Divers search sunken yacht as entrepreneur, five others, remain missing off cost of Sicily

The deep-sea search for six passengers missing after a luxury yacht sank during a ferocious storm, including a prominent British tech entrepreneur and his daughter, continued Tuesday, with divers attempting to search the yacht as it lay on the ocean floor off the northern coast of Sicily.

But Italian officials acknowledged that, as time went on, the chance of finding the missing alive was getting slimmer.

“We have no memory of situations in which, with sunken vessels, people remain alive after 36, now [almost] 48 hours,” said Vincenzo Zagarola, a Porticello Coast Guard official. It was “difficult to imagine” people could still be alive inside the yacht’s hull underwater, Zagarola said.

So far, only one crew member has been confirmed dead in Monday’s disaster. The body of the yacht’s chef, identified as Canadian-Antiguan Recaldo Thomas, was found during initial recovery efforts. Fifteen people have been rescued.

Still missing are British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his teenage daughter, Hannah; Morgan Stanley International Chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife, Judy; and attorney Chris Morvillo, a partner at Clifford Chance in New York who represented Lynch in a recently concluded legal battle, and his wife, Neda.

Lynch, charged in the United States with fraud associated with his 2011 sale of Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard, was acquitted on all counts in June. The voyage on the 183-foot Bayesian, owned by a company controlled by Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, was intended to be a celebration of his legal victory, Britain’s Telegraph reported.

Divers resumed work around 8:30 a.m. Tuesday but have struggled to enter the narrow passages of the cluttered wreck, fire rescue service spokesman said.

Tables and chairs were blocking entrances, and cables and wires were forming a “sort of mesh,” spokesman Luca Cari told the Washington Post. “At the moment we are working on land to plan for an intervention and above all to create new openings.” The divers were searching the yacht’s stern.

Divers have found “no indication” that any of the missing people are on the ship, he said, but one “operational hypothesis” is that individuals may still be inside their cabins, based on the early-morning time of the sinking.

Violent weather appears to have caught many by surprise. Zagarola, the Coast Guard official, said that they had only expected “strong gusts” on the day of the sinking and that no weather warnings had been issued.

One passenger, Charlotte Golunski, told Italian media of holding on to her 1-year-old daughter, Sophie, amid the storm.

“For two seconds I lost my baby in the sea,” she told Giornale di Sicilia. “Then I immediately hugged her again amid the fury of the waves.”

The 184-f00t-long British-flagged Bayesian was carrying 12 passengers and 10 crew members roughly half a mile from the Sicilian fishing village of Porticello when it encountered rough weather at about 5 a.m. Monday. Lightning flashed, thunder boomed, and waves thrashed the vessel.

A fisherman described the scene to the Italian news agency ANSA. “It was floating, still, then suddenly vanished,” Pietro Asciutto said. “I saw it sink with my own eyes.”

Golunski and her partner, identified by Italian media as James Emslie, had been invited onto the ship as Lynch’s guests. She told Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper that she held her daughter “afloat with all my strength, my arms stretched upward to keep her from drowning.”

“It was all dark,” she said. “In the water I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I screamed for help, but all I could hear around me was the screams of the others.” Eventually, Golunski, Sophie, Emslie and eight others were able to get onto an inflatable lifeboat.

The Sir Robert, a Dutch-flagged sailing vessel anchored nearby, responded immediately to help survivors before the Italian coast guard arrived.

Britain was expected to deploy a team of four inspectors to conduct a preliminary assessment into the disaster.

“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,” a foreign ministry spokesman said Tuesday.

Carl Sputh, a former yacht captain who now works as a broker for Northrop and Johnson, a yacht brokerage firm based out of Fort Lauderdale, said that sudden weather changes at sea were not uncommon.

“I was a captain for 27 years, and I can tell you that I’ve been in waterspouts and microbursts that are similar to what happened out there that night with them,” Sputh said in an interview. “You go from like zero wind and a beautiful night into 80 to 100 mile an hour winds out of nowhere. And it happens extremely fast, and they’re extremely violent, and then they’re over.”

Yachts like the Bayesian would have a retractable keel that helps balance the yacht when sailing and improves stability, Sputh added. Italian Bayesian was anchored offshore. If the ship was planning to move closer to shore soon, Sputh said, it would have been normal for the keel to be retracted, to allow for navigation in more shallow waters.

Bacares, Lynch’s wife, was among the 15 survivors, according to a person familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the situation. The Bayesian is owned by Revtom, a firm controlled by Bacares and registered on the Isle of Man, records show.

Ayla Ronald, a senior associate with Clifford Chance in London, also survived.

“We are in shock and deeply saddened by this tragic incident,” the firm said in a statement Tuesday. “Our thoughts are with our Partner, Christopher Morvillo, and his wife, Neda, who are among the missing.”

“Our utmost priority is providing support to the family as well as our colleague Ayla Ronald, who together with her partner, thankfully survived the incident.”

Bloomer, in addition to chairing Morgan Stanley International, joined the insurance group Hiscox last year as nonexecutive chair.

“We are deeply shocked and saddened by this tragic event,” Aki Hussain, the group’s chief executive, 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.”

Judy Bloomer worked with the British women’s health charity the Eve Appeal.

“Judy is a brilliant champion for women’s health and medical research, and has been an incredible supporter, committee member and trustee of our charity for over 20 years,” CEO Athena Lamnisos said in a statement Tuesday. “We are deeply shocked to hear the news that our very dear friend and her husband, Jonathan, are among those missing.”

The Bayesian was built in 2008 by Italian ship maker Perini Navi, according to the SuperYacht Times.

Three teams of divers, two from Italy’s coast guard and one from the fire brigade, are involved in the search-and-rescue operation, the coast guard said.

The yacht sank to a depth of more than 160 feet. The first attempt by fire brigade cave divers to search inside the yacht was unsuccessful, rescue authorities said.

On Tuesday evening, Zagarola said that despite the low odds, it would be “beautiful” to find the other passengers. “We are [still] looking for missing people.”