Two months after being cleared in a bitter legal battle over fraud charges, British tech mogul Mike Lynch celebrated his freedom with a cruise. He invited his family, friends and part of his legal team aboard his luxury sailing yacht, a majestic 180-foot vessel named Bayesian after the mathematical theorem around which he built his empire.
On Sunday evening, after a tour of the Bay of Naples, including Capri, and the volcanic islands of the Aeolian archipelago, the boat dropped anchor a half-mile off the coast of Sicily in Porticello, Italy. It chose a stretch of water favored by the Phoenicians thousands of years ago for its protection from the mistral wind and, more recently, the yachts of tech billionaires. The boat was lit up “like a Christmas tree,” local residents said, standing out against the full moon.
But around 4 a.m., calamity struck. A violent, fast-moving storm hit the area with some of the strongest winds locals said they had ever felt. Fabio Cefalù, a fisherman, said he saw a rocket pierce the darkness shortly after 4 a.m.
Minutes later, the yacht was under water. Only dozens of cushions from the deck of the boat and a giant radar from its mast were floating on the surface of the sea, fishermen said.
In total, there were 22 people on board, 15 of whom were rescued. Six bodies had been recovered by Thursday. The last According to the Italian Coast Guard, the person still missing is a woman, which suggests that Mr Lynch was among the victims, although Italian authorities have not formally confirmed the identity of the bodies found in the last two days.
It was a tragic and shocking turn of events for Mr. Lynch, 59, who had spent years trying to clear his name and was finally starting a new chapter in his life. Experts had wondered how a $40 million yacht, so sturdy and stable, could be sunk in a storm near a harbor in a matter of minutes.
“It drives me crazy,” said Giovanni Costantino, chief executive of Italian Sea Group, which in 2022 bought the Perini company, which built the Bayesian. “With all the proper procedures, that boat is unsinkable.”
The cloud of doom only increased when it emerged that Stephen Chamberlain, 52, a former finance vice-president of Mr Lynch's former company and a co-defendant in the fraud case, had been killed two days earlier when he was hit by a car while jogging near his home in England.
By June, the two men had been in jubilant mood. A San Francisco jury had acquitted them both of fraud charges that could have sent them to prison for two decades. There were hugs and tears, and they and their legal teams went to a gala dinner at a restaurant in the city, said Gary S. Lincenberg, a lawyer for Mr. Chamberlain.
The boat trip was meant as a thank-you from Mr. Lynch to those who had helped him through his legal ordeal. Among the guests was Christopher J. Morvillo, 59, the scion of a prominent New York law family who had represented Mr. Lynch for 12 years. He and his wife, Neda, 57, were among those missing.
The same goes for Jonathan Bloomer, 70, a veteran British insurance executive who chaired Morgan Stanley International and the insurance company Hiscox.
The body of the ship's cook, Recaldo Thomas, has been recovered. All other crew members survived. Among them was Leo Eppel, 19, of South Africa, who was on his first yachting trip and worked as a deck steward, said a friend, who asked not to be identified.
Since the sinking, recovery efforts and investigations have transformed the small port town of Porticello, a quiet enclave where elderly men sit shirtless on balconies, into the set of a crime drama.
Helicopters circled the area. Ambulances sped by, sirens blaring. The Coast Guard patrolled the waters offshore, in sight of an isolated pier that had been converted into an emergency headquarters.
On Wednesday afternoon, the church bell rang out as the first body bag was loaded into an ambulance, as a silent crowd watched.
The survivors had taken refuge in a large resort near Porticello, overlooking the site of the shipwreck, and have so far refused to give statements.
Attilio Di Diodato, director of the Italian Air Force's Center for Aerospace Meteorology and Climatology, said the yacht was most likely hit by a violent “down burst” (when air generated during a thunderstorm descends rapidly) or a waterspout, similar to a tornado on the water.
He added that his agency had issued rough sea warnings the night before, warning sailors of storms and strong winds. Locals said the winds “felt like an earthquake.”
Mr Costantino, the boat's manager, said the yacht had been specifically designed to have a tall mast, the second tallest aluminum mast in the world. He said the Bayesian was an extremely safe and secure boat that could tilt up to 75 degrees without capsizing.
But he said that if some of the side and aft hatches, or some of the deck doors, had been opened, the boat could have taken on water and sunk. Standard procedure in such storms, he said, is to start the engine, raise the anchor and turn the boat into the wind, lowering the keel for stability, closing the doors and gathering guests in the main lounge on the deck.
The New York Times attempted to reach surviving Capt. James Cutfield for comment through social media, his brother, and the yacht's management company (which did not hire the crew), but was unable to get through.
To date, none of the surviving crew members have made any public statements about what happened that night.
Fabio Genco, director of Palermo's emergency services, who treated some of the survivors, said victims described feeling as if the boat was being lifted and then suddenly dropped, with objects from the cabins falling on them.
The Italian Coast Guard said it had deployed a remotely operated vehicle capable of searching underwater for up to seven hours at depths of more than 980 feet and recording video and images it hoped would help piece together the sinking. The devices were used in search and rescue operations for the Titan ship that is believed to have imploded last summer near the wreck of the Titanic.
After boarding the yacht, rescuers had difficulty extricating themselves from ropes and the numerous pieces of furniture cluttering the vessel, said Luca Cari, spokesman for the Italian national fire brigade.
Finally, by Thursday morning, they had managed to recover all but one of the missing bodies, and there was little hope of finding the missing person alive. “Can a human being stay under water for two days?” asked Mr. Cari.
What was certain was that Mr. Lynch's disappearance was yet another cruel twist of fate for a man who had spent years trying to clear his name.
He made a fortune in technology and was dubbed Britain's Bill Gates. But for more than a decade, he was treated as anything but a respected technology leader.
He was accused by Hewlett-Packard, the American technology pioneer that had bought his software company, Autonomy, for $11 billion, of misleading it about the value of his company. (Hewlett-Packard discounted the deal at about $8.8 billion, and critics called it one of the worst deals of all time.) He had been increasingly shunned by the British establishment he had sought to join after growing up working-class outside London.
He was extradited to San Francisco to face criminal charges and placed under house arrest and 24-hour surveillance at his own expense. In a Pacific Heights townhouse with security guards he jokingly referred to as his associates’ “roommates,” he spent his mornings talking to researchers he personally funded for new AI applications. Afterwards, he spent hours discussing legal strategy with his team.
Despite his persistent claims of innocence, even those close to Mr Lynch had believed his chances of winning were slim. Autonomy’s chief financial officer, Sushovan Hussain, was convicted in 2018 on similar fraud charges and spent five years in prison.
While Mr. Lynch was under house arrest, his brother and mother died. His wife, Angela Bacares, flew frequently from England and became a constant presence in the San Francisco courtroom during the trial.
After finally being acquitted, Mr Lynch had his eyes set on the future. “I am looking forward to returning to the UK and getting back to what I love most: my family and innovating in my field,” he said.
Elizabeth Povoledo contributed reporting from Pallanza, Italy.