Mike Lynch, the British tech tycoon known for founding Autonomy, and his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah Lynch, are currently missing after his luxury yacht, Bayesian, sank off the coast of Sicily in the early hours of August 19, 2024.
Salvatore Cocina, the director general of Sicily’s civil protection agency, confirmed Lynch and his daughter’s involvement in the sinking.
The yacht’s chef is presumed dead following the Palermo coastguard’s revelation that a body found is believed to be his, though formal identification has not yet been made.
The 56-meter yacht, named after the Bayesian theory on which Lynch’s PhD thesis was based, capsized after a severe storm caused waterspouts off the coast near the village of Porticello, close to Palermo.
The yacht had 22 people onboard, including British, American, and Canadian nationals. Fifteen people, including a one-year-old British girl, were rescued.
The search for the missing is ongoing, with divers identifying wreckage 50 meters below the surface. The incident has attracted significant attention, partly due to Lynch’s high-profile legal battles.
In a tragic coincidence, on the same day the yacht capsized, Lynch’s co-defendant in the U.S. fraud trial, Stephen Chamberlain, was confirmed dead after being hit by a car in Cambridgeshire on August 17, 2024. Chamberlain, a former vice president of finance at Autonomy, was acquitted alongside Lynch earlier this year.
The UK Foreign Office is supporting the affected British nationals and their families, while Britain’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch is sending inspectors to conduct a preliminary assessment of the incident.
One of the survivors, Charlotte Golunski, recounted her experience to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica: “For two seconds I lost my daughter in the sea, then I immediately hugged her again amidst the fury of the waves.”
She continued: “I held her 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.”
The Bayesian yacht was registered to Revtom Ltd., with Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, listed as the sole legal owner. Bacares was among the survivors.
Divers on the search and rescue team have reported that the yacht, found 50 meters below the surface, is “practically intact” on the seabed, which raises questions about whether the mast was broken.
According to Matthew Schanck, chair of the Maritime Search and Rescue Council, the unusually tall mast might have contributed to the sinking.
Due to the ship’s hull being cluttered with furniture and objects, access has been difficult for divers, who only have 10 minutes per dive to search the yacht’s cabins. A 1cm thick glass window is also being considered as an entry point.
Rescue teams fear that the bodies of those missing are likely still inside the yacht, as no evidence of them has been found despite extensive searches. A specialist diving team from Rome has been brought in, with hopes of achieving results by Tuesday.
