PORTICELLO: Police divers resumed searching Tuesday for six people, including British tech magnate Mike Lynch, believed trapped some 50 meters (164 feet) underwater in the hull of a superyacht that sank in a storm off Sicily.
Divers in wetsuits and oxygen tanks returned to the site off Porticello, near Palermo, to tag-team in 12-minute underwater search shifts where the luxury sailboat went down. Fire rescue crews reported that divers only made it to the bridge during a first search, and were unable to access the below-deck cabins because they were blocked by furniture that had shifted during the violent storm that toppled the vessel early Monday.
Fifteen people survived, including a mother who reported holding her 1-year-old baby over the waves to save her. One body has been recovered, identified as the on-board chef, officials said.
The Bayesian, a 56-meter British-flagged luxury yacht, had been moored about a half-mile off Ponticello when a storm rolled in around 4 a.m. Monday. Civil protection officials said they believed the ship was struck by a tornado over the water, known as a waterspout, which had passed through the area.
The search for the six missing passengers has been slow because the Bayesian is resting at a depth of 50 meters, where divers can stay for only 12-minute shifts, the fire rescue team said in a statement Tuesday.
The rotating search teams, each made up of two specialized cave divers, were working Tuesday to open up other access points to get inside of the wreckage. Rescue crews said they assume the six passengers will be found in the below-deck cabins, given the time of the shipwreck, but that they have not managed to verify their presence there through portholes.
The statement referred to the six as “missing.” Fire rescue officials have said the six will be considered missing until they are located in the wreckage.
Fifteen of the Bayesian’s 22 passengers and crew managed to escape on a lifeboat before being rescued by a nearby sailboat that was also moored offshore to ride out the storm, Karsten Borner, the sailboat’s captain, told reporters at the scene.
Among those missing was Lynch, who was once hailed as Britain’s king of technology. He was cleared in June of fraud and conspiracy charges in a US federal trial related to Hewlett Packard’s $11 billion takeover of his company, Autonomy Corp. His wife, Angela Bacares, survived.
The sailing vacation appeared to be something of a celebration after Lynch’s acquittal, since fellow passengers included some of the people who had stood by Lynch throughout the ordeal. Among those unaccounted for, according to the civil protection agency, were one of Lynch’s US lawyers, Christopher Morvillo of Clifford Chance, and Morvillo’s wife.
Also missing was Jonathan Bloomer, a chairman at Morgan Stanley International and the former head of the Autonomy audit committee who testified at Lynch’s trial for the defense, and his wife. Lynch appointed Bloomer to Autonomy’s board of directors in 2010, where he served as chairman of the audit committee at the time of the HP deal.
International insurance company Hiscox Group, where Bloomer was chairman, was “deeply shocked and saddened by this tragic event,” Hiscox Group CEO Aki Hussain said in a statement. “Our thoughts are with all those affected, in particular our Chair, Jonathan Bloomer, and his wife Judy, who are among the missing, and with their family as they await further news from this terrible situation.”
Among the survivors was Charlotte Golunski, who said she momentarily lost hold of her 1-year-old 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. The father, identified by ANSA as James Emslie, also survived.
The yacht, built in 2008 by the Italian firm Perini Navi, was carrying 12 passengers and 10 crew. According to online charter companies, it has been available for charter for 195,000 euros (about $215,000) a week and is notable for its massive 75-meter tall aluminum mast, one of the tallest in the world.