The Italian coastguard has started its second day of searching for survivors of a sunken superyacht off the coast of Sicily, including the tech media mogul Mike Lynch. Lynch, the former boss of software firm Autonomy, was one of 22 people on board the luxury yacht named Bayesian. The vessel capsized at around 5am on Monday in a tornado off the coast of Palermo, the capital of the Italian island of Sicily.
The Palermo Coastguard said yesterday afternoon that the Bayesian was around 50m underwater. The Italian fire and rescue services and coast guard confirmed that 15 people were rescued after the incident. Among them was Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares.
Authorities said the body of a man was found this morning , later identified as the vessel’s cook. On Monday evening it posted a video showing divers looking for survivors before renewing rescue attempts on Tuesday. Italy’s fire brigade Vigili del Fuoco said on X that early inspections of the wreck were “unsuccessful” due to limited access to the bridge and furniture obstructing passages.
Mr Lynch, who founded software giant Autonomy in 1996, was made an OBE for services to enterprise in 2006. In June, he was cleared of conducting a massive fraud relating to an 11 billion dollar (£8.64 billion) sale to US company Hewlett Packard.
The search is set to continue today. Ayla Reynold, a New Zealand national working at Clifford Chance, survived the ordeal. Her father Lin Ronald confirmed to the Telegraph she had been invited .