yacht harbour synonyms

Synonyms of 'yacht' in British English

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YACHT HARBOUR Crossword clue

Crossword answers for yacht harbour, top answers for: yacht harbour.

Top answer for YACHT HARBOUR crossword clue from newspapers

Yacht harbour crossword puzzle solutions.

We have 1 solution for the frequently searched for crossword lexicon term YACHT HARBOUR. Our best crossword lexicon answer is: MARINA.

For the puzzel question YACHT HARBOUR we have solutions for the following word lenghts 6.

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What is the best solution to the riddle yacht harbour.

Solution MARINA is 6 letters long. So far we haven´t got a solution of the same word length.

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We have 1 solutions to the crossword puzzle YACHT HARBOUR. The longest solution is MARINA with 6 letters and the shortest solution is MARINA with 6 letters.

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The length of the solution word is 6 letters. Most of the solutions have 6 letters. In total we have solutions for 1 word lengths.

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Lynch Yacht Sinking Off Sicily Proves as Baffling as It Is Tragic

As bodies were recovered, the authorities and experts wondered how a $40 million, stable and secure vessel could have sunk so quickly.

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By Emma Bubola and Michael J. de la Merced

Emma Bubola reported from Porticello, Italy, and Michael J. de la Merced from London.

Two months after being cleared in a bruising legal battle over fraud charges, the British tech mogul Mike Lynch celebrated his freedom with a cruise. He invited his family, friends and part of his legal team on board his luxury sailing yacht, a majestic 180-foot vessel named Bayesian after the mathematical theorem around which he had built his empire.

On Sunday night, after a tour of the Gulf of Naples, including Capri, and volcanic islands in the Eolian archipelago, the boat anchored half a mile off the Sicilian coast in Porticello, Italy. It chose a stretch of water favored by the Phoenicians thousands of years ago for its protection from the mistral wind and, in more recent times, by the yachts of tech billionaires. The boat was lit “like a Christmas tree,” local residents said, standing out against the full moon.

But about 4 a.m., calamity unfolded. A violent and fast storm hit the area with some of the strongest winds locals said they had ever felt. Fabio Cefalù, a fisherman, said he saw a flare pierce the darkness shortly after 4.

Minutes later, the yacht was underwater. Only dozens of cushions from the boat’s deck and a gigantic radar from its mast floated on the surface of the sea, fishermen said.

In all, 22 people were on board, 15 of whom were rescued. Six bodies — five passengers and the ship’s cook — had been recovered by Thursday afternoon, including that of Mr. Lynch, an Italian government official said, adding that the search was continuing for his daughter.

It was a tragic and mystifying turn of events for Mr. Lynch, 59, who had spent years seeking to clear his name and was finally inaugurating a new chapter in his life. Experts wondered how a $40 million yacht, so robust and stable could have been sunk by a storm near a port within minutes.

“It drives me insane,” said Giovanni Costantino, the chief executive of the Italian Sea Group, which in 2022 bought the company, Perini, that made the Bayesian. “Following all the proper procedures, that boat is unsinkable.”

The aura of misfortune only deepened when it emerged that Stephen Chamberlain, 52, a former vice president of finance for Mr. Lynch’s former company and a co-defendant in the fraud case, was killed two days earlier, when he was hit by a car while jogging near his house in England.

Since June, the two men had been in a jubilant mood. A jury in San Francisco had acquitted both on fraud charges that could have sent them to prison for two decades. There were hugs and tears, and they and their legal teams went for a celebratory dinner party at a restaurant in the city, said Gary S. Lincenberg, a lawyer for Mr. Chamberlain.

The sea excursion was meant as a thank-you by Mr. Lynch to those who had helped him in his legal travails. Among the guests was Christopher J. Morvillo, 59, a scion of a prominent New York family of lawyers who had represented Mr. Lynch for 12 years. He and his wife, Neda, 57, were among the missing.

So, too, was Jonathan Bloomer, 70, a veteran British insurance executive who chaired Morgan Stanley International and the insurer Hiscox.

The body of the ship’s cook, Recaldo Thomas, was recovered. All the other crew members survived. Among them was Leo Eppel, 19, of South Africa, who was on his first yacht voyage working as a deck steward, said a friend, who asked not to be identified.

Since the sinking, the recovery effort and investigation have turned the tiny port town of Porticello, a quiet enclave where older men sit bare-chested on balconies, into what feels like the set of a movie.

Helicopters have flown overhead. Ambulances have sped by with the sirens blaring. The Coast Guard has patrolled the waters off shore, within sight of a cordoned-off dock that had been turned into an emergency headquarters.

On Wednesday afternoon, a church bell tolled after the first body bag was loaded into an ambulance, a crowd watching in silence.

The survivors were sheltering in a sprawling resort near Porticello, with a view of the shipwreck spot, and had so far declined to comment.

Attilio Di Diodato, director of the Italian Air Force’s Center for Aerospace Meteorology and Climatology, said that the yacht had most likely been hit by a fierce “down burst” — when air generated within a thunderstorm descends rapidly — or by a waterspout , similar to a tornado over water.

He added that his agency had put out rough-sea warnings the previous evening, alerting sailors about storms and strong winds. Locals said the winds “felt like an earthquake.”

Mr. Costantino, the boat executive, said the yacht had been specifically designed for having a tall mast — the second-tallest aluminum mast in the world. He said the Bayesian was an extremely safe and secure boat that could list even to 75 degrees without capsizing.

But he said that if some of the hatches on the side and in the stern, or some of the deck doors, had been open, the boat could have taken on water and sunk. Standard procedure in such storms, he said, is to switch on the engine, lift the anchor and turn the boat into the wind, lowering the keel for extra stability, closing doors and gathering the guests in the main hall inside the deck.

12 guests occupied the yacht’s six cabins. There were also 10 crew members.

Open hatches, doors and cabin windows could have let in water during a storm, according to the manufacturer.

Open hatches, doors and

cabin windows could

have let in water

during a storm,

according to the

manufacturer.

Source: Superyacht Times, YachtCharterFleet, MarineTraffic

By Veronica Penney

The New York Times attempted to reach the captain, James Cutfield, who had survived, for comment through social media, his brother and the management company of the yacht (which did not hire the crew), but did not make contact.

So far none of the surviving crew members have made a public statement about what happened that night.

Fabio Genco, the director of Palermo’s emergency services, who treated some of the survivors, said that the victims had recounted feeling as if the boat was being lifted, then suddenly dropped, with objects from the cabins falling on them.

The Italian Coast Guard said it had deployed a remotely operated vehicle that can prowl underwater for up to seven hours at a depth of more than 980 feet and record videos and images that they hoped would help them reconstruct the dynamics of the sinking. Such devices were used during the search and rescue operations of the Titan vessel that is believed to have imploded last summer near the wreckage of the Titanic.

After rescuers broke inside the yacht, they struggled to navigate the ropes and many pieces of furniture cluttering the vessel, said Luca Cari, a spokesman for Italy’s national firefighter corps.

Finally, as of Thursday morning, they had managed to retrieve all but one of the missing bodies, and hopes of finding the missing person alive were thin. “Can a human being be underwater for two days?” Mr. Cari asked.

What was certain was that Mr. Lynch’s death was yet another cruel twist of fate for a man who had spent years seeking to clear his name.

He earned a fortune in technology and was nicknamed Britain’s Bill Gates. But for more than a decade, he had been treated as anything but a respected tech leader.

He was accused by Hewlett-Packard, the American technological pioneer that had bought his software company, Autonomy, for $11 billion, of misleading it about his company’s worth. (Hewlett-Packard wrote down the value of the transaction by about $8.8 billion, and critics called it one of the worst deals of all time .) He had been increasingly shunned by the British establishment that he sought to break into after growing up working-class outside London.

He was extradited to San Francisco to face criminal charges, and confined to house arrest and 24-hour surveillance on his dime. In a townhouse in the Pacific Heights neighborhood — with security people he jokingly told associates were his “roommates” — he spent his mornings talking with researchers whom he funded personally on new applications for artificial intelligence. Afterward, he devoted hours to discussing legal strategy with his team.

Despite his persistent claims of innocence, even those close to Mr. Lynch had believed his odds of victory were slim. Autonomy’s chief financial officer, Sushovan Hussain, was convicted in 2018 of similar fraud charges and spent five years in prison.

During Mr. Lynch’s house arrest, his brother and mother died. His wife, Angela Bacares, frequently flew over from England, and she became a constant presence in the San Francisco courtroom during the trial.

After he was finally acquitted, Mr. Lynch had his eye on the future. “I am looking forward to returning to the U.K. and getting back to what I love most: my family and innovating in my field,” he said.

Elisabetta Povoledo contributed reporting from Pallanza, Italy.

Emma Bubola is a Times reporter based in Rome. More about Emma Bubola

Michael J. de la Merced has covered global business and finance news for The Times since 2006. More about Michael J. de la Merced

Superyacht sinks latest: Investigators looking into possible manslaughter - Italian media; family of billionaire releases statement

Divers have recovered the body of the final missing person after a superyacht sank off the coast of Sicily. The family of Mike Lynch and his daughter Hannah have released a statement - with tributes also pouring in for the pair.

Friday 23 August 2024 22:05, UK

• Superyacht sinking

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• Seven bodies recovered after five-day search of superyacht wreckage off Sicily
• Prosecutors investigating shipwreck and manslaughter - reports
• Divers discover body of final missing person
• 'Unspeakable grief': Lynch family releases statement
• Hannah Lynch's sister pays tribute to 'my little angel'
• Friend pays tribute to 'brilliant mind' Mike Lynch
• Explained: Inside the superyacht | What challenges have faced divers?
• Eyewitness:  Sombre scenes greet rescue teams as final body is brought ashore
• Live reporting by Mark Wyatt

Search and rescue teams finished their task of searching for those uncounted for from the Bayesian's sinking today.

Divers have spent all week searching the shipwreck, looking for six people missing after the vessel foundered on Monday morning.

Of those six, all but one had been found by this morning. At around 11am UK time, the final body, believed to be that of 18-year-old Hannah Lynch, was discovered.

It was brought to shore shortly after, signalling an end to five days of intense search operations.

Below, we have a look at some images from the operation today as it unfolded:

The speed at which the Bayesian sunk is "puzzling" and testimony from the crew will be "absolutely fundamental" in understanding how it happened, says the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Sailing Technology.

Dr Jean-Baptise Souppez, an expert in mechanical, biomedical and design engineering, told Sky News a vessel like the Bayesian "shouldn't sink that fast".

"For a ship that size to go down in a matter of minutes is particularly puzzling," he said.

"I think it's important to remember that all these vessels are built to very strong rules and regulations. And one of the reasons this is so puzzling is because those rules should ensure that this doesn't happen."

Investigations into the ship's foundering are already beginning to get underway, where the evidence supplied by survivors will be crucial, according to Dr Souppez.

"A lot of the job will be to try to establish a timeline of what happened prior to the events, in terms of the storm warning and what measures were taken on the vessel," he adds. 

"What happened during the crucial minute? From the moment the ship started to lean on its side up until it sank. For this, the accounts from the survivors and the crew will be absolutely fundamental.

"But it will also be a lot of physical evidence from the wreck that the divers have been able to collect, and more that they will be able to observe in the future."

A maritime investigator says the first priority of the Bayesian's crew would likely have been to prepare the ship for the oncoming storm, rather than wake all sleeping passengers.

James Wilkes said the watchkeeper on the yacht "might have considered" waking captain James Cutfield, who he "imagines would have been asleep" at the time.

"He would go down, wake him up, explain what he's got," Mr Wilkes told Sky News. 

"The master then would take over. He would make the decisions about raising the rest of the crew, if they're going to lift the anchor and start the engines, motor the vessel out pointed into the weather, that would require all the crew. 

"And I should imagine they would have also briefed some or all of the passengers. But their first priority would have been to get the vessel ready to take on the weather that was approaching."

Mr Wilkes added that those steps were likely taken but "by the sounds of it", the Bayesian was overwhelmed by the weather incredibly quickly.

British technology tycoon Mike Lynch was among the people who died following the sinking of the Bayesian superyacht on Monday morning.

The vessel had arrived off the coast of Sicily on Sunday, remaining at anchor 500m from the port of Porticello overnight.

At around 3.50am local time, a violent storm sent chairs and tables into the wind on the shore, while a mini-tornado known as a waterspout is believed to have ripped through the Bayesian.

Fifteen passengers and crew members made it onto a life raft and were picked up by a nearby boat, with seven people unaccounted for from the initial 22 on the ship's manifest.

All seven were found and recovered over the following days. They are believed to be:

Divers confirmed the entrepreneur's body had been recovered yesterday.

Dubbed the "British Bill Gates", Mr Lynch has been in the headlines in recent months over a high-profile fraud case related to the £8.64bn sale of his company Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2011.

HP accused him of deliberately overstating the value of the company before it was acquired by the American technology firm. Mr Lynch denied any wrongdoing. In June, a US jury  cleared him of all charges .

Hannah Lynch

Mr Lynch's 18-year-old daughter was also on board. A body believed to be that of the teenager was found and recovered from the wreckage today.

She had been on holiday with her parents, having secured a place to study English at the University of Oxford.

Her older sister, Esme Lynch, said her younger sibling was "endlessly caring, passionately mad, unintentionally hilarious and the most amazing, supportive and joyful sister and best friend to me".

Chris Morvillo

US lawyer Chris Morvillo was among those found dead by divers yesterday.

The father-of-two worked on Mr Lynch's US fraud trial and was a partner of law firm Clifford Chance's US branch.

He was also assistant attorney for the Southern District of New York between 1995 and 2005 and worked on the terrorist investigation into the 9/11 attacks.

Neda Morvillo

Mr Morvillo's wife Neda died in the disaster alongside her husband.

The 57-year-old had a luxury jewellery brand, which she ran under her maiden name Neda Nassiri.

Recaldo Thomas

The yacht's on-board chef Recaldo Thomas died in the sinking. He was Canadian-Antiguan and part of the crew of the Bayesian.

His body was the first to be recovered from the wreckage.

Jonathan Bloomer

Jonathan Bloomer, the chairman of investment bank Morgan Stanley International, was confirmed dead yesterday.

According to the Financial Times, Mr Bloomer appeared as a defence witness for Mr Lynch during his US criminal trial, and the pair were good friends. He also chaired Autonomy's audit committee.

The 70-year-old was the chief executive of UK-Hong Kong insurer Prudential until he was ousted by the board in 2005.

He was also chairman of the insurance provider Hiscox.

Judy Bloomer

Mr Bloomer's wife Judy was on the yacht trip with her husband. Divers confirmed they found her body yesterday.

Mrs Bloomer was a former board member at The Eve Appeal charity, which focuses on gynaecological cancers.

The charity described her as a "brilliant champion for women's health and medical research... an incredible supporter, committee member, and trustee of our charity for over 20 years".

More tributes have come in now for Mike Lynch, whose body was recovered from the Bayesian yesterday.

Close friend of the Lynch family Albert Read called him "warm, funny, brilliant, loyal and exceptionally brave".

"I've never met anyone like Mike - a searing intellect, a steel that would transform the world around him, an instinct for family and friends - organising children's treasure hunts, big gatherings of neighbours in Suffolk. 

"And, with Angela, a determination to light up the worlds of art and science for his two beloved daughters.

"Warm, funny, brilliant, loyal and exceptionally brave, with a heart as big as his brain."

The final body has now been retrieved from the wreckage of the Bayesian, leaving every person accounted for who was on the ship at the time of its foundering.

The captain of the yacht, 51-year-old James Cutfield, has reportedly already been questioned by Italian authorities for two hours.

He managed to survive the sinking along with 14 other passengers and crew members - including Mike Lynch's wife, Angela Bacares.

Mr Cutfield previously told Italian media "we didn't see it coming" when asked about the extreme weather that sunk the vessel.

His brother Mark said he was a "well respected" mariner who had captained luxury yachts for eight years and previously worked for a Turkish billionaire.

He told the New Zealand Herald he'd been involved in building yachts for 30 years and also raced dinghies competitively in his youth.

A maritime investigator says it is "unfair" to start blaming the crew of the Bayesian for its sinking.

Giovanni Costantino, CEO of The Italian Sea Group, which owns a firm which makes and sells vessels like Mike Lynch's sunken superyacht, told Sky News they "are absolutely safe", suggesting human error was behind the boat going down.

He said the "event" that capsized the British-flagged luxury yacht Bayesian off the coast of Porticello, Sicily, on Monday "could have been managed with an average amount of attention".

No official cause has been given for why the boat sank and James Wilkes, a marine investigator, says it's "premature" to start casting blame around before the facts are established.

"It's not uncommon to blame seafarers and the crew when a vessel has suffered a casualty of this magnitude," he tells Sky News.

"There were a lot of people who are understandably upset about this incident. And of course, the builders of this vessel potentially have their reputations on the line, their brand on the line. 

"You can imagine why they would be so forceful in their assertions and speculation at the moment. 

"But no, I don't think it's fair right now to jump to the conclusion that the crew must have done something wrong, because we simply do not know that as a matter of fact."

He added: "None of us were there at the time when it happened, it was only those 15 survivors on board who can tell us what happened.

"They were undoubtedly doing what they possibly could to keep that ship and the passengers safe. 

"So, I think at the moment we should wait to find out what the statements of the witnesses are, and then we can draw conclusions from that point forward. 

"It is definitely premature to start casting blame and spreading  aspersions around like that."

Hannah Lynch's older sister, Esme Lynch, has paid tribute to her late sibling after her body was recovered from the wreckage of the Bayesian.

The 18-year-old, who was due to start studying English at Oxford University next month, was the last person rescue divers were searching for in the wreckage.

Esme's statement says: "Hannah often burst into my bedroom and lay down with me.

"Sometimes beaming with a smile, sometimes cheeky, sometimes for advice. No matter what, she brought boundless love to me. 

"She was endlessly caring, passionately mad, unintentionally hilarious and the most amazing, supportive and joyful sister and best friend to me. 

"And on top of all this, she had even more love to give endlessly to all her friends and passion to give to her incredible studies and goals. 

"She is my little angel, my star."

A maritime investigator says the authorities looking into the sinking of the Bayesian will need to deal with the situation "diplomatically".

It comes as Italian media report that prosecutors are investigating shipwreck and manslaughter. Sky News understands that this line of investigation is standard procedure in complex cases such as these. 

James Wilkes told Sky News investigators were "accustomed" to managing these kinds of probes that see two countries - in this case the UK and Italy - involved.

"The Italian officials are known as the coastal state because it was in the waters of Italy that the yacht sank," he says.

"We have the British officials from the MAIB (Marine Accident Investigation Branch) down there because they are what's known as the flag state. 

"The vessel was registered in the UK and many of the passengers on board were British. And so they are acting as the flag state. 

"There will be a level of cooperation, privacy at the moment will remain, I would anticipate, with the coastal state, with Italy, with their coast guard, with their fire and rescue teams. 

"And obviously, you have a local prosecutor in Sicily, who has opened a file on this and that, conducting their own investigations, as well. So there has to be some cooperation. 

"But you have to deal with these things diplomatically. You can't push for your own position or for your own access without considering that other people will want access and need access for their own reports and official reports in due course. So it is a matter of diplomacy."

Mr Wilkes added that he thought nobody would be putting a timescale on the investigation, with the priority up until now being focused on recovering the bodies.

" The emotional tension and urgency will have abated," he adds.

"Now the investigators will get on methodically with the investigation. I guess it will probably take a couple of months before they're in a position to provide an initial report."

The search operation to recover the bodies of those who died on board the Bayesian has been plagued with difficulties.

But, after five days of searching, all the people who were unaccounted for following the ship's foundering on Monday morning have now been located and recovered.

Conditions underwater have been described as "complex" and "prohibitive" for the divers, who have been called in from across Italy to help with the operation.

Here, we look at some of the factors that have made this week so difficult for divers.

Depth of the wreckage

The British-flagged superyacht is still largely intact on the seabed, but the 50m depth to which it sank makes it difficult to access.

The depth is far deeper than most recreational divers are qualified to reach and requires special precautions.

This means divers can only spend around 12 minutes under the water at a time - with a maximum of 10 minutes of actual search time.

This is in part to help avoid decompression sickness - also known as the "bends" - which can occur when divers stay underwater for long periods and ascend too quickly.

"The person sitting on the sofa at home wouldn't understand any of these kinds of complexities," Sophie Rennie, a national diving officer, told Sky News.

"But divers cannot put themselves into the dangers of getting decompression illness. So that's why it's only a 10-minute dive from start to finish."

Ms Rennie said divers would swap in and out throughout the day, taking part in a maximum of two dives each day.

Visibility and entering the yacht

Getting down to the wreckage was only the beginning of the difficulties posed to divers, who have been working in near pitch-black conditions on the seabed.

Not only that, but finding entry points into the vessel, which is currently lying on its right side, have been hard. 

Upon entry, they've then been met with floating debris. The command bridge was full of electrical cables when searched earlier in the week.

Ms Rennie said: "The visibility will be at best a few centimetres. And that's not including all the things that are floating around in the water once they get inside the wreck.

"Things like furniture moving around, as well as oils and cooking stuffs and foodstuffs that will have been onboard when the yacht sank."

Mental health support

Not only has the week been taxing physically for those diving to the Bayesian, but it will also take its toll mentally.

"We've talked about debris and we've talked about the complex layout, but the lasting impacts on everybody involved is going to be on the mental health and we hope that the support is going to be there," says Matthew Schanck, chair of the Maritime Search and Rescue Council.

"And I'm sure it will be for the emergency responders and also for the people who have survived and what has obviously been a very, very traumatic experience."

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Synonyms of harbors

• as in ports
• as in refuges
• as in houses
• as in shelters
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Thesaurus Definition of harbors

 (Entry 1 of 2)

Synonyms & Similar Words

• containerports
• sanctuaries
• strongholds
• habitations

Thesaurus Definition of harbors  (Entry 2 of 2)

• holds on to
• hangs on to
• sticks (to)
• clings (to)
• cleaves (to)
• fixates (on or upon)
• broods (about or over)
• obsesses (about or over)

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

• parts (with)
• accommodates
• beds (down)

Thesaurus Entries Near harbors

Cite this entry.

“Harbors.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/harbors. Accessed 23 Aug. 2024.

More from Merriam-Webster on harbors

Nglish: Translation of harbors for Spanish Speakers

Britannica English: Translation of harbors for Arabic Speakers

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Luxury Yacht Sinks After Being Hit by Tornado Off Coast of Italy: Report

O ne person has died and six others are missing after a luxury yacht was struck by a freak tornado off the coast of Sicily at dawn on Monday.

Two Americans, four Britons, including tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, and a Canadian were initially unaccounted for following the tragedy, which occurred between 4:30 a.m. and 5 a.m. local time, according to Italian media reports.

The 160-foot yacht , Bayesian , sank off the coast of Palermo with 22 on board, including ten crew and 12 tourists, said Italian news agency ANSA . Tourists from New Zealand, France and Sri Lanka are also believed to be among the passengers.

The body of a man, the only personconfirmed dead, was retrieved next to the sunken yacht on Monday, ANSA reported. Palermo's coastguard identified him later that evening as the ship's cook. He has not been formally identified.

British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch was among those missing, and his wife, Angela Bacares, was among the 15 rescued, Reuters and PA news reported.

Raised in the U.K. county of Essex, Lynch created tech company Autonomy in 1996 and sold it for $11 billion to Hewlett-Packard in 2011. A year later, the U.S. company took an $8.8 billion writedown in the firm's value after discovering "serious accounting improprieties" at Autonomy and accused Lynch of perpetrating a $5 billion fraud. Earlier this year, Lynch was cleared of all fraud charges in the HP trial.

The tornado struck off Porticello, about 12 miles from the city of Palermo. Witnesses told ANSA that the $18 million yacht was still near the Porticello harbor with the sail down when a violent storm hit the area and engulfed the sailing boat.

The boat sank and the wreck is now over 164 feet deep at the bottom of the sea, reported Italian news media, including ANSA and Il Post .

Fifteen have so far been rescued and taken to hospitals in the Sicilian city, including a one-year-old child who was taken to Palermo's children's hospital.

The 35-year-old British mother of the one-year old child told ANSA: "For two seconds I lost my daughter in the sea." She was able to find her again, and kept her safe during the storm: "I held her tightly, close to me, while the sea was in a tempest. Many people screamed. Luckily the lifeboat inflated and 11 of us were able to get on board," she said.

Crew members and passengers were first rescued by a nearby sailing boat, the Sir Robert BP, and later by the Italian Coast Guard, according to the Il Post .

Rescue operations continue in the area with the involvement of four vessels and a helicopter from the Italian Coast Guard, as well as professional divers.

Authorities suspect that some of the missing people may have been in their cabins when the yacht was struck by the freak tornado and might have been trapped there.

A video shared on social media by Italian authorities shows the Coast Guard's vessels during rescue operations after the incident. The sea appears relatively calm after the sudden storm earlier this morning.

Another clip shared on X shows a helicopter flying over the area and divers trying to reach the wreck.

The yacht, Bayesian , was built in 2008 and refitted in 2020 by Italy's Perini Navi. It had the world's second tallest mast and largest aluminum mast at 246 feet.

Sicilian news channel TRM Web Sicilia reported that the yacht ran luxury cruises across the Mediterranean Sea. The Bayesian had left the harbor in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, before passing the Strait of Gibraltar. The last destination before reaching the Porticello harbor had been Milazzo, another town in Sicily.

Update, 8/19/24 7:20 a.m. ET: This breaking news article was updated to offer more details on the incident.

Update, 8/19/24 10:30 a.m. ET: This article was updated to add that Mike Lynch is among those missing.

Correction: 8/20/24, 7:25 a.m. ET: The person confirmed dead was a crew member, not a passenger as previously stated.

Update: 8/20/24, 7:25 a.m. ET: More details have been added about the person confirmed dead.

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Tornado likely sank luxury yacht off coast of Sicily, officials say, as search for survivors continues

Updated on: August 20, 2024 / 7:56 PM EDT / CBS/AP

Police divers resumed searching Tuesday for six people believed trapped in the hull of a superyacht that sank in deep seas off Sicily, including a British tech magnate who was celebrating his recent acquittal on fraud charges with the people who had defended him at trial.

Civil protection officials said they believed the Bayesian, a 184-foot British-flagged yacht, had been struck by a tornado over the water. The ship had been moored about a half-mile offshore off Porticello near Palermo when a storm rolled and the vessel sank at about 5 a.m. local time on Monday . 

Grainy film from closed-circuit cameras from shore, broadcast on the website of the Giornale di Sicilia, showed the majestic, illuminated 246-foot mast of the Bayesian weathering the storm and then disappearing over the course of a minute.

Fifteen of the 22 people aboard survived, including a mother who reported holding her 1-year-old baby over the waves to save her. One body was recovered, identified by officials as the Antiguan-born on-board chef. The rest of the 10-person crew survived, including the captain whom prosecutors reportedly sought to interview.

However, CBS News senior weather producer David Parkinson said Tuesday that it's still too early to determine whether the yacht was hit by a waterspout or a downburst. A waterspout is a meteorological term for a tornado over water, while a downburst consists of powerful winds that descend from a thunderstorm and can often be misinterpreted as a tornado, according to the National Weather Service.

As of now, Parkinson said, it's only safe to say that the yacht was impacted by a severe thunderstorm. Based on satellite imagery, there were strong to violent thunderstorms in the area where the yacht sank, Parkinson said.

That said, early Monday morning conditions were appropriate for either the development of a waterspout or a downburst, Parkinson explained. At around 4 a.m. local time Monday, the winds spiked, with wind gusts above 43 mph in Palermo. About 10 minutes later in the town of Aspra — which is 20 miles from Palermo and three to four miles west of where the boat sank — wind gusts of 51 mph were recorded, and the thunderstorms appeared to intensify as they moved east.

In cases of downbursts, when wind hits the water's surface, it increases the wind speed, Parkinson said. While at the time the boat sank, water temperatures were 84 degrees Fahrenheit, which would be warm enough to support the development of a waterspout, Parkinson said. 

"It's a great, great tragedy," said Britain's ambassador to Italy, Edward Llewellyn, who visited Porticello on Tuesday. Britain sent four investigators to the scene, given the disaster involved a British-flagged ship and British citizens were among the missing.

Fire rescue officials have said the six other passengers will be considered missing until they are located in the wreckage. They include tycoon Mike Lynch , who was once hailed as Britain's king of technology and was cleared in June of fraud and conspiracy charges in a U.S. federal trial related to Hewlett Packard's $11 billion takeover of his company, Autonomy Corp.

Also unaccounted for are Christopher Morvillo, one of Lynch's lawyers, and Jonathan Bloomer, a chairman at Morgan Stanley International and the former head of the Autonomy audit committee who testified in Lynch's defense.

The wreckage of the luxury craft is some 164 feet underwater — far deeper than most recreational divers are certified for and a depth that requires special precautions. Recovery crews could only stay for 12-minute shifts, a measure that slowed their efforts to reach the cramped inside of the wreck.

Karsten Borner, the captain of the Sir Robert Baden Powell, which rescued the 15 survivors who managed to get into a lifeboat, said he was close enough to be able to see the Bayesian as the storm came in.

"A moment later, she was gone," he said. "They said they went flat on the water and were sunk in two minutes," Borner added, quoting the survivors.

The rotating search teams, each made up of two specialized cave divers, worked Tuesday to open up access points to get inside the wreck. They were using a remote-controlled underwater vehicle, or ROV, to help in the search.

The divers hadn't been able to access the below-deck cabins because they were blocked by furniture that had shifted during the violent storm. Rescue crews said they assume the missing six are in those cabins because the storm struck when most would be sleeping, but the teams haven't verified their presence there through portholes.

Luca Cari, a spokesman for the rescue teams, said the search was proceeding much more slowly than another big shipwreck in Italy, the 2012 Costa Concordia cruise ship that flipped on its side off Tuscany's coast, because of the depth of the wreck and the limited space divers have to maneuver.

"That was much simpler. Here everything is more tight," he said.

The outing was intended at least in part as a celebration of Lynch's acquittal and a "looking forward to what was coming next," said Reid Weingarten, a Washington attorney and a member of Lynch's defense team who was not on the yacht.

"A lot of people went, a lot of people were planning to go and then of course this happened," Weingarten said.

Some of the people who stood by Lynch throughout the ordeal were on board, including Morvillo, the lawyer, who Weingarten worked with and said "was like a brother."

Morvillo's wife, Neda, is also missing, according to his law firm Clifford Chance.

Aki Hussain, CEO of international insurer Hiscox Group, where Bloomer, the witness, was chairman, said the company was "deeply shocked and saddened by this tragic event."

"Our thoughts are with all those affected, in particular our Chair, Jonathan Bloomer, and his wife Judy, who are among the missing, and with their family as they await further news from this terrible situation," he added.

Among the survivors, the Emslie family was released from Palermo's pediatric hospital on Tuesday where little Sofia had been kept overnight after her rescue. Her mother, Charlotte Golunski, had reported that she momentarily lost hold of the 1-year-old in the water but then managed to hold her up over the waves until a lifeboat inflated and they were both pulled to safety, doctors said.

The father, identified by ANSA news agency as James Emslie, also survived.

"They don't talk much, primarily because they consider themselves survivors and they don't understand why they survived given what they went through," said Dr. Domenico Cipolla, head of the emergency room at Di Cristina Pediatric Hospital.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Cipolla said Golunski had reported that she and the baby were sleeping in the cabin and suddenly found themselves in the water, where they also found Emslie who had been in a different part of the ship. Cipolla said the parents had been in touch with other survivors, who are being housed at a nearby hotel and were waiting for other family members to arrive in Sicily.

The baby slept well overnight and all were released after final checks Tuesday morning, he said according to a videotaped interview posted on Palermo Today, adding that psychologists had been made available.

Among the other survivors was Lynch's wife, Angela Bacares. Hannah Lynch, reportedly the couple's 18-year-old daughter, is among the missing.

The yacht's registered owner is listed as Revtom Ltd., according to online maritime database Equasis. Bacares is listed as Revtom's sole owner, according to corporate registration documents from the Isle of Man.

Its name, Bayesian, may be a reference to "Bayesian Inference," one of the two main approaches to statistical machine learning and the one that was used by Lynch's company.

The yacht, built in 2008 by the Italian firm Perini Navi, was carrying 12 passengers and 10 crew. According to online charter companies, it had been available for charter for about $215,000 a week and was notable for its massive aluminum mast, one of the tallest in the world.

The coast guard said to date there was no trace of fuel leaks from the wreckage.

In an unrelated event, Lynch's co-defendant in the Autonomy trial who was also cleared, Stephen Chamberlain, was killed Sunday when he was hit by a car while running in Cambridgeshire, England, said Chamberlain's lawyer, Gary Lincenberg.

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Tech tycoon Mike Lynch, finance executive Jonathan Bloomer among victims found dead on sunken yacht

British tech tycoon Mike Lynch and Morgan Stanley International chair Jonathan Bloomer were among the victims found dead on a luxury yacht that sank off the coast of Sicily on Monday.

Lynch’s death was confirmed by people with direct knowledge of the matter who asked not to be identified. Bloomer and his wife Judy were among the dead, their children said in a statement Thursday.

They were among the five who have been recovered from inside the sunken ship. One person remains missing after the Bayesian was hit by a tornado near Porticello, Sicily, on Monday. Adding to the complexity of the search mission is the “narrowness of the spaces” inside the sunken yacht and “the presence of many objects,” the coast guard said.

Overall, of the 22 passengers in the boat, 15 were rescued Monday. The body of Recaldo Thomas, the ship’s chef, was found soon after the Bayesian sank.

Lynch’s daughter Hannah, Clifford Chance partner Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda have not been officially accounted for.

Italian authorities are investigating exactly how the Bayesian sank – and why it sank so quickly – in a storm that struck in the early hours of Monday morning. The captain and other survivors have been questioned by the local prosecutor’s office, according to Italian media.

The U.K.’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch said it’s also probing the incident, with questions centered on the expansiveness of the yacht’s mast and the state of the hull.

“Right now, there is no evidence that the mast has been snapped,” coast guard spokesman Vincenzo Zagarola told Bloomberg News. “We can also say that, so far, there is no evidence that the hull has been broken. But we don’t have a clear idea yet of the full damage.”

The head of the company that built the Bayesian said the luxury yacht should have been “unsinkable” given sailboats are built in a way that allows for significant listing without capsizing.

“That ship is unsinkable because it is a sailboat,” Italian Sea Group Chief Executive Officer Giovanni Costantino said in an interview with Bloomberg News. His company bought Perini Navi, the Italian shipbuilder that made the Bayesian, in 2022.

Crews aided by military ships, remote-controlled underwater vehicles and helicopters have been searching for missing passengers since Monday. Six guests, including Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares, and nine crew have been rescued.

Lynch, 59, and his family were celebrating his recent acquittal from fraud charges with a small group of advisers when the violent storm struck. The charges stemmed from Lynch’s sale of his software firm Autonomy Corp. to Hewlett Packard Co. in 2011. The Silicon Valley giant went on to accuse Lynch of accounting failures. He’d spent years working to clear his name in court and restore his reputation as one of Europe’s most successful entrepreneurs .

A little more than two months before the yacht accident, a San Francisco jury found Lynch not guilty of criminal charges that he duped HP into overpaying for his company. He was still fighting HP in a civil case in London, where a British judge held him responsible for creating the illusion of a company much larger and more successful than it was.

Rescue workers have had difficulties gaining access to the yacht some 50 meters, about 160 feet, below the surface, citing the depth and position of the vessel’s hull.

“The search will go on as long as necessary,” Zagarola said. “For sure, the whole hull will need to be inspected meter by meter.”

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How did the superyacht Bayesian sink? Experts say weather was just one factor

Divers searching for 6 missing people locate 5 bodies inside wrecked yacht's hull.

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A complicated search effort is underway deep beneath the surface of the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Italy, where a superyacht sank early Monday during a fierce storm. 

Dive crews are attempting to enter the wreck of the Bayesian, a 56-metre long British-flagged luxury vessel, which is sitting in some 50 metres of water near the Sicilian fishing village of Porticello.

Fifteen of the 22 passengers and crew members on board were rescued. Divers searching for six people considered missing, including British businessman Mike Lynch, located five bodies inside the yacht's hull on Wednesday, and retrieved four of them from the water.

Searchers previously recovered the body of Recaldo Thomas, the ship's Canadian-Antiguan cook, in the water not far from where the Bayesian sank.  

• Diving team finds 5 bodies in Sicily yacht search
• Canadian dead, several others missing after superyacht capsizes off Sicilian coast

Questions have emerged about why a boat designed to handle severe weather sank so rapidly and whether or not some of its features could've been a factor in its demise. Maritime experts say investigations may, in time, reveal what led to the disaster.

"There needs to be an investigation as to why this happened, what went wrong and, you know, how to prevent it in the future cases," said Simon Boxall, an oceanographer and senior lecturer at the University of Southampton in England.

Canadian dead, others missing after superyacht sinks near Sicily

How did the bayesian sink so quickly.

Grainy footage from closed-circuit cameras on the shore broadcast on the website of the Giornale di Sicilia newspaper showed the Bayesian's majestic mast just before it disappeared. 

Karsten Borner, captain of the Sir Robert Baden Powell, which rescued the survivors who managed to get into a lifeboat, told The Associated Press he was close enough to be able to see the Bayesian as the storm came in.

"A moment later, she was gone," he said.

The survivors told the rescuers they went flat on the water "and were sunk in two minutes."

Boxall said vessels rely on being able to steer and navigate stormy seas, but the Bayesian was anchored and stationary, which likely made it more vulnerable to the storm and, potentially, a waterspout , or mini tornado that creates a whirlwind over the surface of the sea. 

He said it was also dark, meaning "you wouldn't see this sort of very unique event coming towards you."

CCTV footage shows yacht Bayesian as deadly storm strikes

"It's a freak of nature," Boxall said. "I think the fact that so many have survived, so far, is probably a miracle."

Tom Sharpe, a retired Royal Navy commander and defence commentator, told CBC News the weather was likely not the only issue.

He says it's rare that a weather event like this takes down a boat. 

"There's nearly always a sequence [of events]," he said in an interview from Guildford, England, explaining that everything from safety protocols to the culture on board the vessel needs to be taken into account. 

Was the boat's design part of the problem?

The Bayesian was built in 2008 by Italian luxury yacht maker Perini Navi.

Andrea Ratti, a nautical design professor at Milan Polytechnic, told Reuters that a boat the size of the Bayesian could only sink so rapidly by taking on a huge amount of water. 

He suggested that one or more portholes, windows or other openings may have been broken or smashed open by the waterspout, letting in water. There has also been media speculation that a major hatch might have been inadvertently left open.

Reports have also highlighted that the Bayesian featured a 72-metre mast — one of the tallest in the world. 

Ratti said an unusually tall mast is not by itself an element of vulnerability in a storm. 

A second expert, structural engineer Filippo Mattioni, was also skeptical about the suggestion the boat may have sunk due to a broken mast, which likely would have caused major damage smashing against the hull.

Fire department diver Marco Tilotta told the newspaper Il Messaggero that the wreck was "apparently intact," with "no gashes, no signs of impact." However, only half of the hull is visible to divers.

The Bayesian also had a retractable keel — the fin-like structure under the hull that helps stabilize boats and acts as a counterweight to the mast. 

Both Ratti and Mattioni wondered if the yacht had been anchored with the keel up, reducing the vessel's depth under water and making it less stable. Ratti said strong winds might have caused the boat to start oscillating wildly, "like a pendulum," putting exceptional strain on the mast.

Sharpe pointed out that a mast the size of the Bayesian's is designed for a massive sail, and without that sail raised and catching the wind, the gusts likely would've had a negligible impact on the aluminum pole.

• What we know about the capsized superyacht off the Sicilian coast

He instead suggested the anchor may have played a pivotal role.

"My kind of working assumption is that she was probably a bit further in at anchor, and it's very likely, in these sort of conditions, that her anchor dragged," he said. 

In such a situation, he said, a crew is better off steering toward the anchor to stabilize the vessel or raising the anchor and heading out to sea to ride out the storm.

"They might have got caught in that middle ground where they're not on a particularly good anchorage, but the anchor is now controlling the bow of the ship."

Sicily superyacht rescue: What divers are up against | About That

What caused the extreme weather.

Although Sharpe says the weather is unlikely the sole cause of the sinking, he notes the Mediterranean isn't the calm sea often pictured in travel brochures. 

"It can get pretty nasty," he said.

The type of storm that struck Monday is fuelled by warm water and the Mediterranean is warmer than ever, said Boxall, noting there's been about a three and a half degree increase in the 20-year average temperature.

'The ship behind us was gone,' says captain who rescued yacht passengers

Climatologists say global warming is making such violent and unexpected tempests more frequent. 

Luca Mercalli, president of Italy's meteorological society, said the sea surface temperature around Sicily in the days leading up to the shipwreck was about 30 C. 

"This creates an enormous source of energy that contributes to these storms," he told Reuters.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Senior Writer

Nick Logan is a senior writer with CBC based in Vancouver. He is a multi-platform reporter and producer, with a particular focus on international news. You can reach out to him at [email protected].

With files from The Associated Press and Reuters

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Who is Mike Lynch? UK entrepreneur among those missing after superyacht sinks off Sicily

Mike lynch, a 59-year-old british technology entrepreneur, was among the six missing passengers who were aboard the bayesian, a yacht that sank in sicily, italy..

Six people remain missing after a luxury superyacht sank off the coast of Palermo in Sicily, Italy on Monday, including British technology entrepreneur Mike Lynch.

Lynch, 59, was aboard the Bayesian, an 184-foot-long British-registered sailboat that sank into the water right before sunrise. While six individuals are missing — including American, British and Canadian nationals — one person has been confirmed deceased from the sinking that capsized the yacht's 22 passengers, Italy's coast guard said in a statement.

Of the 15 rescued passengers, eight were taken to a local hospital for treatment and were in stable condition, CNN reported. A 1-year-old was among those rescued. The large vessel sank after heavy rainfall from strong storms caused flooding and landslides in parts of Italy.

Prosecutors in a town near Palermo have since opened an investigation into the events leading up to the sinking, which may shed some light on why Lynch was aboard the superyacht. Lynch's wife, Angela Bacares, was one of the rescued passengers, the BBC reported.

Here is what we know about Lynch.

What companies did Mike Lynch found?

In 1996, Lynch co-founded the Autonomy Corporation, an enterprise software company now known as HP Autonomy. He also founded Invoke Capital , a venture capital fund.

Through Invoke Capital, Lynch became a co-founder of Darktrace, a British cyber security company established in 2013 and headquartered in Cambridge, England.

Why was Mike Lynch charged with fraud?

Soon after Lynch sold Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard (HP) for $11 billion in 2011, a sale in which he made around $800 million, he was hit with civil and criminal charges.

In November 2012, HP announced an $8.8 billion writedown of assets and claimed Autonomy artificially inflated its value by hiding "serious accounting improprieties, disclosure failures and outright misrepresentations," the Guardian reported.

Although the UK Serious Fraud Office ended its investigation of the sale due to insufficient evidence, Lynch and Stephen Chamberlain, former vice president of finance at Autonomy, were indicted for fraud in the U.S. in November 2018. Sushovan Hussain , Autonomy's former finance chief officer, was found guilty of fraud in 2018 and sentenced to five years in prison, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California .

HP won a civil action in the High Court in London in January 2022 against Lynch and Hussian, the BBC reported. Damages were to be decided later, with the judge saying the amount would be "significantly less" than the $5 billion claimed by HP, according to the outlet.

Was Mike Lynch found guilty?

Lynch was extradited to the US in May 2023 to face 16 counts of wire fraud, securities fraud and conspiracy. He and Chamberlain, who was charged with 15 counts of wire fraud and conspiracy, pleaded not guilty.

On June 6, 2024, the men were found not guilty of all charges.

Lynch told BBC Radio 4 in August that although he knew he was innocent at the onset of this 11-week trial, he felt his wealth allowed him to prove his case in U.S. court.

"You shouldn't need to have funds to protect yourself as a British citizen," he said.

Stephen Chamberlain on life support

On Saturday, two days before Lynch's disappearance, Chamberlain was seriously injured in a road accident, Reuters reported, citing a person familiar with the matter.

Chamberlain was struck by a car in Cambridgeshire on Saturday morning and was placed on life support, the person said, per Reuters.

Contributing: Reuters and Cybele Mayes-Osterman/ USA TODAY

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