PORTICELLO, Italy
\nScuba divers scouring the wreck of British tech Mike Lynch\u2019s family yacht, which sank off Sicily two days ago, have found two bodies inside it, a source close to rescue operations said on Wednesday.
\nOne of the bodies belonged to a heavily built man, the source said.
\nRescue officials have been looking for six missing people, including Lynch, his 18-year-old daughter and Jonathan Bloomer, a non-executive chair of Morgan Stanley International.
\nThe British-flagged Bayesian, a 56-meter-long (184-ft) superyacht, was carrying 22 people, and was anchored off the port of Porticello, near Palermo, when it capsized during a fierce storm on Monday.
\nFifteen people survived, while the body of the onboard chef, Canadian-Antiguan national Recaldo Thomas, was found near the wreck hours after the disaster.
\nInspection of the wreck, lying sideways at a depth of around 50 meters, was a \u201clong and complex\u201d operation, the Italian fire department said, with inside spaces obstructed by furniture and debris, and scuba divers having just 8-10 minutes beneath the water before needing to resurface.
\nSeparately, the coast guard deployed a remotely operated vehicle to scan the seabed and take underwater pictures and videos that it said may provide \u201cuseful and timely elements\u201d for prosecutors looking into the disaster.
\nThe coast guard has been questioning survivors, including the captain of the Bayesian, and passengers on the yacht that was moored next to it who witnessed the ship going down, judicial sources said.
\nNo one is under investigation at the moment, sources added.
\nMissing passengers
\nLynch, 59, is one of the UK\u2019s best-known tech entrepreneurs and has been referred to as the country\u2019s Bill Gates.
\nHe built the UK\u2019s largest software firm, Autonomy, which was sold to HP for $11 billion in 2011, after which the deal spectacularly unraveled with the US tech giant accusing him of fraud, resulting in a lengthy trial. Lynch was acquitted on all charges by a jury in San Francisco in June.
\nThe other missing passengers were Bloomer\u2019s wife Judy, Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife, Neda Morvillo. Morvillo represented Lynch in the San Francisco trial, while Bloomer was a character witness on his behalf.
\nExperts have been at a loss to explain how a large luxury vessel, presumed to have top-class fittings and safety features, could have sunk within minutes, as recounted by witnesses. The yacht anchored next to it was unharmed by the tempest.
\nThe Bayesian, which was owned by Lynch\u2019s wife, was built by Italian shipbuilder Perini in 2008 and last refitted in 2020. It had the world\u2019s tallest aluminum mast, measuring 72 meters, according to its makers.
\nBlack swan event
\nIts captain James Cutfield, a 51-year-old New Zealander who survived the shipwreck, was a \u201cvery good sailor\u201d and \u201cvery well respected\u201d in the Mediterranean, his brother Mark told The New Zealand Herald.
\nMatthew Schanck, chair of the Maritime Search and Rescue Council, a UK-based non-profit organization that trains sea rescuers, said the Bayesian was the victim of a \u201chigh impact\u201d weather-related incident.
\n\u201cIf it was a water spout, which it appears to be, it\u2019s what I would class as like a \u2018black swan\u2019 event,\u201d he told Reuters, referring to a rare and unpredictable phenomenon.
\nHe said he was confident the authorities would \u201cget to the bottom\u201d of what caused the shipwreck, thanks to the accounts of survivors, witnesses and examination of the sunken hull, which did not show any apparent signs of damage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PORTICELLO, Italy Scuba divers scouring the wreck of British tech Mike Lynch\u2019s family yacht, which sank off Sicily two days ago, have found two bodies inside it, a source close to rescue operations said on Wednesday. One of the bodies belonged to a heavily built man, the source said. Rescue officials have been looking for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426399,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-426371","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n