A survivor of the luxury superyacht that sank near Sicily during a violent storm says she saved her 1-year-old by holding her above the rough and choppy waters. The mother has been identified as 35-year-old Charlotte Golunski by Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata (ANSA), an Italian national news agency. She was among the 12 passengers and 10 crew members on board the Bayesian, a 184-foot sailboat, when it capsized in the early hours of Aug.
19 off the coast of Sicily, a village in southern Italy. The boat belonged to British tech magnate, Mike Lynch, who is still missing, along with five others. Speaking to , an Italian newspaper, Golunski recounted battling turbulent waves to keep her daughter alive.
“I kept her afloat with all my strength, my arms stretched upwards so she wouldn’t drown. It was all dark. In the water, I couldn’t keep my eyes open.
I was screaming for help, but all I could hear around me was the screams of others.” In a separate interview with ANSA, Golunski is reported to have briefly lost her daughter while in the water. “For two seconds, I lost the child in the water; then I immediately hugged her again amid the fury of the waves.
I held her tightly, close to me, while the sea was stormy. Many were screaming.” “Luckily, the lifeboat inflated, and 11 of us managed to get on it.
It was terrible. In a few minutes, the boat was hit by a very strong wind and sank shortly after.” Golunski was on board the yacht with the child’s father, James E.