long trial — had invited his work colleagues aboard a trip through the Mediterranean coast when a freak storm saw the yacht sink within moments.
Fifteen people escaped from the sinking vessel. The search for the missing continues.
Here’s what we know so far:
What happened?
The Italian coastguard said the yacht — the Bayesian — was anchored off the shore of port city Porticello, near the Sicilian capital Palermo, when it was hit by bad weather on Monday, local time.
Eyewitnesses said it vanished quickly beneath the waves shortly before dawn.
Managers of the sailing vessel Bayesian, Camper & Nicholsons, confirmed to the ABC that the Bayesian encountered severe weather and subsequently sank.
“Our priority is assisting with the ongoing search and providing all necessary support to the rescued passengers and crew,” they said.
“The wind was very strong. Bad weather was expected, but not of this magnitude,” a coastguard official told Reuters.
Sicily’s civil protection agency head, Salvo Cocina, said a waterspout — a tornado over the water — could have struck the yacht.
“They were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Mr Cocina added.
Search crews, including divers, are continuing to search the wreckage, lying at a depth of 49 metres.
Sicilian prosecutors have also opened an investigation into the event.
Who is missing?
There were 12 passengers and 10 crew members aboard the yacht.
Of the 22, one man is confirmed dead and another six people are still missing.
Italian media said the dead man was the yacht’s onboard chef.
The still missing people include:
- Mike Lynch
- Mr Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter, Hannah
- Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of global financial services company Morgan Stanley International
- Chris Morvillo, a lawyer at the British multinational law firm Clifford Chance. He worked on Mr Lynch’s lawsuit against Hewlett-Packard
- The identities of the remaining two missing are still unconfirmed
Who was rescued?
Fifteen people escaped from the sinking ship.
Eight have been hospitalised and others were taken to a nearby hotel.
Among those rescued were:
- Mr Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, who was the owner of the yacht
- Charlotte Golunski and her one-year-old daughter, Sofia. Ms Golunski is a partner at Mr Lynch’s firm, Invoke Capital. She says she momentarily lost hold of Sofia in the water but managed to hold her up above the waves until the lifeboat was inflated
- Ms Golunski’s husband James Emslie
- New Zealand captain of the yacht James Catfield. He told Italian newspaper La Repubblica the crew didn’t see the storm coming
- A lone Dutch citizen was identified by the Dutch foreign ministry as being rescued, but was not identified
Who is Mike Lynch?
Mr Lynch, once hailed as Britain’s king of technology, was recently freed from a Silicon Valley lawsuit that tarnished his legacy.
The 59-year-old Cambridge-educated mathematician created Autonomy, a search engine that could pore through emails and other internal business documents to help companies find vital information more quickly.
He received the OBE for his innovation in 2006.
He then sold the software to Hewlett-Packard (HP) for $US11 billion ($16 billion) in 2011, with Mr Lynch personally netting $US800 million.
But the deal quickly turned sour after he was accused of forging the software’s financial records to make the sale.
As part of a decades-long legal battle against HP, Mr Lynch was extradited to the UK on criminal fraud charges.
He steadfastly denied any wrongdoing, asserting that he was being made a scapegoat for HP’s own bungling.
He was eventually cleared of all charges in June this year.
Following the San Francisco trial, Mr Lynch said he would return to the UK and do what he loved most: “[being with] my family and innovating in my field.”
In a separate act of tragedy, Mr Lynch’s co-defendant in the trial, Stephen Chamberlain, died on Monday, after a road accident left him critically injured.
Mr Chamberlain — Autonomy’s former vice-president of finance alongside Mr Lynch — was hit by a car in Cambridgeshire on Saturday morning and had been placed on life support.
What is the Bayesian?
The luxury yacht is 56m long sailboat, with a 75m mast labelled as the tallest aluminium mast in the world.
The yacht, built in 2008 by the Italian firm Perini Navi, can accommodate up to 12 guests in six suites and a crew of 10, according to online specialist yacht sites.
Online charter sites listed it for rent for up to 195,000 euros (about $AU 321,000) a week.
The ship also won a string of awards for its design.
Ms Golunski said the yacht had travelled through the Aeolian Islands, Milazzo and Cefalù before sinking.
It is likely the yacht’s name would resonate with Mr Lynch because his PhD thesis and the software that made his fortune was based on Bayesian theory.