Canadian dead, several others missing after superyacht capsizes off Sicilian coast

A Canadian man has died after a luxury yacht was struck by an unexpectedly violent storm and sank off the coast of Sicily early on Monday, local officials said.

The British-flagged Bayesian, a 56-metre-long sailboat, was carrying 22 people and was anchored just off shore near the port of Porticello when it was hit by ferocious weather, the Italian coast guard said in a statement.

Eyewitnesses said the superyacht vanished quickly beneath the waves shortly before dawn. Fifteen people escaped before it went down, including a one-year-old girl.

The Palermo Port Authority told CBC News officials recovered the body ofRecaldo Thomas, a Canadian-born man who had been living in Antigua. He had been the ship's on-board cook.

Some media, including CBC,had earlier mistakenly reported his nameas Thomas RecaldoorRicardo Thomas.

Global Affairs Canada said it was "aware of reports" Canadian citizen haddied.

"We extend our deepest sympathies to everyone affected by this tragic event," it said in a statement.

Six other people were missing after the sinking, includingBritish tech magnate Mike Lynch, his teenage daughter Hannah and Jonathan Bloomer, president of Morgan Stanley International, La Republicca reported.

The Italian coast guard said those who weremissing had British, American and Canadian nationalities.

'The ship behind us was gone'

"The wind was very strong. Bad weather was expected, but not of this magnitude," a coast guard official in the Sicilian capitalPalermotold Reuters.

Salvo Cocina of Sicily's civil protection agency said a mini tornado known as a waterspout that forms above the water had struck the area overnight.

Eight of the 15 people rescued were transferred to local hospitals. All were in a stable condition, local media reported.

One of the survivors, identified as Charlotte Emsley, said she had momentarily lost hold of her one-year-old daughter, Sofia, in the water, but then managed to hold her up over the waves until a lifeboat inflated and they were both pulled to safety, Italian news agency ANSA reported, quoting the mother.

The father, James Emsley, also survived, Cocina said.

The captain of a nearby boat told Reuters that when the storm hit, he turned the engine on to keep control of the vessel and avoid a collision with the Bayesian.

"We managed to keep the ship in position, and after the storm was over, we noticed that the ship behind us was gone," Karsten Borner told journalists.

He said that his crew then found some of the survivors on a life raft, including three who were seriously injured, and took them on board before the coast guard picked them up.

WATCH | Captain describes rescuing yacht passengers:

'The ship behind us was gone,' says captain who rescued yacht passengers

11 days ago

Duration 1:26

Karsten Borner describes seeing the British-flagged Bayesian capsize, and his subsequent rescue of some passengers, after the luxury yacht was struck by an unexpectedly violent storm and sank off the Sicilian capital Palermo.

Mother saves 1-year-old daughter

The Bayesian was built by Italian shipbuilder Perini in 2008.

The luxury ship has an aluminum hull and can carry 12 guests and a crew of up to 10, according to online specialist yacht sites.

It was owned by a firm called Revtom Limited, according to the shipspotting.com website. Lynch's wife, Angela Bacares, is named as the sole shareholder of the firm on company documents.

WATCH | Boater describes violent weather:

'It was a big disaster,' boater says of storm that capsized luxury yacht

11 days ago

Duration 0:47

Karsten Borner, who was captain of a boat that was out in the same storm off Palermo, Sicily, that capsized a luxury yacht, describes the violent weather and its aftermath.

Cocinaof thecivil protection agency said Bacareswas among those rescued, but it wasn't immediately clear if she required hospital treatment.

Lynch, 59, is one of Britain's best-known tech entrepreneurs. He built the country's largest software firm, Autonomy, from his groundbreaking research at Cambridge University. HisPhD thesis and the software that made his fortune was based on one of the mathematical theories of English statistician Thomas Bayes, after whom the yacht was named.

Lynchsold the firm to HP in a multibillion-dollar deal in 2011, before the transaction unravelled spectacularly following the acquisition, with the U.S. tech giant accusing him of fraud.

Lynch spent much of the last decade in court defending his name. He was acquitted by a jury in San Francisco in Juneafter he spent more than a year living effectively under house arrest.

In a grim coincidence, one of his co-defendants in the U.S. fraud trial,Autonomy's former vice-president of financeStephen Chamberlain, was hit by a car while out running inCambridgeshire on Saturday morning, two days before the Bayesian capsized. He wasplaced on lifesupport and died Monday, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke with Reuters.

Divers find wreckage

The coast guard said divers were inspecting the wreck of the Bayesian, which was lying at a depth of 49 metres.

Prosecutors in the nearby town of Termini Imerese have opened an investigation to look into what had gone wrong.

Storms and heavy rainfall have swept down Italy in recent days after weeks of scorching heat, which had lifted the temperature of the Mediterranean sea to record levels, raising the risk of extreme weather conditions, experts said.

"The sea surface temperature aroundSicilywas around 30 C, which is almost three degrees more than normal. This creates an enormous source of energy that contributes to these storms," said meteorologist Luca Mercalli.

"We can't say that this is all due to global warming, but we can say that it has an amplifying effect."

The boat left the Sicilian port of Milazzo on Aug. 14 and was last tracked east of Palermo on Sunday evening, with a navigation status of "at anchor," according to vessel tracking app Vesselfinder.

A U.K. Foreign Ministry spokesperson said British officials were in contact with local authorities over the capsizing and were ready to provide consular support for Britons who were affected.