UK tech tycoon Mike Lynch’s body recovered from yacht wreck off Sicily

The body of UK tech tycoon Mike Lynch has been recovered from the wreckage of his yacht, “Bayesian”, which sank off the coast of Sicily on Monday.

The search continues for the last missing person, a woman, with specialist divers still searching the area.

So far, six bodies have been recovered, including Lynch’s. The latest discovery brings the death toll to six. The passengers were guests of Lynch, celebrating his recent acquittal in a massive US fraud case.

Many questions remain about why the yacht sank, and the head of the company that built the boat has 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.

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Costantino told Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper that bad weather was forecast, and all passengers should have been gathered at a pre-arranged assembly point with all doors and hatches closed. He also pointed out that security camera footage showed the lights on the ship’s mast going out, indicating a short circuit, which meant 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.

Costantino also said it was “good practice” to have a guard on the bridge when the ship is at anchor, and if there was one, they 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 in a trap,” he said.

The “Bayesian” was built by Perini Navi in 2008 and boasted a 75-metre mast, the tallest aluminium sailing mast in the world. It was reportedly owned by Lynch’s family.

Lynch was acquitted on all charges in a San Francisco court in June after being accused of an $11 billion fraud linked to the sale of his software firm Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard.
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> Italian authorities have opened a probe into the sinking, while the UK’s marine accident investigation branch has sent four inspectors to Palermo.

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