Several prominent figures in the tech, banking, and legal fields are missing and presumed dead after a yacht capsized off the coast of Sicily and dropped about 150 feet to the bottom of the Mediterranean.
On Monday, the 184-foot Bayesian sailing superyacht was suddenly struck by a thunderstorm, The Wall Street Journal reported. A total of 22 people were on board, and while 15 were rescued, a handful are still unaccounted for: That includes the tech exec Mike Lynch; Jonathan Bloomer, the chairman of Morgan Stanley International; and attorney Chris Morvillo. Some of their family members are also among the missing.
The Italian coast guard has undertaken recovery efforts, the WSJ noted, and it’s being assisted by diving teams, helicopters, patrol boats, and marine-accident investigators from the United Kingdom. While the rescuers have so far only recovered the body of the yacht’s chef, they believe that the rest of the missing are trapped inside the ship.
“The space is very tight, because everything fell when [the yacht] capsized,” Luca Cari, the head of Italy’s national firefighters’ corps, told The Wall Street Journal. “Divers are trying to remove furnishings, wires and other debris to clear the passageways.”
The group was aboard the yacht to celebrate Lynch’s recent acquittal related to charges that he had faked the value of his company Autonomy when he sold it to Hewlett Packard for $11 billion, the WSJ wrote. Bloomer had led the audit committee at Autonomy, while Morvillo represented Lynch during his trial.
Bayesian, valued at about $35 million, was built and launched by Perini Navi in 2008, making it one of the most pedigreed sailing yachts on the water. It also had the tallest mast of any sailing vessel. It was owned by Angela Bacares, Lynch’s wife, who was rescued after the ship capsized. The yacht had been anchored near the port of Porticello when a storm swept in and caused a waterspout, a sea-based tornado, to hit the vessel. While these phenomena are common during the summer, The Wall Street Journal wrote, they don’t typically last long and they don’t usually show up on radars. According to the coast guard, the yacht didn’t send any distress signals before it sank at about 5 a.m. local time on August 19. The search continues for those still missing.
