Bayesian yacht latest: Divers struggle to access cabins of sunken Sicily yacht with six people missing
www.bbc.co.uk
The rescue team says there is a "world of objects" blocking access, with divers having only 10 minutes to search before resurfacing.

Summary

  • Morgan Stanley International bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer, his wife Judy, and Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo are among those missing after a British yacht sank in Sicily
  • British tech tycoon Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah are also missing
  • The yacht sank in bad weather in the early hours of Monday - 15 were rescued, six are missing, and a man’s body has been recovered
  • The body has not been formally identified, but the Palermo coastguard said it was the ship’s cook
  • The search is continuing on Tuesday - access to the boat’s cabins has been blocked by furniture
  • Separately, it has emerged that Mike Lynch’s co-defendant in a recent major legal case, Stephen Chamberlain, died on Saturday in a road accident
  • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
    33·
    3 months ago

    I haven’t been following this, but this thing was pretty large. Did it not have a lifeboat?

    kagis

    Apparently it did, and a few people made it into it, but not all.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy3el37z4po

    Karsten Borner, captain of a nearby boat, said after the storm had passed, the 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.

    His crew took on board some survivors, including three who were seriously injured.

    Sounds like it might have flipped pretty quickly, rather than being a slow sinking:

    Witnesses told Italian news agency Ansa that the Bayesian’s anchor was down when the storm struck, causing the 72m (236ft) aluminium mast to break in half and the ship to lose its balance and sink.

    The ship’s unusually tall mast may have contributed to its sinking, according to Matthew Schanck, chair of the Maritime Search and Rescue Council.

    He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the mast acted almost like a sail in the strong wind “especially with it being so high”.

    The extreme winds could have caught the mast and pushed the yacht over, he said.

    One of the survivors, British tourist Charlotte Golunski, told Italian newspaper La Repubblica how she held up her one-year-old daughter Sofia to stop her from drowning.

    She said the two of them and her partner James survived only because they were up on deck when the yacht sank.