The British tech entrepreneur and billionaire Mike Lynch is missing after a super-yacht sank off the coast of Sicily during a violent storm.
The British-flagged Bayesian, a 56-meter sailboat, was carrying 22 people and anchored just off shore near the port of Porticello when it was struck by a tornado in the early hours, according to an Italian coastguard statement.
One man, believed to be the vessel’s chef, was confirmed dead, while six others, including Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, were missing on Monday evening.
According to the coastguard, those missing were British, American, and Canadian nationals.
Fifteen people were rescued, including Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, who owns the boat, and a one-year-old girl rescued by her mom.
A spokesperson for the UK Foreign Office said: “We are providing consular support to a number of British nationals and their families following an incident in Sicily and are in contact with the local authorities.”
In the mid-1990s, Lynch co-founded Autonomy, a software company that rose to prominence in the UK technology sector.
Lynch, once dubbed “Britain’s Bill Gates,” spent much of the previous decade in court defending his name against fraud claims stemming from the $11 billion sale of autonomy to the US computer major Hewlett-Packard.
In June, a jury in San Francisco acquitted the 59-year-old, who had been under house arrest for more than a year.
It has been reported that people involved in his defence had been invited onto the Sicily yacht.
His co-defendant in that case, Stephen Chamberlain, died on Saturday after being struck by a car while out on a run in Cambridgeshire.
Chamberlain was the former vice president of finance at Autonomy, the software company Lynch co-founded.
According to the father of one of the survivors, his daughter was invited onto the yacht after Lynch was acquitted in his court case.
Ayla Reynold, a New Zealand national, had been working on the case at the Clifford Chance legal firm, where missing passenger Chris Morvillo is a partner.
“Ayla is a lawyer who is part of the legal team that was invited to go sailing as a result of the success in the recent United States court case,” her father, Lin Ronald, told the Telegraph, external.
He stated that she had texted him to let him know that she and her partner were still alive, but did not elaborate.
The Italian coastguard said: “This morning at about 5 a.m., following a violent storm, a 56-meter yacht called Bayesian flying the British flag sank near Porticello.”
The boat had a crew of 10 people and 12 passengers, it added.
Rescue divers are attempting to reach the hull, which has sunk to around 49 meters.
The public prosecutor’s office in Termini Imerese was looking into the incident.
Ten of those rescued, including a one-year-old, were taken to hospitals and are all in stable condition.
