yacht sinking 2022

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Dramatic video shows 130ft superyacht sinking off Italy coast after being battered in storm

Nine people rescued before boat went under, article bookmarked.

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Dramatic footage has captured the moment a 40-metre superyacht sank into the Mediterranean sea after being battered in a storm.

The 40-metre-long luxury vessel was sailing from Gallipoli to Milazzo overnight on Saturday when it got into trouble around 15km from Italy’s Catanzaro Marina.

Footage shows the yacht, named My Saga, rapidly disappearing beneath waves, as lifeboats appear to float beside it.

The captain sent out a distress call to the Port Authority of Crotone, with officials told the yacht was taking on a significant amount of water from the stern.

The Italian coastguard dispatched two patrol vessels and rescued all four passengers and five crew members on board.

A tugboat sent out at dawn was unable to save the superyacht from sinking because of worsening weather conditions, the Super Yacht Times reports. The Saga finally sank at around 1pm on Sunday.

The outlet reports the yacht, which was built in Monaco back in 2007, was flying under the Cayman Islands flag with an all-Italian crew when it sunk.

An investigation has been launched into the cause.

It comes after a £6 million superyacht sunk after it went up in flames in the UK on the Torquay harbourside.

The 85ft vessel was consumed by fire , with thick black smoking billowing into the sky.

The yacht reportedly drifted out into the harbour after the fire burnt through ropes securing it to the pier, but the vessel was later secured by the fire service.

A fire service statement revealed that the vessel contained approximately 8000 litres of diesel fuel.

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Questions for Investigators Trying to Unravel Mystery of Luxury Yacht’s Sinking

The investigators searching for answers about the shipwreck, leaving seven dead, face questions about extreme weather and possible human error or problems with the yacht itself.

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By Alan Yuhas

More than 180 feet long, with a mast towering about 240 feet and a keel that could be lowered for greater stability, the Bayesian luxury yacht did not, in the eyes of its maker, have the vulnerabilities of a ship that would easily sink.

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

But the $40 million sailing yacht sank within minutes and with fatal results: seven dead, including the British technology billionaire Michael Lynch, his teenage daughter, four of Mr. Lynch’s friends and a member of the crew. Fifteen people, including the captain, escaped on a lifeboat.

Mr. Lynch had invited family, friends and part of his legal team on a cruise in the Mediterranean to celebrate his acquittal in June of fraud charges tied to the sale of his company to the tech giant Hewlett-Packard.

The Italian authorities have opened a manslaughter investigation, searching for answers from the survivors, the manufacturer and the wreck itself. They face a range of questions and possible factors.

An ‘earthquake’ in the sky?

When the Bayesian sank around 4 a.m. on Aug. 19, the waters in its area, about half a mile off the Sicilian port of Porticello, were transformed by an extremely sudden and violent storm, according to fishermen, a captain in the area and meteorologists.

But what kind of storm is still a mystery, compounded by the fact that a sailing schooner anchored nearby did not have its own disaster. Also unclear is whether the crew was aware that the Italian authorities had issued general warnings about bad weather the night before.

Karsten Börner, the captain of the nearby passenger ship, said he’d had to steady his ship during “really violent” winds . During the storm, he said, the Bayesian seemed to disappear behind his ship.

Severe lightning and strong gusts were registered by the Italian Air Force’s Center for Aerospace Meteorology and Climatology, according to Attilio Di Diodato, its director. “It was very intense and brief in duration,” he said.

The yacht, he said, had most likely been hit by a fierce downburst — a blast of powerful wind surging down during a thunderstorm. His agency put out rough-sea warnings the previous evening, alerting sailors about possible storms.

Locals have said the winds “felt like an earthquake.” A fisherman in Porticello said that he had seen a flare go off in the early-morning hours. His brother ventured to the site once the weather had calmed about 20 minutes later, he said, finding only floating cushions.

The Italian authorities have so far declined to say whether investigators had seen any structural damage to the hull or other parts of the ship.

Open hatches or doors?

The boat executive, Mr. Costantino, has argued that the Bayesian was an extremely safe vessel that could list even to 75 degrees without capsizing. His company, the Italian Sea Group, in 2022 bought the yacht’s manufacturer, Perini Navi, which launched the ship in 2008.

Mr. Costantino 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, would be 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.

At a news conference on Saturday, almost a week after the sinking, investigators said the yacht had sunk at an angle , with its stern — where the heavy engine was — having gone down first. The wreck was found lying on its right side at the bottom of a bay, about 165 feet deep.

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

Water pouring into open hatches or doors could have contributed to the sinking, experts say, but that on its own may not account for the speed at which such a large boat vanished underwater.

Asked about the hatches at the news conference, the authorities declined to comment on whether they had been found open at the wreck.

The authorities have also not specified whether the boat had been anchored, whether it was under power at the time or whether its sails had been unfurled.

A retracted keel?

The Bayesian had a keel — the fin-like structure beneath a boat that can help stabilize it — that could be retracted or extended, according to its manufacturer. On some yachts, keels can be raised to let the large vessel dock in shallower water, and extended downward to help keep a boat level.

But like the hatches, the status of the keel alone may not explain why a large ship sank with such precipitous speed. Investigators have not disclosed what divers may have seen at the wreck, aside from saying divers had faced obstacles like furnishings and electrical wiring in tight quarters. Officials want to raise the wreck to better examine it, a process that may take weeks.

Human error?

Ambrogio Cartosio, the prosecutor in charge of the case, said at the news conference that it was “plausible” crimes had been committed, but that investigators had not zeroed in on any potential suspects.

“There could be responsibilities of the captain only,” he said. “There could be responsibilities of the whole crew. There could be responsibilities of the boat makers. Or there could be responsibilities of those who were in charge of surveilling the boat.”

It remains unclear what kind of emergency training or preparation took place before the disaster, or what kind of coordination there was during it. So far, none of the surviving crew members have made a public statement about what happened the night the ship sank.

Prosecutors said they want to ask more questions of the captain and crew, who have been in a Sicilian hotel with other survivors. They said that neither alcohol nor drug tests had been performed on crew members, and that they have been allowed to leave Italy.

Prosecutors also said they were also investigating why the captain, an experienced sailor, left the sinking boat while some passengers were still on board.

Besides possible manslaughter charges, the authorities are investigating the possibility of a negligently caused shipwreck.

The bodies of five passengers were found in one cabin, on the left side of the yacht, the authorities said. The five were most likely trying to flee to the higher side of the boat and were probably sleeping when the boat started to sink, they said.

Video shows 40-metre superyacht sinking off Italy's Catanzaro coast

'my saga' sank on saturday while sailing from gallipoli to milazzo, italian local media reported.

23 August, 2022

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Italy: Moment 40-metre superyacht sinks off the coast of Catanzaro

Worsening weather conditions made it challenging for the tug boat to bring the 40-metre yacht back to safety.

Monday 22 August 2022 15:28, UK

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Bayesian yacht sinking live: 5 bodies found as tech magnate Mike Lynch and Morgan Stanley International chair both identified

Divers searching the wreck of a superyacht that sank off Sicily have identified the five recovered bodies brought up from the wreck so far, including that of UK tech tycoon Mike Lynch and Jonathan Bloomer, chair of Morgan Stanley International.

Specialist divers working with an underwater robot on Wednesday had pulled up four bodies from the wreck of the “Bayesian”, while another was pulled up on Thursday morning, according to AFP reporters.

The five identified bodies are:

• British technology tycoon Mike Lynch
• Jonathan Bloomer, Morgan Stanley Bank International chairman
• Judy Bloomer, Jonathan’s wife
• Chris Morvillo, Clifford Chance lawyer
• Neda Morvillo, the wife of Chris

Specialist divers are still searching for the last person missing, Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter, Hannah Lynch.

Read more: Mike Lynch was ‘Britain’s Bill Gates’—but the late tech millionaire would spend many of his final months under house arrest

The 56-metre (185 feet) British-flagged “Bayesian” had been anchored some 700 metres off Porticello when it was struck by a waterspout — akin to a mini-tornado — during a pre-dawn storm.

It sank within minutes.

Fifteen people were rescued, including Lynch’s wife and a woman with a one-year-old baby.

But the tech entrepreneur and his daughter, his lawyer Christopher Morvillo and his wife Neda, and Jonathan Bloomer, the chair of Morgan Stanley International, and his wife Judy, were all reported missing.

Lynch and his daughter, his lawyer Christopher Morvillo and his wife Neda, and Jonathan Bloomer, the chair of Morgan Stanley International, and his wife Judy, were all reported missing.

Many questions remain about why the yacht sank, and on Thursday the head of the company which built the boat said the tragedy could have been avoided.

“Everything that was done reveals a very long summation of errors,” said Giovanni Costantino, head of the Italian Sea Group, which includes the Perini Navi company that built “Bayesian”.

He told Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper that bad weather was forecast and all the passengers should have been gathered at the assembly point, all the doors and hatches closed.

Security camera footage of the ship from the shore showed the lights on its mast going out, which Costantino said indicated a short circuit, meaning that the ship had already taken on water.

“A Perini ship resisted Hurricane Katrina, a category 5 (hurricane). Does it seem to you that it can’t resist a tornado from here?” he told the newspaper.

“It is good practice when the ship is at anchor to have a guard on the bridge, and if there was one he could not have failed to see the storm coming.

“Instead it took on water with the guests still in the cabin… They ended up in a trap, those poor people ended up like mice.”

Five minutes

The passengers were guests of Lynch — an entrepreneur sometimes referred to as Britain’s Bill Gates — to celebrate his acquittal in a massive US fraud case.

The 59-year-old was acquitted on all charges in a San Francisco court in June after he was accused of an $11 billion fraud linked to the sale of his software firm Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard.

Among the survivors was Charlotte Golunski, board director of a company founded by Lynch, who has described how she briefly lost hold of her one-year-old daughter before grabbing her again. Both were plucked to safety.

Fabio Genco, a member of the Palermo Emergency Medical Services who was among the team that treated the child, described the “apocalyptic” situation he found on arriving at the scene.

“The word that the mother and all the injured kept repeating was ‘darkness’, the darkness that they experienced during the shipwreck,” he told the BBC’s Newsnight programme.

“They spoke of about five minutes, maybe from three to five minutes, from the moment the boat was lifted, raised by the waves of the sea, until it sank.”

He said the survivors rescued had been in shock: “There were truly apocalyptic scenes where everyone was searching and hoping to find the people who at that moment, were not present or just missing.”

All the survivors treated in hospital have been discharged, he confirmed.

Anarchic sea conditions

The speed with which the yacht sank, and the fact that other boats around it were unaffected, was extraordinary.

Some key questions remain, including whether the keel, which provides a counterbalance to the towering mast, was down when the storm hit.

Matthew Schanck, from the Maritime Search and Rescue Council, told AFP what happened was a “pretty unprecedented”, describing it as a “black swan event” — something that is unlikely, but has a big impact.

UK meteorologist Peter Inness described a waterspout as a “narrow column of rotating air below a thunderstorm that occurs over water”.

Like tornadoes, they suck up air in a rotating motion. Many are fairly inconsequential, but some can pack winds of more than 100 kilometres (62 miles) per hour, said Inness.

Jean-Marie Dumon, a former naval officer now with the GICAN, the French maritime industry association, added that conditions with winds of 100kph or more can “create completely anarchic sea conditions which can cause capsizing”.

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Dramatic video captures the moment a massive 40-meter superyacht sank off the coast of Italy

• A superyacht sunk off the coast of Southern Italy over the weekend.
• Video of the boat's demise showed the ship sinking stern-first with its bow straight in the air.
• The Italian Coast Guard rescued nine people from the ship before it submerged.

A superyacht measuring nearly 130 feet sunk off the coast of southern Italy on Saturday, after members of the Italian Coast Guard rescued nine people from the submerging ship.

This weekend, the Italian press reported that the 39.4-meter motor yacht named "My Saga" sunk off the coast of Catanzaro Marina.

Video from the scene shows the massive boat teetering into the water before fully sinking stern-first.

—Sky News (@SkyNews) August 22, 2022

Sky News reported that worsening weather conditions rendered it impossible for a rescue tugboat to bring the yacht to safety.

An investigation into what caused the ship to sink is underway, the outlet reported. 

The yacht was built in Italy in 2007, according to Super Yacht Times, and was traveling from Gallipoli to Milazzo under a Cayman Islands flag with a full Italian crew when it sunk. 

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Bayesian yacht disaster: how specialist search and rescue teams work underwater

Reader in Forensic Geoscience, Keele University

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Lecturer in Forensic Anthropology and Biology, Keele University

Disclosure statement

Jamie Pringle receives funding from the HLF, the Nuffield Foundation, Royal Society, NERC, EPSRC and EU Horizon2020. He is affiliated with the Geological Society of London. Jamie works for Keele University.

Kristopher Wisniewski is affiliated with the Geological Society of London.

Vivienne Heaton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Search and rescue for missing persons is always challenging for the specialist recovery teams involved, regardless of the environment they’re working in.

But the teams looking for the missing aboard the Bayesian yacht which sank off the coast of Sicily leaving several people dead, have faced particularly challenging conditions. Even though the boat lies in relatively shallow water of 50 metres, underwater operations are affected by numerous factors which make them the most complex of search and rescue efforts.

Best practice shows that searches should be coordinated, with areas that are being searched expanding outwards from the last known location. This makes the most efficent use of available teams and equipment, which are selected depending on targets and environments being searched, while updating and refining the operation as new information becomes available.

Land-based searches may be more straightforward as the recovery team can usually walk or move about more easily. Searching in water is more challenging, whether in rivers, lakes or the open ocean.

Inland waterway searches , such as rivers, canals and lakes are more constrained in their extent than the sea and open ocean due to surface area and depth.

Searchers use a variety of techniques, such as trained victim recovery search dogs, sonar to reflect sound waves from target objects, water penetrating radar that can detect objects below sediment, and remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs). The combination of techniques used are dependent on the environment and the scenario.

Marine searches, by contrast, can be more difficult as they usually cover significantly larger areas both spatially and in terms of water depth. Additional issues to consider include salinity, temperature and strong currents, and the fact that there may be a rugged seabed which could hamper divers, sonar and ROVs.

Drowning was the third leading cause of “unintentional injury” death worldwide, claiming around 360,000 victims in 2021, and revealing a globally increasing trend in cause of death.

And for every drowned person recovered, there are many others who remain missing. Recent Danish research showed that only 45% of missing individuals in water are successfully found and recovered within 12 months of their disappearance.

Marine searches cover a wide range of disasters, from tsunami victims, such as the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004 , to fishermen on sinking trawlers and migrants on unseaworthy boats . Then there are issues related to mechanical difficulties, such as the Argentinian San Juan submarine in 2017 , and plane crashes such as the still-missing Maylasian Airlines MH370 plane in 2013 .

Finally, there are searches for missing divers or underwater craft like the Titan submersible which imploded during a dive to the Atlantic wreck site of the Titanic in 2023.

Diver caution

The search for the missing in the sunken Bayesian yacht – the cause of which is currently uncertain – should have been relatively straightforward. Helicopters, likely equipped with thermal imaging equipment, and rescue boats were rapidly deployed to look for survivors, although the body of chef Recaldo Thomas was found floating on the surface.

Five victims have been recovered from inside the yacht that was discovered close to the shore in comparatively shallow water (50m) and where there was good local knowledge of ocean currents. If they had been washed out to sea, ocean currents, the decomposition process, scavenging activity and other factors could all have made this forensic search even more problematic.

However, it is challenging for divers to work at depths of 40 metres or more. One reason is the risk of nitrogen narcosis . The deeper divers go, the higher the pressure gets.

At higher pressure, the gases divers breathe in from their tanks cause symptoms such as drowsiness and impaired judgement, which is an obvious danger underwater. Decompression sickness – when divers ascend too rapidly, and often known as “the bends”, is another issue. This means divers can only spend ten minutes on the wreck itself.

In the case of the Bayesian, underwater ROVs were deployed, likely with live audio, lighting rigs and sonar equipment to assist with navigation and location, and minimise the risk to divers in this difficult environment. The 56m yacht was rotated onto its side, had 1.3 cm thick glass windows that were hard to break, and was full of debris that made it difficult to retrieve the missing people.

The chances of finding the missing alive declined rapidly the longer the underwater search went on. However, in rare cases, people have been found clinging onto debris or flotation devices, or within air pockets in sunken vessels after several days.

Harrison Okene, a fisherman on a trawler that sank 19 miles off the Nigerian coast in 30 metres of water in 2013, was found by divers still alive after 60 hours being trapped in an air pocket in the upturned boat. He later published a book on his rare survival story. There are also several famous maritime stories of people rescued from rafts after being adrift at sea for weeks and even months.

While tragically the initial search and rescue operation turned into a recovery mission, the rapid deployment of search teams, including specialist divers, helicopters, rescue boats and ROVs resulted in a rapid “successful” operation.

This is of paramount importance when it comes to identifying the victims and determining the cause of death. Sadly this is not always the case in such rescue operations, such as undocumented migrants lost at sea .

The lack of funding to recover sunken vessels in relatively shallow waters, which would allow the cause of their sinking to be diagnosed, would help prevent future vessel sinkings and the tragic loss of life that all too often goes with it.

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Video captures 130-foot superyacht sinking off southern coast of Italy

A superyacht sank off the southern coast of Italy over the weekend of Aug. 20 in a spectacular capsizing captured on video and shared on Twitter by the Italian coast guard.

The video compilation shows the My Saga , a roughly 130-foot boat, struggling against the waves before slowly sinking into the water.

The yacht was sailing from the town of Gallipoli to Milazzo, Sicily, on Aug. 20, local news outlets reported, when it began to take on water and eventually sank some hours later about nine nautical miles off the port of Catanzaro.

All crew members and passengers were rescued and uninjured, the coast guard said on Twitter. It said it launched an investigation to determine what happened.

Nei giorni scorsi, la #GuardiaCostiera di #Crotone ha coordinato operazioni di salvataggio di passeggeri ed equipaggio di uno yacht di 40m, affondato a 9 miglia al largo di #CatanzaroMarina . Avviata inchiesta amministrativa per individuarne le cause. #SAR #AlServizioDegliAltri pic.twitter.com/kezuiivqsM — Guardia Costiera (@guardiacostiera) August 22, 2022

The My Saga first reported a problem on Aug. 20 after setting sail from Gallipoli , on Italy’s southeastern peninsula, according to the country’s National Associated Press Agency (ANSA). Patrol boats from the Italian coast guard in Crotone and the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) were dispatched to the scene.

They found the ship taking on water from its stern. Five people — four passengers and a member of the crew — were initially rescued on a Romanian patrol boat acting on behalf of Frontex. They were then transferred to the coast guard boat and taken to Catanzaro.

According to an Italian official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of an ongoing investigation, the My Saga flew a Cayman Islands flag and was owned by a Danish company. The group on board when the boat took on water included six Italian nationals, two Danish citizens and a South African national, the person said.

The owner contracted a towing company to attempt to rescue the ship, according to the official. A tugboat, the Alessandro Second, arrived and took the four remaining crew members — including the captain — onboard before beginning to tow the ship toward Crotone. But bad weather made the process difficult, as did the position of the yacht, which was tilted into the water.

Eventually, the tugboat abandoned the yacht, and it sank into the Gulf of Squillace. The coast guard took the remaining crew members to Catanzaro.

It’s not the first time a sinking yacht has captured attention on the internet. In May, rapper Cardi B posted footage on social media of a yacht sinking near her hotel while she was on vacation in an unknown location. The artist could be heard screaming as she asked whether there wasn’t a “big boat that could save it.” Eventually, she said “bye-bye” as it disappeared into the water. She later clarified that no one was onboard .

I can’t believe I’m actually watching a yacht sink pic.twitter.com/dLL3ZJJv9R — Cardi B (@iamcardib) May 28, 2022

The same month, passersby watched as another multimillion-dollar yacht, the Rendezvous, sank in Torquay Harbor, a marina in southwestern England, after a fire broke out onboard. Authorities warned of potential air and water pollution because the yacht carried about nine metric tons of diesel.

And earlier this month, the 145-foot Aria SF caught fire off the Balearic island of Formentera in Spain in an incident that was also captured on camera and shared widely on social media. Those onboard were evacuated, and no one was hurt, the Guardian reported . The roughly $23 million yacht had reportedly just been delivered to its owner.

Chico Harlan contributed to this report.

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Dramatic video shows the moment a 140ft superyacht sinks off Italian coast as nine people rescued

23 August 2022, 14:37 | Updated: 23 August 2022, 14:40

Superyacht sinks off the coast of Italy

By Megan Hinton

The moment a 140ft superyacht sunk off the coast off Italy was captured on camera after the huge ship was hit by a storm.

Listen to this article

According to the Super Yacht Times , the vessel called My Saga was travelling from Gallipoli in Turkey to Milazzo in Italy and was spotted flying a Cayman Islands flag.

Four passengers and five crew were rescued before the ship submerged into the sea and no injuries were reported.

The Italian coast guard said in a tweet: "In recent days, the Guardia Costiera of Crotone coordinated the rescue operations of passengers and crew of a 40m yacht, which sank 9 miles offshore of Catanzaro Marina."

They added: "Administrative investigation launched to identify the causes."

Read more: Superyacht worth £6m sinks after being engulfed in black smoke and flames

Read more: Mystery Russian's £38m superyacht with 'infinite wine cellar' seized in Canary Wharf

According to reports, the captain sent out a distress call late at night during a storm because the ship was taking on a significant amount of water.

The superyacht, which was built in 2007, has room for up to 12 guests on board alongside accommodation for 7 crew members including the captain.

It comes after a British man died and six other people were injured when a luxury yacht smashed into rocks in Sardinia three weeks ago.

The 63-year-old, who has not been named but is understood to be the owner of the 70ft Magnum-type motor yacht involved in the crash, was killed in the accident around 8.40pm yesterday near Porto Cervo, in Sardinia.

It is thought the vessel - carrying a total of seven people - was swerving to avoid another boat near a group of islands known as Il Nibani that lie just off the coast when it hit the rocks and half-sunk, La Stampa reports.

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Video captures the moment 160-foot ‘007’ superyacht sinks in greece.

Sunken but not stirred.

Footage captured the calamitous moment that a massive superyacht named “007” sank — with five passengers inside — in Greece

The maritime disaster occurred Friday night after the 160-foot vessel, which reportedly sails under a British flag but is owned by a Swiss businessman, experienced a GPS malfunction off Kythos Island, SWNS reported. This reportedly prompted the captain to bring it closer to shore than was advisable.

As a result, the James Bond-themed luxury boat hit the rocks, and began taking on water with five passengers inside.

“In trying not to be sunk, he sailed closer to shore, in less than 10 meters depth — and that’s how the ship got to that position,” explained a boat owner who witnessed the catastrophe.

Accompanying footage, uploaded to YouTube, shows the swanky vessel, which sports a helipad, lying half-sunken on its side around 50 feet from the nearby Kolona Beach.

Thankfully, all five passengers were rescued and transported to safety before the “007” sank. “No people were hurt,” described the aforementioned eyewitness. “The coastguard was immediately aware and sent help in the night.”

Rescuers also erected an anti-pollution perimeter in the area, although there was reportedly “no diesel leakage or damage to the scenery,” the bystander said.

Local authorities will launch a probe into the sinking of the “007,” which was delivered in 2006 by the Bodrum-based shipyard Aegean Yacht, but whose owner remains unknown.

Along with a helipad, the superyacht reportedly boasts five cabins, including a master suite, and can reportedly sleep ten people.

This isn’t the first time a luxury vessel has visited Davy Jones’ locker of late. Last month, heart-pounding footage emerged of a 130-foot superyacht capsizing and sinking stern-first into the water off the Italian coast.

In February, a Ukrainian man was arrested for partially sinking his Russian tycoon boss’s $7.7 million luxury super yacht in Spain in protest over the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.

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The Coast Guard rescued 9 boaters who fled a sinking vessel off the Florida coast

Emma Bowman

"Bravo zulu to U.S. Coast Guard Station Pensacola!" The U.S. Coast Guard said in a tweet after a patrol crew was diverted to rescue nine boaters whose vessel started sinking near Pensacola Pass, Fla. U.S. Coast Guard hide caption

"Bravo zulu to U.S. Coast Guard Station Pensacola!" The U.S. Coast Guard said in a tweet after a patrol crew was diverted to rescue nine boaters whose vessel started sinking near Pensacola Pass, Fla.

All are safe and sound after nine people abandoned a sinking boat off the Florida coast, thanks to a quick response from the U.S. Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard said it rescued all nine boaters from the water after the recreational vessel became submerged about two miles south of Pensacola Pass on Saturday.

At 10:47 a.m., the Coast Guard received a mayday call from the 50-foot Sport Fisher Slow Motion, according to the agency. A boat crew already patrolling the area arrived on the scene less than 10 minutes later, and eventually brought the boaters back to Big Lagoon State Park in Pensacola.

None of the nine boaters reported any medical concerns, said the Coast Guard.

The boat had already sank by the time the rescue crew arrived, a spokesperson with the Coast Guard told NPR.

Eight of the boaters were wearing life jackets at the time and one was not, said Petty Officer 3rd Class Riley Perkofski.

"It sounds like they hit something," Perkofski said.

He noted that there is a sunken vessel-turned manmade reef in the area, as well as other shallow parts coming out of the nearby jetty, but could not confirm the cause of the boat's submersion.

The agency is investigating the incident he said, adding that "investigations can take months and sometimes a year."

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The biggest superyacht disasters in 2022

Related articles, superyacht directory.

From devastating fires to shocking sinkings, BOAT rounds up the worst superyacht disasters from 2022...

49m superyacht 007 runs aground in Greece

In the early hours September 3, the 49 metre yacht 007 struck rocks in a small bay on the island of Kythnos, in the Cyclades island chain in Greece. She quickly began taking on water and listed steeply on her port side, jutting out above the waterline around 15 metres from the beach. Pollution prevention measures were put in place within 24 hours, but the yacht remains in the same position as of December 2022, prompting complaints from local residents.

39m superyacht My Saga sinks in Italy

One of the most dramatic yacht disasters of 2022 came when 39 metre My Saga sunk in the Ionian Sea off the coast of southern Italy. She was being towed when the incident took place, after sending out a distress signal in the early hours of the morning to report that she was taking on water. It’s still not clear how the incident occurred, but a representative from a local marina told BOAT International that the seafloor in this region is too deep for the yacht be salvageable. You can watch the moment My Saga sunk below.

59m yacht Idol collides with bridge in Italy

A less dramatic incident saw the 58.9 metre motor yacht Idol collide with a bridge in Pisa, Italy. The bridge typically has an elevation of 11.8 metres above sea level during low tide, but according to eyewitness reports, the yacht attempted to pass during high tide. Minimal damage was sustained.

49m Eleonora E sinks in Spain following collision

In June, the 49 metre Eleonora E sunk after being hit by an offshore supply vessel while she was stationary in the marina. Footage shows the offshore vessel hitting the yacht squarely on its starboard side, after apparently running into mechanical difficulties. Eleonora E remained in the port for several months, before a three-week salvage operation raised her from the seafloor and hauled her away for repairs.

45 metre motor yacht Domani flounders off Washington Coast

Around 45 miles from the coast of Washington, the 45 metre Benetti yacht Domani ran into difficulty. The US Coast Guard reported the yacht’s crew had been unable to close the transom door, resulting in flooding of the beach club that left her disabled and floundering. Emergency services were quick to respond, and the yacht was towed to nearby Port Angeles for repairs.

Brand new 45m superyacht Aria SF goes up in flames in Ibiza

Fresh from delivery from Italian yard ISA, the 45 metre Aria SF caught fire in a busy anchorage in Formentera, Ibiza. Eyewitness accounts reported smoke originating from the area around her main saloon, and within minutes the yacht’s superstructure was engulfed in flames. She was towed away from other yachts to prevent damage, and sunk close to Cap Martinet, in Ibiza. Local news have been reporting on the ongoing efforts to remove the yacht’s hull from its current resting place.

Yacht damaged by Coast Guard in alleged drug smuggling operation

In July, shocking images showed the result of a clash between a 27 metre superyacht named Belgor and a Coast Guard patrol vessel in Turkey. The incident is alleged to be part of a drug smuggling operation, with the Coast Guard attempting to investigate reports indicating the presence of drugs on board the yacht in Muğla, close to Bodrum. The yacht then attempted to leave the waters of Turkey and the Coast Guard pursued, before finally opening fire and ramming the yacht.

25m motor yacht sinks off Chub Cay in the Bahamas

A 25 metre motor yacht, believed to be a popular Ferretti Yachts 830 model, was spotted submerged off the coast of Chub Cay in the Bahamas. The yacht reportedly hit a shallow reef and sank quickly, in an incident that bore some similarities to the sinking of another 25 metre motor yacht in April 2021.

Fire destroys 27m Sanlorenzo superyacht in Valencia

In April, a fire destroyed a 27 metre Sanlorenzo SX88 model named Pesa in the Port de Valencia, on Spain’s eastern coast. Six separate fire crews were called to tackle the blaze and it was eventually distinguished — however it’s understood the yacht is a total loss. After 12 hours of burning, the yacht sunk in the port.

Yacht damaged in fire at the Ferretti shipyard in Cattolica

At the start of the year, a fire at one of Ferretti Group’s Cattolica shipyard caused significant damage to a motor yacht under construction. No-one was injured thanks to the “immediate implementation of safety procedures” and the cause of the fire is subject to an investigation.

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Who was onboard tech mogul Mike Lynch's Bayesian yacht?

Topic: Disasters, Accidents and Emergency Incidents

Six people are missing, including a man dubbed the British Bill Gates, after a luxury yacht sank off the Sicilian coast.

British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch — freshly acquitted from a decade-long trial — had invited his work colleagues aboard a trip through the Mediterranean coast when a freak storm saw the yacht sink within moments.

Fifteen people escaped from the sinking vessel. The search for the missing continues.

Here's what we know so far: 

What happened?

The Italian coastguard said the yacht — the Bayesian — was anchored off the shore of port city Porticello, near the Sicilian capital Palermo, when it was hit by bad weather sometime after 4am on Monday, local time. 

Eyewitnesses said it vanished quickly beneath the waves shortly before dawn.

Managers of the sailing vessel Bayesian, Camper & Nicholsons, confirmed to the ABC that the Bayesian encountered severe weather and subsequently sank. 

"Our priority is assisting with the ongoing search and providing all necessary support to the rescued passengers and crew," they said. 

"The wind was very strong. Bad weather was expected, but not of this magnitude," a coastguard official told Reuters.

Sicily's civil protection agency head, Salvo Cocina, said a waterspout — a tornado over the water — could have struck the yacht.

"They were in the wrong place at the wrong time," Mr Cocina added. 

Storms and heavy rainfall had swept down Italy in recent days after weeks of scorching heat, lifting the temperature of the Mediterranean Sea to record levels and raising the risk of extreme weather conditions, experts told Reuters.

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

Rescuers recover the body of one of the people aboard the Bayesian.  ( AP: Lucio Ganci )

Captain Karsten Borner of the Sir Robert Baden Powell vessel told journalists he noticed the Bayesian nearby during the storm, but after it calmed he saw a red flare and realised the ship had simply disappeared.

Mr 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.

Search crews, including helicopters and divers, are continuing to search the wreckage, lying at a depth of 49 metres.

Specialist divers reached the ship on Monday but access was limited due to objects in the way, the fire brigade 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".

Sicilian prosecutors have also opened an investigation into the event. 

Who is missing?

Lawyer Chris Morvillo (left), entrepreneur Mike Lynch, and Morgan Stanley chairman Jonathan Bloomer are among the missing. 

There were 12 passengers and 10 crew members aboard the yacht. 

Mr Cocina said the crew and passengers hailed from a variety of countries, including Britain, the United States, Antigua, France, Germany, Ireland, Myanmar, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Spain.

Of the 22, one man is confirmed dead and another six people are still missing. 

They are believed to be inside the hull, fire rescue spokesperson Luca Cari said.

Fabio Cefalù, a fisherman who said he responded to a flare from the vessel but found it sunk, said he stayed at the site for three hours without finding anyone.

"I think they are inside, all the missing people," he said.

Rescue teams recovered the body of the yacht's onboard chef on Monday, identified as Antiguan citizen Ricardo Thomas.

The still missing people include: 

• Mr Lynch's 18-year-old daughter, Hannah 
• Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of global financial services company Morgan Stanley International
• Chris Morvillo , a lawyer at the British multinational law firm Clifford Chance. He worked on Mr Lynch's lawsuit against Hewlett-Packard
• The identities of the remaining two missing are still unconfirmed

Who was rescued? 

Fifteen people escaped from the sinking ship. 

Eight have been hospitalised and others were taken to a nearby hotel.

Charlotte Golunski was among those rescued, recalling the harrowing moments she held her child Sofia above the waves.  ( Supplied: Facebook  )

Among those rescued were:

• Mr Lynch's wife, Angela Bacares, who was the owner of the yacht
• Charlotte Golunski and her one-year-old daughter, Sofia. Ms Golunski is a partner at Mr Lynch's firm, Invoke Capital. She says she momentarily lost hold of Sofia in the water but managed to hold her up above the waves until the lifeboat was inflated
• Ms Golunski's husband James Emslie
• New Zealand captain of the yacht James Catfield. He told Italian newspaper La Repubblica the crew didn't see the storm coming
• A lone Dutch citizen was identified by the Dutch foreign ministry as being rescued, but was not identified

Who is Mike Lynch?

Mr Lynch, once hailed as Britain’s king of technology, was recently freed from a Silicon Valley lawsuit that tarnished his legacy. 

The 59-year-old Cambridge-educated mathematician created Autonomy , a search engine that could pore through emails and other internal business documents to help companies find vital information more quickly. 

He received the OBE for his innovation in 2006. 

He then sold the software to Hewlett-Packard (HP) for $US11 billion ($16 billion) in 2011, with Mr Lynch personally netting $US800 million. 

HP valued Autonomy at $US46 billion ($68 billion) in the months leading up to the deal.

Mike Lynch in 2019 leaving the High Court in London.  ( Reuters: Henry Nicholls/File Photo )

But the deal quickly turned sour after he was accused of forging the software's financial records to make the sale.

As part of a decades-long legal battle against HP, Mr Lynch was extradited to the UK on criminal fraud charges. 

He steadfastly denied any wrongdoing, asserting that he was being made a scapegoat for HP's own bungling. 

He was eventually cleared of all charges in June this year. 

Although he avoided a possible prison sentence, Lynch still faced a bill from a civil case in London that HP mostly won during 2022. Damages haven't been determined in that case, but HP is seeking $US4 billion. 

Following the San Francisco trial, Mr Lynch said he would return to the UK and do what he loved most: "[being with] my family and innovating in my field."

The holiday appeared to be something of a celebration after Mr Lynch's acquittal, with guests including some of the people who had stood by Lynch throughout the ordeal.

This picture shows the rescue operations off the Sicilian coast.  ( AP: Italian Coast Guard  )

In a separate act of tragedy, Mr Lynch's co-defendant in the trial, Stephen Chamberlain, died on Monday, after a road accident left him critically injured.

Mr Chamberlain — Autonomy's former vice-president of finance alongside Mr Lynch — was hit by a car in Cambridgeshire on Saturday morning and had been placed on life support. 

What is the Bayesian?

The luxury yacht is 56m long sailboat, with a 75m mast labelled as the tallest aluminium mast in the world.

It was previously named Salute when it flew under a Dutch flag.

The yacht, built in 2008 by the Italian firm Perini Navi, can accommodate up to 12 guests in six suites and a crew of 10, according to online specialist yacht sites. It was last refitted in 2020.

Online charter sites listed it for rent for up to 195,000 euros (about $AU 321,000) a week. 

This picture taken on Sunday shows the Bayesian (left) and the Duch sailboat Sir Robert Baden Powell anchored off the coast line.   ( AP: Fabio La Bianca/Baia Santa Nicolicchia )

The ship also won a string of awards for its design. 

Ms Golunski said the yacht had travelled through the Aeolian Islands, Milazzo and Cefalù before sinking. 

It is likely the yacht's name would resonate with Mr Lynch because his PhD thesis and the software that made his fortune was based on Bayesian theory.

Ukraine keeps crossing Russia’s red lines. Putin keeps blinking.

Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s invasion keeps crossing President Vladimir Putin’s red lines.

Kyiv’s lightning incursion into Kursk in western Russia this month slashed through the reddest line of all — a direct ground assault on Russia — yet Putin’s response has so far been strikingly passive and muted, in sharp contrast to his rhetoric earlier in the war.

On Day One of the invasion in February 2022, Putin warned that any country that stood in Russia’s way would face consequences “such as you have never seen in your entire history,” a threat that seemed directed at countries that might arm Ukraine.

If Russia’s territorial integrity were threatened, “we will certainly use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people. It’s not a bluff,” he said a few months later in September. “The citizens of Russia can be sure that the territorial integrity of our Motherland, our independence and freedom will be ensured — I emphasize this again — with all the means at our disposal,” making a clear reference to Russia’s nuclear weapons.

But Ukraine’s punch through Russian defenses in the first foreign invasion since World War II exposed Russia’s military flaws and laid bare Moscow’s apparently illusory red lines.

Now some are again questioning the centerpiece of Washington’s Ukraine strategy: a slow, calibrated supply of weapons to Ukraine to avoid escalating tensions with Russia that critics argue has dashed Kyiv’s chances of driving Russia out and resulted in a grinding war of attrition with massive casualties.

Ukraine’s Kursk incursion “proved the Russians are bluffing,” said Oleksandr Danylyuk, a former Ukrainian intelligence and defense official, now an associate fellow with the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank in London. “It shuts down all of the voices of the pseudo experts … the anti-escalation guys.”

The attack was “risky,” he continued, “but it sent a very powerful signal and helped us change the narrative about Ukraine — that it is not able to win — and on the Russian red lines. Both narratives have been destroyed.”

Ukraine’s attacks have repeatedly crossed ostensible red lines: sinking Russia’s Black Sea flagship, Moskva; the 2022 Crimea Bridge blast; Storm Shadow missile attacks on the fleet headquarters in Sevastopol; the 2023 drone attacks on the Kremlin and Moscow; the assassinations of propagandists on Russian territory; and attacks on strategic air bases hundreds of miles from Ukraine.

The Western hardware being used by Ukrainian forces, HIMARS, tanks, ATACMS and F-16s, were all once red lines, too.

When Ukrainian drones struck Moscow in May 2023, hitting a Kremlin dome and closing major airports, Putin downplayed the problem, analyst Tatiana Stanovaya wrote at the time in an analysis for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Within a few months, it seemed that the Kremlin’s red lines had either never existed or had become extremely mobile.” The Kremlin claimed to be unperturbed, she wrote, “even if it flies in the face of common sense.”

It was to become a striking pattern, yet the U.S.-led policy on military aid to Ukraine has remained timid, according to many analysts.

Boris Bondarev, a Geneva-based former Russian diplomat who resigned in 2022 to protest the war, said in an interview that Washington’s fear of triggering a direct military conflict with Russia had crippled the U.S. response, leaving its goals in the war unclear and projecting American weakness to Putin and other global adversaries.

“When you put your enemy’s red lines, so to speak, as the crucial factor of your own strategy, you will always be on the losing side,” he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday used the Kursk incursion to argue against Washington’s restrictions that bar Kyiv’s use of Western weapons to strike deeper at military targets in Russia — such as the air bases Russia uses for its devastating glide bomb attacks.

“We are witnessing a significant ideological shift — the naive, illusory concept of so-called red lines regarding Russia, which dominated the assessment of the war by some partners, has crumbled apart these days,” Zelensky said.

While Ukraine’s Kursk incursion has changed calculations, it has not shifted the fundamental balance in the war, with Moscow continuing its focus on eastern Ukraine, closing in on the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region, a key logistical hub that could pave the way for further Russian advances if it falls.

If Washington did allow Ukraine to strike military targets deeper within Russia with U.S. weapons, it would dash yet one more taboo, but Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin analyst, suggested that Moscow had already factored this in.

“In Russia, there is no doubt that such permission will be given,” he said. “Russia already considers that the decision has been taken by the U.S.”

“Russia tried to clearly draw these red lines, but the U.S., which is a participant in the conflict, decided that ‘We’re not going to cross any big red lines but only small ones,’” he said “They decided we are going to cut these red lines into dozens of small thin red threads, to cross them bit by bit so that there was no big event which could become a” cause of war.

A Russian academic with close ties to senior Moscow diplomats said the Russian leadership was taking the use of U.S. and Western weapons deeper in Russia “very seriously” but said it wasn’t clear whether a decision had been made on how to respond. He spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss deliberations in Moscow frankly.

Russian authorities have been seeking to downplay the significance of the Ukrainian incursion and failure of its military leadership.

The presence of Ukrainian troops in 15 to 20 “little known” villages in the Kursk region was of “little significance” compared with Russian advances in Donetsk, Markov said. But if Ukraine occupied all of Glushkovsky district in Kursk or took the regional capital, Kursk city, “this would be a very big loss” that could force Putin to change his approach, he added.