Police, cave-diving specialists and an underwater rover are searching for six people missing off the coast of Sicily after a suspected waterspout smashed and sank a 56-metre luxury yacht. A tech tycoon dubbed the British Bill Gates, Mike Lynch, was on board the Bayesian celebrating his acquittal from fraud and conspiracy charges. A coastguard vessel and a private sail boat assist the search for missing passengers after a yacht, the Bayesian, capsized off the coast of Palermo, Italy.
Credit: Getty Images He and his daughter are among the missing and one man is confirmed dead, while 15 survivors are recovering after escaping the sinking vessel on a lifeboat. So what’s behind the suspected “black swan” waterspout that fatally struck the Bayesian? Waterspouts are whirling columns of air and water that usually form over the ocean. There are two kinds of waterspout: fair-weather and tornadic.
The fair-weather spouts are triggered when winds blowing in different directions meet; particularly cool air flowing from land over warm ocean water. A waterspout spinning off Batemans Bay. The influx of warm air meeting cold becomes a rotating wind.
From the surface of the ocean, the only way is up. The rising, spinning wind gathers speed, and water vapour sucked up from the ocean becomes a visible vortex as the spout reaches maturity and connects to the cumulus clouds above. Fair-weather spouts are dramatic yet short-lived, lasting for only five to 10 minutes.
They’re not particularl.