Renowned UK tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch is reportedly among those missing following the sinking of a luxury yacht off the coast of Sicily.
According to sources familiar with the situation, Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, has been rescued, while several others remain unaccounted for after the 56-meter superyacht, named the Bayesian, went down in severe weather Financial Times first reported.
Camper and Nicholsons, the yacht’s management company, confirmed that the Bayesian encountered harsh conditions before sinking near Palermo in the early hours of Monday morning.
The yacht had 12 guests and 10 crew members on board. The Italian coast guard has rescued 15 individuals so far, but six remain missing. Sadly, one body has been recovered, according to local fire department officials.
What to know
Mike Lynch, the former CEO of Autonomy, was recently acquitted of criminal charges in a high-profile legal case in San Francisco, ending a 12-year legal battle over the $11 billion sale of his software group to Hewlett-Packard in 2011.
The Italian coastguard reports that the yacht now lies at a depth of approximately 50 meters. Those rescued include British, American, and Canadian nationals, with eight individuals transferred to local hospitals for treatment.
The 180-foot yacht, with a gross tonnage of 473 tons, was constructed by the Perini Navi Viareggio shipyard in February 2008 and underwent a significant refit in 2020.
The yacht boasts a deck area of 436 square metres, with its six cabins covering 143 square metres. Built with an aluminum hull, it is equipped with two powerful engines that enable it to cruise at 12 knots and reach a top speed of 15 knots.
Notably, the yacht features the second tallest mast in the world, an aluminium structure standing 75 metres high.
Currently, Sicily is under a weather warning for strong winds, with video footage from this morning showing powerful gusts lashing the coast. CCTV captured at around 4 am shows the severe wind and rain pounding Santa Nicolicchia, near Porticello, where the Bayesian had been anchored.
About Mike Lynch
Mike Lynch, a significant figure in UK technology, began his entrepreneurial journey in the late 1980s while pursuing a PhD. He founded Lynett Systems Ltd, which created audio products, and later Cambridge Neurodynamics, specializing in fingerprint recognition. Cambridge Neurodynamics spun off three companies, including Autonomy, which Lynch co-founded in 1996. Autonomy, a search software company, became one of the UK’s top 100 public companies and was sold to Hewlett-Packard for over $11 billion in 2011. This sale led to civil and criminal cases against Lynch and Autonomy’s CFO.
Post-Autonomy, Lynch established Invoke Capital, a venture capital firm that invested in tech companies like Darktrace, a cybersecurity firm, and Featurespace focused on fraud detection.
Lynch held various high-profile advisory and board roles but resigned from these positions after being charged with fraud in the US. Despite legal challenges, his influence in the tech industry remains significant.
