Bank boss among missing in Sicily yacht disaster

Morgan Stanley International bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer and Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo are among the six people missing after a luxury yacht sank in a storm off Sicily on Monday, Sicily's Civil Protection told the BBC.

UK tech tycoon Mike Lynch, 59, and his daughter Hannah, 18, were earlier also reported unaccounted for after the incident about 700m (2,300ft) from the Mediterranean island's shore.

The 56m Bayesian was carrying 22 people including Brits, Americans and Canadians. Fifteen people were rescued, including a one-year-old British girl. Sicily's Civil Protection also confirmed that the body of the ship's cook was recovered.

The yacht capsized at about 05:00 local time after a heavy storm caused waterspouts, or rotating columns of air. A search operation is due to resume shortly.

The British-flagged yacht with 10 crew and 12 passengers sank near the port of Porticello, just east of Sicily's capital Palermo, on Monday.

Witnesses told Italian news agency Ansa that the Bayesian’s anchor was down when the storm struck, causing the mast to break and the ship to lose its balance and sink.

The wreckage lies on the seabed at a depth of 50m, and divers are preparing to resume their search for the missing.

Mike Lynch, one of the missing passengers, is known by some as "the British Bill Gates".

He co-founded software company Autonomy, before selling it to American computing giant Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2011 for $11bn (£8.6bn).

But an intense legal battle following the high-profile acquisition loomed over Mr Lynch for over a decade. He was acquitted in the US in June on multiple fraud charges, for which he had been facing two decades in jail.

The sinking of the yacht came on the same day that Mr Lynch's co-defendant in the fraud case, Stephen Chamberlain, was confirmed by his lawyer as having died after being hit by a car in Cambridgeshire on Saturday.

The Bayesian's registered owner is listed as Revtom Ltd. The superyacht can accommodate up to 12 guests in six suites.

The yacht's name is understood to be based on the Bayesian theory, which Mr Lynch's PhD thesis was based on.

Mr Lynch's wife Ms Bacares is named as the sole legal owner of Revtom, which is registered in the Isle of Man.

Mr Lynch's wife, Angela Bacares, was one of the 15 people rescued.

A British mother and her one-year-old daughter also survived.

The mother, named locally as Charlotte Golunski, later described how she was holding her baby above the surface of the sea to save her from drowning.

She told Italian newspaper La Repubblica her family survived because they were on deck when the yacht sank.

She said they were woken by “thunder, lightning and waves that made our boat dance”, and it felt like "the end of the world" before they were thrown into the water.

“For two seconds I lost my daughter in the sea then quickly hugged her amid the fury of the waves,” the paper quoted her as saying.

Survivors said the trip was organised by Mr Lynch for his work colleagues.

In the initial aftermath, a nearby Dutch-flagged vessel rescued survivors from the waves, tending to them until emergency services arrived.

After the storm had passed, Captain Karsten Borner said his crew noticed the yacht that had been behind them had disappeared.

"We saw a red flare, so my first mate and I went to the position, and we found this life raft drifting," he told Reuters.

That life raft was carrying 15 survivors, three of whom were "heavily injured", he said.

Eight of those rescued are receiving treatment in hospital, the Italian coastguard said.

The UK Foreign Office said it is supporting a number of British nationals and their families following an incident in Sicily. Britain's Marine Accident Investigation Branch is also sending a team of inspectors to conduct a "preliminary assessment" into the sinking of the UK registered-boat.