After yacht sinks off Italy, search resumes for six missing, including Mike Lynch, by Reuters

By Giselda Vagnoni

PALERMO, Sicily (Reuters) – Rescue teams in Sicily resumed the search for six people missing, including British technology entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his daughter, after a luxury yacht was hit by a violent storm and sank on Monday, killing one on board.

The British-flagged ‘Bayesian’, a 56-metre (184 ft) long sailboat, was carrying 22 people and was moored just off Porticello harbor when it was hit by fierce weather.

Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of Morgan Stanley International, and Chris Morvillo, a lawyer at Clifford Chance, who represented Lynch in a US lawsuit, were among those missing.

The wives of both men were also unaccounted for, said Salvatore Cocina, head of civil protection in Sicily.

“The fear is that the bodies are trapped inside the vessel,” he told Reuters.

Prosecutors in the nearby city of Termini Imerese have opened an investigation into the incident.

Specialist divers reached the ship at a depth of about 50 meters on Monday, but access was limited by objects in the way, firefighters said.

Fifteen people had escaped before the boat went down, including Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, who owned the boat, and a one-year-old girl.

On Monday, rescue teams recovered the body of the yacht’s chef, identified as Antiguan national Ricardo Thomas.

Storms and heavy rain have swept Italy in recent days after weeks of searing heat raised the temperature of the Mediterranean Sea to record highs, increasing the risk of extreme weather, experts said.

“The sea surface temperature around Sicily was about 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit), which is almost 3 degrees warmer than normal. This creates an enormous source of energy that contributes to these storms” , said meteorologist Luca Mercalli.

“We can’t say it’s all due to global warming, but we can say it has an amplifying effect,” he told Reuters.

The UK government’s Maritime Accident Investigation Service said four inspectors had been sent to Sicily to carry out a “preliminary assessment”.

An expert at the disaster scene, who declined to be named, said an initial focus of the investigation would be whether the yacht’s crew had time to close access hatches to the vessel before the storm hit.