Underwater explorers persist in locating missing individuals from submerged sailboat near Sicily
The high-end yacht "Bayesian," housing a team of ten crew members and twenty-two passengers, encountered a setback near Porticello along the Sicilian coast on Monday morning. The unfortunate incident was due to a waterspout, an aerial tornado over the sea. Fifteen individuals were successfully saved, whereas one body was retrieved, leaving six others unaccounted for.
As per reports from the fire department, given the water depth, each dive to the sunken vessel is limited to twelve minutes, with two minutes allocated for ascending and descending. Several of the specialists deployed to work on the yacht have previously worked on the wreck of the "Costa Concordia" off the Tuscan coast in 2012, where thirty-two lives were lost, as revealed by Marco Tilotta from Palermo's fire department dive team.
The primary focus of the operations is to gain access to the living and sleeping quarters of the yacht, which now lies on its side, Tilotta explained. He further elaborated that the confined spaces inside a boat make it challenging to maneuver around obstacles and discover alternative paths.
Missing in action are prestigious tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, famously known as the "British Bill Gates," and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah. Additionally, there are reports confirming the disappearance of a senior manager from Morgan Stanley International, Jonathan Bloomer, along with his wife Judy, as stated by insurance company Hiscox. On the brighter side, Lynch's wife Angela Bacares was among the fifteen survivors and was transferred to a hospital with minor injuries.
Italian media speculates that Lynch's guests were those aboard the yacht, and the entrepreneur had reportedly celebrated his acquittal in a trial concerning a billion-dollar fraud on the yacht. The "Sunday Times" estimates his former government advisor's fortune to be around £500 million.
The "Bayesian" was constructed in 2008 in Tuscany and underwent renovations in 2020, as per "Charter World"'s website. The site also mentions that the yacht featured the world's highest aluminum sailing ship mast, measuring 75 meters. It is believed that the "Bayesian" belongs to Lynch's family and is named after Bayes' theorem, a significant mathematical formula in probability theory.
Captain Karsten Boerner of another yacht anchored near Porticello at the time of the incident, shared his account with the "Corriere della Sera" newspaper, stating that a "powerful hurricane gust" occurred that night, which he had to struggle to counteract on his ship. He also observed the "Bayesian"'s mast swaying uncontrollably before it snapped. A photograph from the "Baia Santa Nicolicchia" bar in Porticello depicted the yacht in a radiant lighting and toweringly tall mast just a few hours before the storm.
In the search for the missing individuals, authorities are considering the possibility that some may have sought shelter in other parts of the sunken yacht. The disappearance of Mike Lynch and his daughter Hannah, among others, has raised concerns in the tech and finance industries.
