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Mike Lynch, one of the UK’s most prominent tech entrepreneurs, is among those missing after a luxury yacht sank off the coast of Sicily, according to people familiar with the matter.
LynchHis 18-year-old daughter Hannah is also missing while his wife, Angela Bacares, has been rescued, they said. Four other people are also missing after the 56m yacht, Bayesian, sank in bad weather, while one crew member was confirmed dead.
Camper and Nicholsons, the Bayesian’s manager, said the yacht “encountered severe weather and subsequently sank” near Palermo early on Monday morning.
There were 12 passengers and 10 crew members on board, of whom 15 were rescued by the Italian coast guard.
Lynch, former CEO of Autonomy, is acquitted of criminal charges by a San Francisco jury in June, exonerating the 59-year-old businessman after a 12-year legal battle over the sale of the software conglomerate to Hewlett-Packard for $11 billion in 2011.
Following the verdict, Lynch said he was “delighted” and “looking forward to returning to the UK and getting on with what I love most: my family and being creative in my field”.
A spokesman for Lynch declined to comment.
“The thought that Mike Lynch could have lost his life just as he was starting to rebuild is incredibly painful for everyone who knew him,” said David Yelland, a communications consultant who worked with the businessman. “His entire life was about overcoming adversity in the most extraordinary of circumstances, and we have to pray that he will do it again.”
The Italian coast guard said the Bayesian sank to a depth of about 50 meters.
Fifteen people rescued were British, American and Canadian. Eight people were taken to local hospitals.
Giuseppe D’Agostino, mayor of Santa Flavia, a coastal village near where the ship sank, said the search was not over. “The community is in shock. Everyone is helping,” he told the Financial Times.
“I spoke to some of the survivors. They were in shock. They had no strength to speak,” he added.
One survivor was reported to be Charlotte Golunski, a partner at Lynch’s venture capital firm Invoke Capital, along with her husband James Emsilie and their one-year-old daughter. She told Italian media that her family had left their cabin during the storm and headed to the deck.
Records show the Lynch family owns the yacht. The Bayesian is owned by the Isle of Man-registered company Revtom Limited, according to shipping database Equasis. Isle of Man records show the Bacares are Revtom’s sole shareholders.
The Sunday Times Rich List estimated the Lynch family’s fortune at around £500m earlier this year.
The name Bayesian may refer to the 18th-century English statistician Thomas Bayes, whose statistical theory informed the search technology behind the Autonomy software.
The yacht was last docked at the small Italian island of Panarea, according to MarineTraffic, a ship tracking website. It had been passing through the Aeolian Islands while en route to Palermo before being hit by what was described as a “tornado.”
Luca Cari, a spokesman for the Italian fire service, said divers and other rescue workers had been working at the scene since Monday morning.
“We arrived when the ship had already sunk,” he said, adding that the operation was complicated by the depth at which the ship had sunk. Cari said the body had been found outside the wreckage. He declined to identify the victim.
The UK Department for Transport said the UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch is deploying a team of four inspectors to Palermo to conduct a “preliminary assessment of the sinking”. Britain will lead the investigation because the ship flies a British flag.
“We are providing consular assistance to a number of British nationals and their families following an incident in Sicily and are in contact with the local authorities,” the Foreign Office said.
Additional reporting by Jim Pickard
