sailboat accident italy

Tech magnate missing after luxury superyacht sinks off Sicily in 'violent storm'

A British tech magnate and several other people are missing after a luxury superyacht sank near Sicily’s main city, Palermo, during a violent storm, Italian officials and sources familiar with the matter told CNBC . At least one person was killed.

Mike Lynch, who was regularly described in U.K. media as “Britain’s Bill Gates,” was not among those rescued, said the sources, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the situation. They added that Angela Bacares, Lynch’s wife, had been plucked from the waters off the Italian island.

Lynch was among six people who were unaccounted for, The Associated Press quoted Salvo Cocina of Sicily’s civil protection agency as saying. “They were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said. Cocina also confirmed that Bacares had survived.

Italy's coast guard said in a statement that the 184-foot sailboat, named the Bayesian, sank “due to a violent storm” off Palermo at around 5 a.m. local time (11 p.m. ET) with 22 people on board. Fifteen people were rescued, and six passengers were missing, it said.

American, British and Canadian citizens were among the missing, the statement said. The coast guard said in later statement that the ship’s cook had died. It did not give the cook's nationality.  

Karsten Borner, the captain of a ship that rescued the survivors, told reporters that there was a “strong hurricane gust, and we had to start the engine to keep the ship in an angled position,” according to Reuters.

He added that they had “watched the ship behind us not to touch them and we managed to keep the ship in position.” After the storm was over, he said, “we noticed that the ship behind us was gone.”

“Fifteen people inside. Four people were injured, three heavily injured, and we brought them to our ship, he said. “Then we communicated with the coast guard, and after some time, the coast guard came and later picked up injured people.”

One of the survivors, identified as Charlotte Emsley, 35, told the Italian news agency ANSA that she had momentarily lost hold of her 1-year-old daughter, Sofia, in the water but managed to retrieve her and hold her up over the waves until a lifeboat inflated and they were pulled to safety.

“I immediately hugged her again amid the fury of the waves. I held her tight, close to me, while the sea was stormy,” she said. “Many were screaming. Luckily, the lifeboat inflated, and 11 of us managed to get on it.”

The City Council of Bagheria said in a statement that a child of that age was being treated at a children’s hospital. It said that seven adults were taken to the emergency room but that “it seems that none are in serious conditions.” 

Lynch, 59, the missing tech entrepreneur, founded the enterprise software firm Autonomy and became the target of a protracted legal battle with Hewlett-Packard after the U.S. tech giant accused him of inflating the company’s value in an $11 billion sale. Extradited from Britain to the U.S. last year to stand trial, he was acquitted of fraud after a three-month trial.

Italy’s national fire department said in a statement that “divers, a motorboat and a helicopter” had been deployed to help with the search. The wreck was at a depth of around 165 feet, the statement said.  

Divers from the Sicilian city of Sassri and Naples, a city on the Italian mainland , were “arriving on site to search inside the sunken vessel,” it said. 

Built by Italian shipbuilder Perini in 2008, the U.K.-registered Bayesian has an aluminum hull and can carry 12 guests and a crew of up to 10, according to online specialist yacht sites. Online sites list the luxury vessel for charter for up to 195,000 euros (about $215,000) a week, the AP reported.

The boat left the Sicilian port of Milazzo on Wednesday and was last tracked east of Palermo on Sunday evening, with a navigation status of “at anchor,” according to the vessel tracking app Vesselfinder.

Fabio La Bianca, 40, took a picture of the boat at around 10 p.m. local time Sunday shortly after he closed his bar in nearby Santa Flavia. “Absurd tragedy tonight. I am lost for words,” he said Monday on Facebook.

Matteo Moschella is a London-based reporter for NBC News' Social Newsgathering team.

Henry Austin is a senior editor for NBC News Digital based in London.

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U.S. publishing boss Adrienne Vaughan killed in "terrible" speedboat crash in Italy

August 4, 2023 / 4:44 PM EDT / CBS/AP

U.S. publishing executive Adrienne Vaughan has died in a horrific boating accident off Italy's Amalfi Coast, her company said Friday.

Vaughan, 45, was president of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc., publisher of the Harry Potter series.

"Adrienne Vaughan was a leader of dazzling talent and infectious passion and had a deep commitment to authors and readers," said the board chair, Julia Reidhead, and president and CEO, Maria A. Pallante, in a joint statement. "Most of all she was an extraordinary human being, and those of us who had the opportunity to work with her will be forever fortunate."

The rented motorboat Vaughan and her family were on during a vacation to the popular tourist destination crashed into a sailboat Thursday, Italian state TV said, knocking her into the water, where according to witnesses she was struck by the motorboat's propeller.  

A video published by the New York Post showed guests on the sailboat during the collision, with one woman asking, "What happened?" 

"This boat, it collided with us," a man responds frantically, before running across the deck.

Moments later, another man looks over the edge: "Jesus Christ," he says. "She needs help," says another guest.

"The sailboat was going straight ahead and so was the [motor]boat," Pietro Iuzzolino, a barman who was making cocktails aboard the sailboat, told Italian newspaper Corriere del Mezzogiorno . "Then suddenly [the motorboat] veered 180 degrees: there was a collision and I heard a very loud bang.

"I saw the woman in the water being held up by her children and her husband," he said. "It was terrible."

Vaughan was pulled out of the water and brought to a dock but died by the time a helicopter ambulance arrived, state TV said.  

The Italian coast guard office in Amalfi is investigating the crash. A call to its office wasn't answered, nor was there a response to an emailed request to the Coast Guard for details.

The victim's husband was hospitalized with a shoulder injury while the couple's two young children were uninjured, according to the reports.

No one aboard the sailboat, which had more than 80 U.S. and German tourists and the crew members on board, was injured.

A blood test for the skipper of the motorboat tested positive for substance use, reported Italian news agency ANSA, which didn't indicate whether the result indicated alcohol or drug consumption. 

Sailboat barman Iuzzolino said the skipper was "vomiting," adding "we got the impression he was drunk." The skipper, an Italian about 30 years old, suffered a broken pelvis and ribs, ANSA reported.

There was no answer at the courthouse in the southern of port city of Salerno, where prosecutors are overseeing the investigation.

When the motorboat crashed, it had been headed to Positano, one of the most popular destinations along the Amalfi Coast, Italian media said.

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One dead, six missing after luxury superyacht capsizes off Sicily coast

The boat, that was carrying tourists including British tech giant Mike Lynch, sank due to rough weather conditions.

One person has died and six remain missing after a luxury superyacht with 22 people on board sank off the Sicilian coast, according to Italian authorities.

The missing included British tech giant Mike Lynch, his daughter Hannah Lynch, his lawyer and others, Italy’s civil protection and authorities said on Monday. Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares and 14 other people survived.

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Italy’s coastguard and firefighters brought 15 people to safety on Monday after the 50-metre (164-foot) sailboat capsized at about 5am (03:00 GMT) due to rough winds and choppy waters caused by a waterspout, Italian media reported.

One body was located in the wreck at a depth of about 50 metres, a coastguard spokesman told the AFP news agency. The victim is understood to be a man and was the yacht’s onboard chef, according to Italian media.

The boat was carrying 12 passengers and 10 crew members. The missing people were of British, American and Canadian nationality, the coastguard said.

A one-year-old girl was among those rescued, along with her mother.

A survivor identified as Charlotte Golunski said she had momentarily lost hold of her one-year-old daughter Sofia in the water, but then managed to hold her up over the waves until a lifeboat inflated and they were both pulled to safety, Italian news agency ANSA reported, quoting the mother.

“It was terrible. The boat was hit by really strong wind and shortly after it went down,” she added.

Eight people out of 15 rescued have been hospitalised, and all 15 are in stable condition, according to Italian news agency Adnkronos.

Watersprout

The chartered sailboat sank off Porticello, when a waterspout struck the area overnight, said Salvo Cocina of Sicily’s civil protection agency.

According to National Geographic, a waterspout roughly resembles a mini-tornado over a body of water. It likely occurred as storms and heavy rainfall have hit Italy in recent days – with floods and landslides causing damage in the north – after weeks of scorching heat.

“I was at home when the tornado struck,” fisherman Pietro Asciutto told ANSA. “I immediately closed all the windows. Then I saw the boat, it just had one mast, it was really big. I saw it suddenly sink.”

Another witness quoted by the agency said: “The boat was all lit up. Around 4:30 am, it was no longer there. A beautiful boat where there was a party. A normal joyous vacation day at sea turned into tragedy.”

Storms and heavy rainfall have swept down Italy in recent days after weeks of scorching heat, which had lifted the temperature of the Mediterranean sea to record levels, raising the risk of extreme weather conditions, experts said.

“The sea surface temperature around Sicily was around 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit), which is almost 3 degrees more than normal. This creates an enormous source of energy that contributes to these storms,” said meteorologist Luca Mercalli.

“We can’t say that this is all due to global warming but we can say that it has an amplifying effect,” he told Reuters.

Italian prosecutors in the nearby town of Termini Imerese have opened an investigation to look into what had gone wrong.

Meanwhile, fire department divers are scouring areas around the boat, which was flying a British flag. Helicopters are also aiding rescue efforts, authorities said.

Camper & Nicholsons, the managers of the yacht, said in a statement that they were “assisting with the ongoing search” for the missing people.

A UK foreign ministry spokesperson said British officials were in contact with local authorities and are willing to provide consular support to its citizens who were affected.

ANSA said the boat, named “Bajesian”, had been moored in the port at Porticello and had set sail on Sunday evening.

The vessel was built by Italian shipbuilding firm Perini Navi in 2008.

US publishing executive killed in Italy boat crash; skipper under investigation

ROME -- The skipper of a rented motorboat involved in a crash off the Amalfi Coast that killed a U.S. tourist is being investigated for suspected manslaughter, a prosecutor in southern Italy said Saturday.

Salerno Chief Prosecutor Giuseppe Borrelli told a news conference in that port city that the skipper, an Italian who hasn't publicly identified, is also being investigated on suspicion of causing a shipwreck. No charges have so far been filed against him, and the investigation is still ongoing.

Adrienne Vaughan, 45, was killed and her husband and the skipper of the rented motorboat were injured in the accident Thursday afternoon off a stretch of coastline popular with tourists. The motorboat slammed into a chartered sailboat, where some 70 guests aboard were enjoying a wedding reception.

Blood samples were taken from the skipper to determine alcohol and drug levels. But Borrelli indicated that for now the results were inconclusive.

"The results are being evaluated by a consultant of the prosecutor's office since the data per se aren't necessarily significant,'' Borrelli. He added that more evaluation was needed to determine "the incidence of the levels on the ability of the subject" to pilot the boat.

On Friday, Italian news reports said that the blood toxicology tests had found traces of cocaine.

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Investigators have questioned the skipper who remains hospitalized with what Italian media said are pelvis and rib fractures. The victim's husband, Mike White, is being treated at another hospital for a shoulder injury, according to reports. Authorities have spoken to him and plan to do so again, Borrelli said.

The couple's two young children were uninjured. They're now in the care of one of the their grandfathers who travelled to Italy to help while their father is convalescing, the prosecutor said.

Borrelli said when the crash happened, Vaughan was sunning herself on the bow of the boat and "bounced" into the water at the moment of impact. He declined to detail her injuries, saying the results of an autopsy are still pending.

Two doctors who were among the passengers on the sailboat dived into the sea to to help Vaughan, while a nearby vessel brought her to shore, Italian state radio said, quoting the sailboat's captain.

Borrelli said the woman died before a medical helicopter and local ambulance could take her to hospital.

The sailboat's captain has told Italian media that the motorboat was speeding when it smashed into the stationary sailboat's bow.

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The prosecutor said investigators also questioned the captain of the sailboat as well as some 70 passengers including American and other foreign tourists.

The motorboat had set sail from the town of Amalfi, Borrelli said. According to Italian media, the family was headed to Positano, another popular coastal town when the crash happened.

Vaughan was president of Bloomsbury Publishing's U.S. branch, which counts writers ranging from bestselling novelists Sarah J. Maas and Susanna Clarke to historian Mark Kurlansky among its roster of authors.

A Bloomsbury book, "Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist's Memoir of the Jim Crow South," by the late Winfred Rembert (as told to Erin I. Kelly), won the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 2022.

• Nation & World

Search continues for British tech magnate and 5 others after luxury superyacht sinks off Sicily

PORTICELLO, Sicily (AP) — British tech magnate Mike Lynch and five other people were missing after their luxury superyacht sank during a freak storm off Sicily early Monday, Italy’s civil protection and authorities said. Lynch’s wife and 14 other people survived.

Lynch, who was acquitted in June in a big U.S. fraud trial, was among six people who remain unaccounted for after their chartered sailboat sank off Porticello, near Palermo, sometime after 4 a.m. A tornado over the water known as a waterspout had struck the area overnight, said Salvo Cocina of Sicily’s civil protection agency.

One body was recovered, and police divers spent the day trying to reach the hull of the ship, which was resting at a depth of 50 meters (163 feet) off Porticello where it had been anchored, rescue authorities said. They returned to the site after 10 p.m. to see if it would be possible to search through the night, when weather conditions were expected to worsen, said Luca Cari, spokesman of the fire rescue service.

The ship had a crew of 10 people and 12 passengers, the Italian coast guard said. A sudden fierce storm had battered the area overnight, and a waterspout struck precisely where the 56-meter (184-foot) British-flagged Bayesian had been moored.

“They were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Cocina, noting that another big ship nearby, the Sir Robert Baden Powell, wasn’t as badly damaged and helped rescue the 15 survivors — including Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares.

The Bayesian was notable for its single 75-meter (246-feet) mast — one of the world’s tallest made of aluminum and which was lit up at night, just hours before it sank. Online charter sites listed it for rent for up to 195,000 euros (about $215,000) a week.

One of the survivors, identified as Charlotte Golunski, said she momentarily lost hold of her 1-year-old daughter Sofia in the water, but then managed to hold her up over the waves until a lifeboat inflated and they were both pulled to safety, Italian news agency ANSA reported. The father, identified by ANSA as James Emslie, also survived, said Cocina.

Karsten Borner, the captain of the Sir Robert Baden Powell, said he had noticed the Bayesian nearby during the storm but after it calmed he saw a red flare and realized the ship had simply disappeared, ANSA and the Giornale di Sicilia newspaper reported. Borner said he and a crew member boarded their tender and found a lifeboat with 15 people, some of them injured, who they then took aboard and alerted the coast guard.

Eight of those rescued were hospitalized while the others were taken to a hotel. One body believed to be the cook was found near the wreck, but six others were unaccounted for and believed inside the hull, said Cari, the fire rescue spokesperson. The rescue operations, which were visible from shore, involved helicopters and rescue boats from the coast guard, fire rescue and civil protection service.

Fisherman Fabio Cefalù said he had seen a flare from shore at around 4:30 a.m. and immediately set out to the site but by the time he got there, the Bayesian had already sunk, with only cushions, wood and other items from the superyacht floating in the water.

“But for the rest, we didn’t find anyone,” he said from the port hours later. He said that he immediately alerted the coast guard and stayed on-site for three hours, but didn’t find any survivors. “I think they are inside, all the missing people.”

He said he had been up early to check the weather to see if he could go fishing, and surmised that a sudden waterspout had struck the yacht.

“It could be that the mast broke, or the anchor at the prow pulled it, I don’t know,” he said.

Cocina said the crew and passengers hailed from a variety of countries: In addition to Britain and the United States, passengers and crew were from Antigua, France, Germany, Ireland, Myanmar, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Spain, he said.

The UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch is deploying a team of four inspectors to Italy to conduct a preliminary assessment. The Foreign Commonwealth and Development office said it was “providing consular support to a number of British nationals and their families.”

Dutch foreign ministry spokesperson Casper Soetekouw said the lone Dutch citizen on board, a man, had been rescued and was not in life-threatening condition.

Lynch, once hailed as Britain’s king of technology, was cleared in June of fraud and conspiracy charges related to Hewlett Packard’s $11 billion takeover of his company, Autonomy Corp.

The not guilty verdicts followed an 11-week criminal trial in San Francisco that delved into the history of HP’s 2011 acquisition of Autonomy, a business software firm founded by Lynch.

The fraud accusations represented a dramatic turn in the fortunes of an entrepreneur once described as the Bill Gates of Britain — a title he seemed to live up to when he netted an $800 million from the Autonomy sale.

The acquittal vindicated Lynch, who had vehemently denied wrong doing and portrayed HP as a technological train wreck.

“I’m looking forward to returning the UK and getting back to what I love most: my family and innovating in my field,” Lynch said in a statement released after the verdict.

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The yacht, built in 2008 by the Italian firm Perini Navi, can accommodate 12 passengers in four double cabins, a triple and the master suite, plus crew accommodations, according to Charter World and Yacht Charters.

The vessel, which previously was named Salute when it flew under a Dutch flag, featured a sleek, minimalist interior of light wood with Japanese accents designed by the French designer Remi Tessier, according to descriptions and photos on the charter sites.

Winfield reported from Rome. AP writers Danica Kirka and Sylvia Hui contributed from London.

This story has been corrected to reflect that the fisherman’s name is Fabio Cefalù, not Francesco Cefalu’.

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• Tech Mogul Mike Lynch and 5 Others Are Missing After a Yacht Sinks in Italy

The ship capsized after a storm suddenly swept in. Fifteen people were rescued, but six still remain unaccounted for.

Tori latham, tori latham's most recent stories.

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Several prominent figures in the tech, banking, and legal fields are missing and presumed dead after a yacht capsized off the coast of Sicily and dropped about 150 feet to the bottom of the Mediterranean.

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The Italian coast guard has undertaken recovery efforts, the WSJ noted, and it’s being assisted by diving teams, helicopters, patrol boats, and marine-accident investigators from the United Kingdom. While the rescuers have so far only recovered the body of the yacht’s chef, they believe that the rest of the missing are trapped inside the ship.

“The space is very tight, because everything fell when [the yacht] capsized,” Luca Cari, the head of Italy ’s national firefighters’ corps, told The Wall Street Journal . “Divers are trying to remove furnishings, wires and other debris to clear the passageways.”

The group was aboard the yacht to celebrate Lynch’s recent acquittal related to charges that he had faked the value of his company Autonomy when he sold it to Hewlett Packard for $11 billion, the WSJ wrote. Bloomer had led the audit committee at Autonomy, while Morvillo represented Lynch during his trial.

Tori Latham is a digital staff writer at Robb Report. She was previously a copy editor at The Atlantic, and has written for publications including The Cut and The Hollywood Reporter. When not…

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A tornado sank a luxury sailing boat off the coast of Sicily. Here’s what we know

E mergency workers in southern Italy are still hunting for six people missing after a tornado sank a luxury yacht early Monday – prompting an air and naval operation off the coast of Sicily .

Fifteen people were rescued from the wreckage on Monday, according to Italy’s Coast Guard. One body was later recovered from the hull of the stricken vessel.

Two Americans and four Britons are among those missing – including British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of Morgan Stanley International, and Chris Morvillo, a prominent lawyer.

Here’s what we know.

What happened?

A small waterspout – a type of tornado – spun over the Mediterranean island early Monday, likely capsizing the sailing boat amid lashings of rain and strong thunderstorms.

The British-flagged yacht, called the “Bayesian,” was anchored about a half a mile from the port of Porticello, on Sicily’s northern coast. The vessel sank after its mast broke in half in the storm, Salvatore Cocina, head of Sicily’s Civil Protection, told CNN on Tuesday.

Eyewitnesses described furious gales and hurricane-like winds that left an avalanche of debris near the pier.

More than a dozen survivors were spotted in the area hanging onto life rafts, according to the captain of a nearby boat, who steadied his ship to avoid colliding with the Bayesian.

“We got this strong hurricane gust and we had to start the engine to keep the ship in an angled position,” Karsten Bower told reporters in Palermo on Monday. “After the storm was over, we noticed that the ship behind us was gone.”

Bower and his crew rescued four injured people, he said, before calling Italy’s Coast Guard – who later rescued the remaining survivors.

One of those rescued – a child – was airlifted to the children’s hospital in Palermo. Eight people were hospitalized in total, according to the mayor’s office.

The girl’s mother, Charlotte, described how she battled to hold onto Sofia, her 1-year-old daughter, as reported by Italian news agency ANSA.

“In two seconds I lost the baby in the sea, then I immediately hugged her again amidst the fury of the waves. I held her tightly, close to me, while the sea was stormy,” she told journalists. “Many were screaming.”

The mother and daughter were later reunited with the father, James, according to a doctor at the local children’s hospital in Palermo.

“The survivors are very tired and are constantly asking about the missing people,” the doctor, Domenico Cipolla, said Monday. “They are talking and crying all the time because they have realized that there is little hope of finding their friends alive.”

Italy’s fire brigade dispatched helicopters to aid in the search, officials said Monday. The brigade also said they would send divers to try and enter the sunken ship Tuesday, after an unsuccessful attempt on Monday.

The depth of the wreck means divers can only work there for limited periods of time, according to Marco Tilotta, an inspector for the diving unit of Palermo’s local fire brigade. The Italian fire brigade said Monday its divers had reached the yacht’s hull 49 meters (160 feet) below sea level.

The United Kingdom’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) will also deploy a team of four inspectors to Palermo to conduct a preliminary assessment of the scene, a source familiar with the operations told CNN, on the condition of anonymity.

Who was on board?

Twenty-two people were on board the Bayesian, which was flying under a British flag and had mostly British passengers and crew, in addition to two Anglo-French, one Irish and one Sri Lankan person, a spokesperson for Italy’s Coast Guard told CNN.

A troupe of high-profile guests are among those missing, including Lynch, the 59-year-old British tech investor who fought a fraud case earlier this year in the United States – which spiraled from the disastrous $11 billion sale of his company to tech firm Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2011.

His 18-year-old daughter was also named missing. Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, survived the accident. Bacares told Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica that she woke up at 4 a.m. local time, as the boat tilted. She and her husband were not initially concerned, she said, but became worried when the windows of the yacht shattered and chaos erupted.

Bacares spoke to the newspaper while sitting in a wheelchair, at a hospital in the Sicilian town of Termini Imerese. She had abrasions on her feet and bandages on other parts of her body, it reported.

Bloomer, the finance tycoon, and Morvillo, a prominent lawyer – and both their wives – are also among the missing, according to Salvatore Cocina, head of Sicily’s Civil Protection.

Morvillo, an American partner at Clifford Chance, was involved in successfully defeating the US fraud case against Lynch in June. Another employee of the firm, Ayla Ronald, and her partner, survived the incident, according to a spokesperson for Clifford Chance.

The body that was recovered from the vessel was identified as the onboard chef Ricardo Thomas, an Antiguan citizen, Reuters reported.

What do we know about the boat?

Built in 2008, the 56-meter (184-foot) yacht was manufactured by Italian company Perini Navi, Reuters reported. According to the Associated Press, the boat has been available for charter for $215,000 (€195,000) per week.

Lynch’s wife is linked to the yacht. The Bayesian is held by the company Revtom Limited, according to records from the maritime information service Equasis. The company’s latest annual return from April lists Bacares as the proprietor.

“Bayesian,” the name given to the vessel, is linked to the statistical theory on which Lynch built his fortune, according to Reuters.

The yacht’s mast stood 72.27 meters (237 feet) high above the designated water line, just short of the world’s tallest mast which is 75.2 meters, according to Guinness World Records. It was the tallest aluminium mast in the world, the Perini Navi website said.

Perini Navi is known for making “good quality boats,” according to Caroline White, deputy editor of BOAT International, a media group serving the superyacht industry.

White told CNN that if the Bayesian dismasted, “it should theoretically become more stable.” “But it might be a different story if you are in the middle of a violent storm with incredibly strong winds pinning you to the water,” she added.

Dangerous weather conditions

Strong storms across Sicily brought torrential rainfall late Sunday. Initial reports suggest a small  waterspout , which developed over the area Monday morning, could have been behind the yacht’s sinking.

Waterspouts – one of several types of tornadoes – are spinning columns of air that form over water, or move from land out to water. They are often accompanied by  high winds, high seas, hail and dangerous lightning . While they are most common over tropical oceans, they can form almost anywhere.

Waterspouts rely on warm waters to gain energy and the Mediterranean Sea has been very hot, reaching a record  daily median of 28.9 degrees Celsius  (84 Fahrenheit) last week, according to preliminary data from researchers at the Institute of Marine Sciences in Spain.

Local temperatures have been even higher, with waters around Sicily reaching almost 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit), almost 3 degrees more than normal, Italian climatologist Luca Mercalli told CNN.

“Warmer oceans have more energy and more humidity to transfer to the atmosphere, the most important fuels for storms,” he said.

CNN’s Laura Paddison, Louis Mian, Benjamin Brown, Catherine Nicholls, Sabrina Souza and Eve Brennan contributed reporting.

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What is known about the sinking of a luxury yacht off the coast of Sicily and those aboard

Specialist cave divers working in 12-minute underwater shifts are searching for six missing passengers and crew, including British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, believed to be in the submerged wreck of a luxury yacht that was slammed by a powerful storm and ...

PORTICELLO, Sicily -- Specialist cave divers working in 12-minute underwater shifts were searching Tuesday for six missing passengers and crew, including British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, believed to be in the submerged wreck of a luxury yacht that was slammed by a powerful storm and swiftly sank off Sicily.

The sleek yacht, named the Bayesian, was carrying a crew of 10 people and 12 passengers when it suddenly sank near the Mediterranean island that is part of Italy at about 4 a.m. on Monday. One body has been recovered and 15 people survived.

Fire rescue officials have said the six believed to remain in the sailboat's hull will be considered missing until they are located in the wreckage.

Here's what we know so far about the sinking and those who were on board.

Italian civil protection officials believe a sudden and fierce storm that battered the coast of Sicily in the early hours of Monday whipped up a waterspout in the exact spot where the 56-meter (184-foot) British-flagged Bayesian was moored.

Karsten Borner, the captain of another yacht moored nearby, said he saw the Bayesian during the storm but when the wild weather passed it was gone and he saw only a red flare lighting the night sky, the Italian news agency ANSA and the Giornale di Sicilia newspaper reported.

Borner and one of his crew boarded their tender and found a lifeboat carrying 15 people, some of them injured. They took them aboard their yacht and alerted the coast guard.

Rescue authorities said the wreck was resting at a depth of 50 meters (163 feet) about a half mile offshore of the picturesque fishing village of Porticello.

Among the missing is 59-year-old tech tycoon Mike Lynch , sometimes described as the British Bill Gates. Lynch was acquitted in June of all charges in a U.S. fraud trial linked to the $11 billion sale of his software company Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard in 2011.

Lynch still faced a potentially huge bill stemming from a civil case in London that HP mostly won during 2022. Damages haven’t been determined in that case, but HP is seeking $4 billion. Lynch made more than $800 million from the Autonomy sale.

A Cambridge-educated mathematician, Lynch made his name running Autonomy, which made a search engine that could pore through emails and other internal business documents to help companies find vital information more quickly.

Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter Hannah was reportedly among the missing. His wife, Angela Bacares, and 14 other people survived.

Among others still missing Tuesday, according to the civil protection agency, were one of Lynch’s U.S. lawyers, Christopher Morvillo of Clifford Chance, and Morvillo’s wife, Neda. Morvillo was regarded as an elite defense lawyer and was also a federal prosecutor in New York after 9/11.

Also missing was Jonathan Bloomer, the non-executive chairman of Morgan Stanley International, and his wife, Judy. He is the former head of the Autonomy audit committee and testified for the defense at Lynch’s trial.

Bloomer was also chair of the Hiscox Group, an insurer that does business on the Lloyd’s of London market.

“We are deeply shocked and saddened by this tragic event,” Hiscox CEO Aki Hussain said in a statement.

Among the survivors was Charlotte Golunski, who said she momentarily lost hold of her 1-year-old daughter Sofia in the water, but then managed to grab her and hold her up over the waves until a lifeboat inflated and they were both pulled to safety, ANSA reported. The father, identified by ANSA as James Emslie, also survived.

The Dutch foreign ministry said a Dutch man survived. The ministry, citing privacy, did not release his identity.

One body was recovered on Monday, identified as the on-board chef.

The Bayesian was a luxury yacht built in 2008 by the Italian firm Perini Nav. It was known for its single 75-meter (246-feet) aluminum mast — one of the world’s tallest. Online charter sites listed it for rent for up to 195,000 euros (about $215,000) a week.

Its registered owner is listed as Revtom Ltd., based on the Isle of Man, according to online maritime database Equasis. Lynch’s wife is listed as Revtom’s sole owner, according to corporate registration documents from the Isle of Man.

The yacht's name is an apparent reference to “Bayesian inference,” one of the two main approaches to statistical machine learning and the one that was used by Autonomy.

Waterspouts are tornadoes that form over water and can happen when a storm moves across warm water.

According to the U.S. National Ocean Service, there are two types of waterspouts — fair-weather and tornadic.

Tornadic waterspouts “have the same characteristics as a land tornado. They are associated with severe thunderstorms, and are often accompanied by high winds and seas, large hail, and frequent dangerous lightning,” the service says on its website.

While scientists haven’t attributed the specific event to climate change, average monthly surface temperatures have been at record highs for months . Hotter air can hold more moisture, making heavier storms more likely.

Sicily has been baking under intense heat this summer , and the United Nations’ panel of climate change experts notes the Mediterranean Sea is particularly vulnerable to climate change, with warming rates roughly 20% higher than the global average.

Experts say it is extraordinarily rare for a luxury sailboat of this size to capsize due to weather events.

“This just doesn’t happen. You know, boats sink because things like keels fall off, or they run aground and breach the hull ... whereas just from a weather angle, a boat that big being pushed over on its side is absolutely extraordinary,” said Skip Novak, a lifelong sailor who has taken part in multiple round the world yacht races and written books about sailing.

Novak said he believed that strong gusts likely pushed the yacht over 90 degrees to its side, and the vessel did not recover because of the weight of the huge mast and because it was anchored. He suggested that internal doors were likely not closed, and water quickly poured in to sink the vessel.

“When you’re at anchor, even if it’s blowing with a storm in the Mediterranean, you rarely shut the whole boat down because nobody expects something like this to happen," Novak told The Associated Press. “So if the boat wasn’t completely watertight at the deck, you’d have flooding going in. It would take a couple minutes and that would be it."

As the search for the missing continues, authorities already have begun trying to piece together exactly what happened.

Prosecutors from the Sicilian town of Termini Imerese have opened an investigation, as is normal in such events even when no suspects are identified. To date, they have not commented publicly.

The British Marine Accident Investigation Branch said four of its inspectors were being deployed to Palermo.

Corder reported from The Hague, Netherlands. Associated Press writer Sylvia Hui in London contributed to this report.

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Morgan Stanley Executive and His Wife Among the Missing After Luxury Yacht Sinks in Sicily, Official Says

Jonathan Bloomer and his wife were two of the six people identified as missing to PEOPLE on Monday, Aug. 19

Andy Shaw/Bloomberg via Getty

Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer, his wife, attorney Chris Morvillo and his wife, Neda Morvillo, are among the six people missing after a luxury yacht sunk off the coast of Sicily, a senior civil protection officer told PEOPLE on Monday, Aug. 19. 

Local officials previously told PEOPLE that the two other people missing are British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah .

Bloomer is a close friend of Lynch. Chris Morvillo is Lynch’s attorney.

A source tells PEOPLE that the expert underwater team has returned to base and was not able to make any inroads into the vessel Monday night.

The rescue teams theorize the missing people are possibly trapped inside the hull, Palermo Today reported.

Vincenzo Pepe/Getty 

The six people went missing after a 56-meter (183-ft) yacht, the Bayesian , carrying 22 people sank after a storm near Porticello, Italy, at around 5 a.m. local time on Monday, Aug. 19, per an Italian Coast Guard statement obtained by PEOPLE.

Sicilian news agency Ansa reports that eyewitnesses revealed that the yacht was anchored when it was struck by a tornado over the water, known as a waterspout, and lost its balance, causing it to sink.

At the time of publication, only one person's body was recovered. The body of the boat’s cook was found near the vessel on Monday morning, per Palermo Today .

Since the sinking, Coast Guard patrol boats and firefighters have rescued 15 people after divers reached 49 ft. below the sea surface to the vessel, according to the outlets. 

Of those rescued, eight were taken to local hospitals. Among those saved were Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, and a 1-year-old English girl named Sophie, her mother and Lynch's associate, Charlotte Golunski.

Corpo Nazionale dei Vigili dei del Fuoco via Getty Images

Golunski lost her grip on her 1-year-old daughter when a wave smashed against them, taking the child out to sea. But that same wave returned Sophie a short time later in what was described as something of a miracle, according to the local sources.

Golunski told Italian newspaper la Repubblica that she briefly lost her daughter for about two seconds due to the intensity of the sea but was then was able to retrieve the child

"I held her afloat with all my strength, my arms stretched upwards to keep her from drowning,” Golunski told the newspaper, according to a translation. "It was all dark. In the water I couldn't keep my eyes open. I screamed for help but all I could hear around me was the screams of others."

Sophie was sent to the Children's Hospital of Palermo, where she was reunited with her mother, who received minor injuries in the incident, per Ansa, The Independent and Corriere Della Sera .

Sophie’s father, James Emsley, survived the incident, Sicily's civil protection agent Salvo Cocina said, according to Sky News . 

Search and rescue efforts continue, the Coast Guard said, as does an investigation into the incident.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. 

A representative for Morgan Stanley did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for more information on Monday.

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Four dead after boat full of tourists ‘celebrating birthday’ sinks in Italy

The whirlwind that capsized the boat was part of a storm system that arrived in lombardy on sunday evening, article bookmarked.

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Four people have died after a tourist boat capsized during a storm in Italy.

Authorities confirmed on Monday that bodies had been recovered from Lake Maggiore in the north’s Lombardy region after divers searched overnight.

The victims included an Israeli tourist, two Italians and the Russian wife of the skipper, according to Italian newspaper La Reppublica . The boat had reportedly departed from a shipyard in Sesto Calende as part of a birthday outing.

Sky Italia has reported that British nationals were among the passengers on board though this has yet to be confirmed by officials.

A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “We are in contact with local authorities in Italy after a boat accident and are ready to provide consular assistance to any British nationals involved.”

A sudden whirlwind upturned the boat on Sunday evening. Rescue efforts managed to save 19 people from the water, with many reportedly either swimming to the shore or being picked up by neighbouring boats.

The boat overturned between the towns of Sesto Calende and Arona, Italian media say, with more than 20 passengers on board as well as the crew.

Five people are reported to have been taken to hospital and the boat is now lies wrecked 15 metres below the surface of the lake.

The whirlwind was part of a storm system that arrived in Lombardy on Sunday evening that had seen delays at Milan Malpensa airport in the region’s capital.

A video released on Sunday shows pieces of wood floating on top of the lake whilst a helicopter flew overhead.

The president of the Lombardy region Attilio Fontana confirmed in a Facebook post that the boat was 16 metres long and had been hired by tourists.

According to La Reppublica , Claudio Carminati, 53, lived on the boat along with his Russian partner, Anya Bozhkova, 50, who is among the reported dead.

The mayor of Sesto Calende, which lies at the Southern tip of Lake Maggiore, said that there had been “no weather alert” prior to the storm.

A large lake located on the southern side of the Alps, Lake Maggiore is the second-largest lake in Italy and the largest in southern Switzerland.

The lake is divided – both the lake and its shoreline - between the Italian regions of Piedmont and Lombardy and the Swiss canton of Ticino.

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Two Italian intelligence staffers among four dead in Italy lake storm

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Reporting by Crispian Balmer, Giuseppe Fonte and Cristina Carlevaro; Editing by Toby Chopra, Giles Elgood, Gavin Jones and Andrew Heavens

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