Sicily

At least one person has died and six others remain missing after a luxury sailing boat sank off the coast of the Italian province of Palermo. The 56-metre-long boat was sailing with 22 people on board, 12 tourists and ten crew members, when at five o’clock in the morning on Monday a strong whirlpool hit the area and sank the boat in the stretch of sea in front of the town of Porticello, on the island of Sicily.

One of the missing is billionaire Mike Lynch, one of Britain’s best-known technology entrepreneurs, nicknamed the “British Bill Gates.” His 18-year-old daughter Hannah is also missing, as is chef Rafael Thomas, the director general of Sicily’s civil protection agency, Ricardo Cocina, said. The deceased was a Canadian-born man living in Antigua and Barbuda who worked as a cook on the ship, according to Civil Protection, but it is not clear whether he was the chef himself or another member of the crew.

The missing also include Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of Morgan Stanley International, and Chris Morvillo, a lawyer who represented Lynch in a US trial, as well as their wives, Salvatore Cocina, director of Civil Protection in Sicily, told Italian media.

The Italian authorities do not have an official list of the passengers, so it is taking them more time to complete the list of the missing. However, Civil Protection has indicated to EL PAÍS that the divers from the fire brigade who have gone down to the remains of the ship have confirmed that they have seen “corpses inside.”

In 2011, the specialist weekly Computer Weekly called Lynch “the most influential person in the UK in the field of digital technology”. In 2006 he was awarded the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth, one of the highest national honours in the United Kingdom.

Lynch had recently had problems with the American justice system, from which he was acquitted by a jury just a couple of months ago. The businessman, one of the founders of the technology company Autonomy, fought a legal battle in San Francisco for 12 years over alleged irregularities in the sale of this company in 2011 to Hewlett-Packard for 11 billion dollars, about 10 billion euros. The British newspaper Financial Times points out that after the verdict, Lynch said he was “euphoric”. He declared: “I want to return to the United Kingdom and return to what I love most: my family and innovating in my field.”

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Lynch, the former CEO of Autonomy, had just been acquitted in a case of falsifying accounts for the sale of his company in 2011 to Hewlett-Packard for 11 billion dollars, approximately 10 billion euros.

The tycoon was travelling with his wife, Angela Bacares, who was rescued by the Italian coastguard and is out of danger, according to local media. The woman, who is in a state of shock, briefly recounted her tragic experience to Italian media from a medical centre in the province of Palermo. According to her account, the boat began to tilt at around four in the morning, an hour before it sank. She and her husband woke up and went up on deck to see what was happening. Then they realised that “everything had slipped away”. As she explained, at first they were not worried, but soon they were plunged into “great chaos, amid broken glass” and “everything became confusing”.

British businessman Mike Lynch in a file photo.Henry Nicholls (REUTERS)

Another Dutch-flagged vessel sailing in the same area and the Coast Guard were able to rescue 15 people, including a one-year-old English girl, according to Italian media. The child is in good condition and has been taken to the children’s hospital in Palermo as a precaution, along with her mother, identified as Charlotte Golunksi, a partner in Lynch’s investment company — Invoke Capital — who was also traveling with her husband James Emsilie, who was injured and admitted to another medical center. The businesswoman told the media that during the storm she left the cabin with her family and went to the deck and was thus able to save herself.

The sunken sailing ship was flying the English flag and was carrying a group of tourists who had chosen the island of Sicily for their holidays. The survivors, who are now on land, are mostly British citizens, although there are also two Americans, a New Zealander, an Irishman and a Sri Lankan.

The ship’s hull is at a depth of about 50 metres and divers from the fire brigade have already submerged to reach it in search of the missing. Several helicopters and coastguard vessels are also searching the area.

The Italian public prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation to clarify the causes and dynamics of the shipwreck. In the next few hours, the authorities are expected to hear the version of the survivors and that of the captain of the sailboat, James Catfield, who managed to get to safety. According to his preliminary version, he did not “see” the strong storm coming.

On Sunday afternoon, a severe storm hit the northern coast of Sicily, with strong gusts of wind causing damage to some structures in the port. The area had been on alert for bad weather for four days. Meteorologist Edoardo Ferrara told the daily La Repubblica that it was “very surprising that there were people on the boat despite the announcement that a disturbance was approaching.”

The sailboat, named Bayesian, belonged to a French company that rents boats.

The ‘Bayesian’, before sinking on Monday. PERINI NAVI PRESS OFFICE / HANDO (EFE)

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