One person is dead and six others are missing after a luxury superyacht was struck by a violent storm off the coast of Sicily on Monday, officials confirmed.
The vessel, a 56-metre-long British-flagged sailboat named “Bayesian,” went down off the Sicilian capital Palermo with 22 people on board shortly before sunrise, the Italian coast guard said in a statement.
A Canadian is among those missing, as well as two Americans and four Britons.
One of the missing people is British tech magnate Mike Lynch, who was acquitted in June in a big U.S. fraud trial that delved into the history of Hewlett Packard’s 2011, US$11 billion acquisition of Autonomy, a business software firm founded by Lynch.
The fraud accusations represented a dramatic turn in the fortunes of an entrepreneur once described as the Bill Gates of Britain — a title he seemed to live up to when he netted $800 million from the Autonomy sale.
It’s reported that Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, was among those rescued and taken to shore.
A one-year-old was also among those rescued. Eight people were taken to hospital. The boat’s passengers consisted of 10 crew members and 12 foreign tourists.
One of the survivors, identified as Charlotte Emsley, said she had momentarily lost hold of her baby daughter Sofia in the water, but then managed to hold her up over the waves until a lifeboat inflated and they were both pulled to safety, Italian news agency ANSA reported, quoting the mother. The father, James Emsley, also survived, said Salvo Cocina of Sicily’s civil protection agency.
Cocina said the crew and passengers hailed from a variety of countries: In addition to Britain, passengers and crew were from Antigua, France, Germany, Ireland, Myanmar, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Spain, he said.
One body was found near the wreck, said Luca Cari, a spokesperson for the Italian fire rescue service.
A helicopter and rescue boats from the coast guard, Carabinieri, fire rescue and civil protection service were all at the scene searching for the missing and had located the wreck at a depth of 50 metres, reports The Associated Press.
Local media said a fierce storm, including water spouts, had battered the area overnight but skies were clear and seas calm by Monday morning.
“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 rainfall have hammered Italy in recent days, with floods and landslides causing major damage in the north of the country after weeks of scorching heat.
The ANSA news agency said the yacht, built in 2008 by the Italian firm Perini Navi, had been moored off the port at Porticello.
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 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 that 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.
Fisherman Francesco Cefalu said he had seen a flare from shore at around 4:30 a.m. and immediately set out to the site but 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. This has not been confirmed.
The yacht can accommodate 12 passengers in four double cabins, a triple and the master suite, plus crew accommodations, according to Charter World and Yacht Charters.
The vessel, which was previously named “Salute” when it flew under a Dutch flag, featured a sleek, minimalist interior of light wood with Japanese accents designed by the French designer Remi Tessier, according to descriptions and photos on the charter sites.
Global News has reached out to Global Affairs Canada for more information about the incident and the missing Canadian.
— With files from Reuters and The Associated Press