mega yacht gallipoli

Inside the shocking Sicily yacht tragedy that left 7 people dead

There was a violent storm, but even then, luxury yachts are built to weather such events. so why did this boat sink off the coast of sicily, leaving seven people dead, by natalie finn | e news • published august 24, 2024 • updated on august 24, 2024 at 9:34 am.

Originally appeared on E! Online

Nobody was trying to reach the lowest depths of the ocean or otherwise test the boundaries of human endurance .

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But what was supposed to be a routine pleasure cruise aboard a superyacht turned deadly all the same on the morning of Aug. 19 when the 184-foot Bayesian got caught in a storm and sank off the coast of Sicily .

"I can't remember the last time I read about a vessel going down quickly like that," Stephen Richter of SAR Marine Consulting told NBC News . "You know, completely capsizing and going down that quickly, a vessel of that nature, a yacht of that size."

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Of the 22 people onboard, including crew, seven people died. The last of the bodies was recovered Aug. 23, an expectedly sad coda to what had already been a tragic week as the search for answers as to how this happened got underway.

And to be sure, every minute of the Bayesian's ill-fated outing is being fiercely scrutinized, starting with the general seaworthiness of the vessel itself.

Because, frankly, this was a freak occurrence.

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"Boats of this size, they’re taking passengers on an excursion or a holiday," Richter explained. "They are not going to put them in situations where it may be dangerous or it may be uncomfortable, so this storm that popped up was obviously an anomaly. These vessels that carry passengers, they’re typically very well-maintained, very well-appointed."

But in this case, a $40 million yacht sank, seven people are dead—including a billionaire tech mogul and his 18-year-old daughter—and morbid fascination doesn't need a second wind.

Here is how the story of the Sicily yacht tragedy has unfolded so far:

What happened to the yacht that sank off the coast of Sicily?

The Bayesian had set off from the Sicilian port of Milazzo on Aug. 14 at capacity with 12 guests and 10 crewmembers aboard.

The aluminum-hulled vessel was built in 2008 by Italian shipbuilder Perini Navi and registered in the U.K. Cruise sites listed it as available for charter at $215,000 per week, per the Associated Press.

On the morning of Aug. 19, the superyacht was anchored off the coast of Porticello, a small fishing village in the Sicilian province of Palermo (also the name of Sicily's capital city), when a violent storm hit.

The vessel "suddenly sank" at around 5 a.m. local time, seemingly due to "the terrible weather conditions," the City Council of Bagheria announced shortly afterward, per NBC News .

At the time, only one person was confirmed dead—the ship's chef—but six others were said to be missing. The 15 survivors—who managed to make it onto an inflatable life boat, according to emergency officials—were rescued that morning by the crew of another yacht that had been nearby when the storm hit.

"Fifteen people inside," Karsten Borner, the Dutch captain of the ship that was able to help (the Sir Robert Baden Powell), told reporters afterward, per Reuters. "Four people were injured, three heavily injured, and we brought them to our ship. Then we communicated with the coast guard, and after some time, the coast guard came and later picked up injured people."

When the storm hit, his boat ran into "a strong hurricane gust," Borner said, "and we had to start the engine to keep the ship in an angled position."

They "managed to keep the ship in position," he continued, but once the storm died down, they realized the other boat that had been behind them—the Bayesian—was gone.

The wreck ended up settling 165 feet below the surface, according to Italy's national fire department.

Fire officials said that divers, a motorboat and a helicopter were deployed to search for the missing.

Meanwhile, footage was captured of the ship capsizing on closed-circuit TV about a half-mile away from where it was anchored.

In the video obtained by NBC News, the illuminated 250-foot aluminum mast of the ship appears to list severely to one side before disappearing completely. Survivors recalled having just a few minutes to literally abandon ship.

Who were the seven people who died when the yacht Bayesian sank?

The tragedy initially became headline news because billionaire tech mogul Mike Lynch—"Britain's Bill Gates," some U.K. media called him—was among the missing. His body was ultimately recovered Aug. 22 .

"They told me that suddenly they found themselves catapulted into the water without even understanding how they had got there," Dr. Fabio Genco, head of the Palermo Emergency Medical Services, told NBC News Aug. 22. "And that the whole thing seems to have lasted from 3 to 5 minutes."

Genco said he got to Porticello about an hour after the Bayesian capsized.

Survivors "told me that it was all dark, that the yacht hoisted itself up and then went down," he said. "All the objects were falling on them. That’s why I immediately made sure, by asking them questions, if they had any internal injuries."

Why did the yacht sink?

Italian prosecutors are investigating to determine what transpired before the boat went down, according to NBC News.

Meanwhile, the CEO of shipbuilder Perini's parent company The Italian Sea Group defended the vessel itself as "unsinkable."

Perini boats "are the safest in the most absolute sense," Giovanni Costantino told Sky News Aug. 22 . What happened to the Bayesian "put me in a state of sadness on one side and of disbelief on the other," he continued. "This incident sounds like an unbelievable story, both technically and as a fact."

Costantino said it had to have been human error that led to the boat sinking, declaring, "Mistakes were made."

"Everything that was done reveals a very long summation of errors," he told newspaper Corriere della Sera Aug. 21, in an interview translated from Italian. "The people should not have been in the cabins, the boat should not have been at anchor."

The weather was "all predictable," he continued, adding that the storm "was fully legible in all the weather charts. It couldn't have been ignored."

The yacht's captain, identified as James Cutfield of New Zealand, was taken to Termini Imerese hospital for treatment. From there, he told La Repubblica, per Sky News , that he didn't see the storm coming.

Borner, the captain of the ship that rescued the 15 Bayesian survivors, told NBC News that he noticed the storm come in at 4 a.m. local time, and saw what looked to him like a waterspout, a type of tornado that forms above water.

The International Centre for Waterspout Research posted on X Aug. 19 that it had "confirmed 18 waterspouts today off the coasts of Italy. Some were powerful waterspouts, one of which may have been responsible for the sinking of a large yacht off of Sicily."

Borner said he didn't know why the Bayesian sank so quickly, guessing "it may have something to do with the mast, which was incredibly long." (A tall mast, even with its sails down, means there's more surface area exposed to wind, which can result in tipping.)

Confirming that one person was dead and six unaccounted for immediately following the wreck on Aug. 19, Salvo Cocina of Sicily's civil protection agency told reporters that a waterspout had struck the area overnight.

"They were in the wrong place at the wrong time," he said.

The 59-year-old founder of software firm Autonomy had been on the trip with his wife Angela Bacares and their 18-year-old, Oxford-bound daughter Hannah to celebrate his recent acquittal in the U.S. on fraud and conspiracy charges stemming from the $11.7 billion purchase of his company by Hewlett-Packard in 2011.

In a bizarre turn of events, Lynch's co-defendant at trial, Stephen Chamberlain, the former vice president of finance at Autonomy, died after being taken off life support following a road accident on Aug. 17. Chamberlain's attorney told Reuters Aug. 20 that his friend and client had been out for a run when he was "fatally struck" by a car.

Meanwhile, multiple people who contributed to Lynch's defense were on the cruise with him and his family.

The bodies of Morgan Stanley International Chairman Jonathan Bloomer—who testified on Lynch's behalf—and his wife Judy Bloomer, as well as lawyer Chris Morvillo, a partner at the U.S. firm Clifford Chance, and his wife Neda Morvillo, a jewelry designer, were recovered on Aug. 21 .

In a LinkedIn post thanking the team that successfully defended Lynch, Morvillo wrote, per Sky News , "And, finally, a huge thank you to my patient and incredible wife, Neda Morvillo, and my two strong, brilliant, and beautiful daughters, Sabrina Morvillo and Sophia Morvillo. None of this would have been possible without your love and support. I am so glad to be home. And they all lived happily ever after…"

The first casualty confirmed Aug. 19 was the ship's Canadian-Antiguan chef, later identified as Recaldo Thomas.

"He was a one-of-a-kind special human being," a friend of Thomas told The Independent . "Incredibly talented, contagious smile and laugh, an incredible voice with a deep love of the ocean and the moon. I spoke to him nearly every day. He loved his life his friends and his job."

Hannah's body was the last of the missing six to be found , with divers bringing her remains ashore on Aug. 23.

Lynch and Bacares, who was rescued, also shared a 21-year-old daughter, according to The Times.

While awaiting trial, Lynch—who maintained his innocence throughout the proceedings—had spent 13 months under house arrest in San Francisco. Back home in London afterward, he admitted to The Times in July that he'd been afraid of dying in prison if he'd been found guilty. (He faced a possible 25-year sentence.)

"It's bizarre, but now you have a second life," he reflected. "The question is, what do you want to do with it?"

(E!, NBC News and Sky News are all members of the Comcast family.)

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Dramatic video shows 130ft superyacht sinking off Italy coast after being battered in storm

Nine people rescued before boat went under, article bookmarked.

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Dramatic footage has captured the moment a 40-metre superyacht sank into the Mediterranean sea after being battered in a storm.

The 40-metre-long luxury vessel was sailing from Gallipoli to Milazzo overnight on Saturday when it got into trouble around 15km from Italy’s Catanzaro Marina.

Footage shows the yacht, named My Saga, rapidly disappearing beneath waves, as lifeboats appear to float beside it.

The captain sent out a distress call to the Port Authority of Crotone, with officials told the yacht was taking on a significant amount of water from the stern.

The Italian coastguard dispatched two patrol vessels and rescued all four passengers and five crew members on board.

A tugboat sent out at dawn was unable to save the superyacht from sinking because of worsening weather conditions, the Super Yacht Times reports. The Saga finally sank at around 1pm on Sunday.

The outlet reports the yacht, which was built in Monaco back in 2007, was flying under the Cayman Islands flag with an all-Italian crew when it sunk.

An investigation has been launched into the cause.

It comes after a £6 million superyacht sunk after it went up in flames in the UK on the Torquay harbourside.

The 85ft vessel was consumed by fire , with thick black smoking billowing into the sky.

The yacht reportedly drifted out into the harbour after the fire burnt through ropes securing it to the pier, but the vessel was later secured by the fire service.

A fire service statement revealed that the vessel contained approximately 8000 litres of diesel fuel.

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Watch This 130-Foot Megayacht Sink Off the Coast of Italy

Nine people were on board when "my saga" sank due to deteriorating weather conditions..

They say money can’t buy happiness, but what it can buy is a 130-foot megayacht. You just have to hope it doesn’t sink off the coast of Italy. That would be unfortunate for the terrible person who owns that boat. They probably wouldn’t be happy anymore.

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However, the rest of us would be, because if that 130-foot megayacht did sink off of the coast of Italy, it would probably be caught on camera for all of us to enjoy. Luckily for us , that very thing happened.

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Ins ider reports that the 130-foot ship, christened “My Saga,” sank nine miles off the coast of Catanzaro Marina in Italy. It was sailing under a Cayman Islands flag. Nine people on board had to be rescued by the Italian Coast Guard. It was, of course, all caught on video.

Worsening weather conditions made it impossible for a tug-boat to rescue the doomed ship, according to Sky News . Now, an investigation is underway as to what exactly went down (other than the ship).

Insider says the yacht was built in Italy in 2007. It was traveling from Gallipoli to Milazzo with a completely-Italian crew when it sank to the bottom of the sea.

Right now, there’s no word on if there were any injuries to the people on board on who they were. Of the nine people on board, it is unclear if they were all crew or if the ship’s owner was also present. Either way, it’s a good thing they all got out safe, otherwise I’d feel bad.

Sure, it may not seem cool to laugh at someone else’s misfortune, but consider this: everyone lived, and the person who owns it is probably rich enough to also buy a small country. They’ll be just fine, if you ask me.

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Questions for Investigators Trying to Unravel Mystery of Luxury Yacht’s Sinking

The investigators searching for answers about the shipwreck, leaving seven dead, face questions about extreme weather and possible human error or problems with the yacht itself.

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By Alan Yuhas

More than 180 feet long, with a mast towering about 240 feet and a keel that could be lowered for greater stability, the Bayesian luxury yacht did not, in the eyes of its maker, have the vulnerabilities of a ship that would easily sink.

“It drives me insane,” Giovanni Costantino, the chief executive of the Italian Sea Group, which in 2022 bought the company that made the ship, said after its wreck last week. “Following all the proper procedures, that boat is unsinkable.”

But the $40 million sailing yacht sank within minutes and with fatal results: seven dead, including the British technology billionaire Michael Lynch, his teenage daughter, four of Mr. Lynch’s friends and a member of the crew. Fifteen people, including the captain, escaped on a lifeboat.

Mr. Lynch had invited family, friends and part of his legal team on a cruise in the Mediterranean to celebrate his acquittal in June of fraud charges tied to the sale of his company to the tech giant Hewlett-Packard.

The Italian authorities have opened a manslaughter investigation, searching for answers from the survivors, the manufacturer and the wreck itself. They face a range of questions and possible factors.

An ‘earthquake’ in the sky?

When the Bayesian sank around 4 a.m. on Aug. 19, the waters in its area, about half a mile off the Sicilian port of Porticello, were transformed by an extremely sudden and violent storm, according to fishermen, a captain in the area and meteorologists.

But what kind of storm is still a mystery, compounded by the fact that a sailing schooner anchored nearby did not have its own disaster. Also unclear is whether the crew was aware that the Italian authorities had issued general warnings about bad weather the night before.

Karsten Börner, the captain of the nearby passenger ship, said he’d had to steady his ship during “really violent” winds . During the storm, he said, the Bayesian seemed to disappear behind his ship.

Severe lightning and strong gusts were registered by the Italian Air Force’s Center for Aerospace Meteorology and Climatology, according to Attilio Di Diodato, its director. “It was very intense and brief in duration,” he said.

The yacht, he said, had most likely been hit by a fierce downburst — a blast of powerful wind surging down during a thunderstorm. His agency put out rough-sea warnings the previous evening, alerting sailors about possible storms.

Locals have said the winds “felt like an earthquake.” A fisherman in Porticello said that he had seen a flare go off in the early-morning hours. His brother ventured to the site once the weather had calmed about 20 minutes later, he said, finding only floating cushions.

The Italian authorities have so far declined to say whether investigators had seen any structural damage to the hull or other parts of the ship.

Open hatches or doors?

The boat executive, Mr. Costantino, has argued that the Bayesian was an extremely safe vessel that could list even to 75 degrees without capsizing. His company, the Italian Sea Group, in 2022 bought the yacht’s manufacturer, Perini Navi, which launched the ship in 2008.

Mr. Costantino said that if some of the hatches on the side and in the stern, or some of the deck doors, had been open, the boat could have taken on water and sunk. Standard procedure in such storms, he said, would be to switch on the engine, lift the anchor and turn the boat into the wind, lowering the keel for extra stability, closing doors and gathering the guests in the main hall inside the deck.

At a news conference on Saturday, almost a week after the sinking, investigators said the yacht had sunk at an angle , with its stern — where the heavy engine was — having gone down first. The wreck was found lying on its right side at the bottom of a bay, about 165 feet deep.

12 guests occupied the yacht’s six cabins. There were also 10 crew members.

Open hatches, doors and cabin windows could have let in water during a storm, according to the manufacturer.

Open hatches, doors and

cabin windows could

have let in water

during a storm,

according to the

manufacturer.

Source: Superyacht Times, YachtCharterFleet, MarineTraffic

By Veronica Penney

Water pouring into open hatches or doors could have contributed to the sinking, experts say, but that on its own may not account for the speed at which such a large boat vanished underwater.

Asked about the hatches at the news conference, the authorities declined to comment on whether they had been found open at the wreck.

The authorities have also not specified whether the boat had been anchored, whether it was under power at the time or whether its sails had been unfurled.

A retracted keel?

The Bayesian had a keel — the fin-like structure beneath a boat that can help stabilize it — that could be retracted or extended, according to its manufacturer. On some yachts, keels can be raised to let the large vessel dock in shallower water, and extended downward to help keep a boat level.

But like the hatches, the status of the keel alone may not explain why a large ship sank with such precipitous speed. Investigators have not disclosed what divers may have seen at the wreck, aside from saying divers had faced obstacles like furnishings and electrical wiring in tight quarters. Officials want to raise the wreck to better examine it, a process that may take weeks.

Human error?

Ambrogio Cartosio, the prosecutor in charge of the case, said at the news conference that it was “plausible” crimes had been committed, but that investigators had not zeroed in on any potential suspects.

“There could be responsibilities of the captain only,” he said. “There could be responsibilities of the whole crew. There could be responsibilities of the boat makers. Or there could be responsibilities of those who were in charge of surveilling the boat.”

It remains unclear what kind of emergency training or preparation took place before the disaster, or what kind of coordination there was during it. So far, none of the surviving crew members have made a public statement about what happened the night the ship sank.

Prosecutors said they want to ask more questions of the captain and crew, who have been in a Sicilian hotel with other survivors. They said that neither alcohol nor drug tests had been performed on crew members, and that they have been allowed to leave Italy.

Prosecutors also said they were also investigating why the captain, an experienced sailor, left the sinking boat while some passengers were still on board.

Besides possible manslaughter charges, the authorities are investigating the possibility of a negligently caused shipwreck.

The bodies of five passengers were found in one cabin, on the left side of the yacht, the authorities said. The five were most likely trying to flee to the higher side of the boat and were probably sleeping when the boat started to sink, they said.

Video shows moments before superyacht went down in storm off Sicily

Newly released video captures a luxury superyacht being battered by a violent storm before it suddenly sank off Sicily with 22 people aboard Monday.

The grainy images obtained by NBC News and other outlets were recorded on closed-circuit television not far from where the Bayesian was anchored, about a half-mile from the port of Porticello, on Sicily’s northern coast .

The yacht's 250-foot mast, illuminated with lights and lashed by the storm, appears to bend to one side before it finally disappears and is replaced by darkness.

The speed with which a yacht built to handle the roughest seas capsized stunned maritime experts.  

“I can’t remember the last time I read about a vessel going down quickly like that, you know, completely capsizing and going down that quickly, a vessel of that nature, a yacht of that size,” said Stephen Richter of SAR Marine Consulting.

British tech tycoon Mike Lynch and five of the 22 other people who were aboard the 184-foot vessel remain unaccounted for and are believed to be trapped in the Bayesian’s hull, nearly 170 feet underwater.

Officials confirmed Monday that at least one person, the ship’s cook, had died.  

Superyachts like the Bayesian, which had been available for charters at a rate of $215,000 a week, are designed to stay afloat even as they are taking on water to give the people aboard a chance to escape, Richter said. 

“Boats of this size, they’re taking passengers on an excursion or a holiday,” Richter said. “They are not going to put them in situations where it may be dangerous or it may be uncomfortable, so this storm that popped up was obviously an anomaly. These vessels that carry passengers, they’re typically very well-maintained, very well-appointed.”

Built by Italian shipbuilder Perini Navi in 2008, the U.K.-registered Bayesian could carry 12 guests and a crew of up to 10, according to online specialist yacht sites. Its nearly 250-foot mast is the tallest aluminum sailing mast in the world, according to CharterWorld Luxury Yacht Charters. 

On Tuesday, Italian rescue workers resumed the search for Lynch and the five other passengers still missing: Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter, Hannah; Morgan Stanley International Chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife; and Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife.

“The fear is that the bodies got trapped inside the vessel,” Salvatore Cocina, the head of civil protection in Sicily, told Reuters .

The Bayesian is owned by a firm linked to Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, who was one of the 15 people rescued Monday after it capsized.

“It’s extremely rare for a boat of this size to sink,” Richter said.

What’s not rare is the kind of storm that sank it , said Simon Boxall, senior lecturer in oceanography at Britain’s University of Southampton.

“People assume the Mediterranean is this rather calm and passive place that never gets storms and always blue skies,” Boxall said. “In fact, you get some quite horrendous storms that are not uncommon at this time of year.”

The president of Italy’s meteorological society has said Monday’s violent storm may have involved a waterspout, essentially a tornado over water, or a downburst, which occurs more frequently but doesn’t involve the rotation of the air.

Luca Mercalli, president of the Italian Meteorology Society, also said recent temperatures may have been a factor. 

“The sea surface temperature around Sicily was around 30 degrees Celsius [86 Fahrenheit], which is almost 3 degrees more than normal,” Mercalli told Reuters. “This creates an enormous source of energy that contributes to these storms.”

The Mediterranean sailing vacation was designed to be a celebration for Lynch, who two months ago was acquitted by a San Francisco jury of fraud charges stemming from the 2011 sale of his software company Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard for $11 billion.

Prosecutors alleged that Lynch, dubbed “Britain’s Bill Gates,” and Autonomy’s vice president for finance, Stephen Chamberlain, had padded the firm’s finances ahead of the sale. Lynch’s lawyers argued that HP was so eager to acquire Autonomy that it failed to adequately check the books .

Lynch had taken Morvill, who was one of his defense attorneys, on the luxury trip. 

Chamberlain was not on the Bayesian.

In what appears to be a tragic coincidence, a car struck and killed Chamberlain on Saturday as he was jogging in a village about 68 miles north of London, local police said.

“Steve fought successfully to clear his good name at trial earlier this year, and his good name now lives on through his wonderful family,” Chamberlain’s lawyer, Gary Lincenberg, said in a statement .

Henry Austin reported from London and Corky Siemaszko from New York City.

Henry Austin is a senior editor for NBC News Digital based in London.

Corky Siemaszko is a senior reporter for NBC News Digital.

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Sinking of a superyacht adds to questions billionaire Mike Lynch wanted to put behind him

It was a sunny August morning when software entrepreneur Mike Lynch, 59, gathered 10 of his closest friends along with his wife and daughter on the dock of Porto di Milazzo, on the northern coast of Sicily. They had come to celebrate his freedom. Only months before, several of the guests played crucial roles in persuading a San Francisco jury to acquit Lynch of federal charges related to the sale of his software firm Autonomy to HP for $11 billion. 

Five days after the yacht left port, Lynch, his daughter, four guests, and a hired chef were dead in the Mediterranean Sea after a storm flooded the ship. The drowned included the chairman of Morgan Stanley International, a star witness at Lynch’s trial, as well as one of Lynch’s lead defense attorneys. Among the survivors were a former Autonomy exec who went on to become a partner at Lynch’s venture capital firm, a second member of his defense team, and Lynch’s wife, who reportedly owns nearly all his fortune. The same day of the drowning, U.K. news outlets reported that Lynch’s codefendant in the fraud trial, Stephen Chamberlain, who had also been acquitted, had been fatally run over by a car as he was out jogging—a shocking coincidence.

Less than a week after the tragedy, there are far more questions than answers. Did the yacht named Bayesian —an homage to a statistical theorem for predicting future outcomes—simply fall victim to a terrible storm? How did most of the crew and a few passengers escape, and why couldn’t they reach Lynch and the six others who did not make it out? Italian officials are looking into manslaughter charges, but it’s not yet clear who they may have in their crosshairs. Giovanni Costantino, who runs the Italian Sea Group that owns Perini Navi, the Italian maker of the yacht, had harsh words for the crew, whom he blames. “This is the mistake that cries out for vengeance,” he told Reuters .

There are also huge questions swirling around the business ventures of the man dubbed the “British Bill Gates.” While the Bayesian excursion was to serve as a celebration of Lynch’s acquittal on all charges in the U.S.—where he had spent months under house arrest—the reality is that his legal troubles were far from over. In a January 2022 civil trial, the U.K.’s High Court found that the company, which by then had changed its name to Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), had “substantially succeeded” in proving that Autonomy leaders had fraudulently made it look like the company was earning more revenue than it was. In 2019 Autonomy’s CFO was convicted of 16 counts and sentenced to five years in prison. At this time, the U.K. case is in a holding pattern as the judge determines what damages are owed to HPE. (The company’s spokesperson Adam Bauer says HPE is “saddened by this tragic event, and our thoughts are with the families and friends of all those who lost their lives.”)

But Lynch’s passing also looms over Invoke Capital, the venture firm he founded in 2011 and whose managing partner—Charlotte Golunski—survived the yacht disaster and saved her 1-year-old baby. One of Invoke’s most prominent bets was a 2013 seed-stage investment in Darktrace, a cybersecurity firm on whose board Lynch sat until 2018. Darktrace has developed a reputation as a sleek AI cybersecurity startup with ties to spy agencies like MI5 and the U.S. National Security Agency. It also became the target of short-sellers who in 2023 expressed doubt over Darktrace’s financial filings—the same sort of allegations that plagued Lynch’s Autonomy. 

Darktrace insists that the short-sellers’ allegations were baseless, and they say an EY audit it commissioned showed this to be the case. In April Darktrace received a $5.3 billion acquisition offer from the giant private equity firm Thoma Bravo. The deal, which Fortune reported will likely go forward despite Lynch’s death, stood to help rehabilitate Lynch’s business reputation. As of Aug. 14, he and his wife collectively owned 3.21% of the company, which would be worth some $170 million upon the deal’s completion. Invoke Capital has not responded to multiple requests for comment, and Darktrace declined to comment.

Following his U.S. acquittal, Lynch was pleased enough with the state of things that he had begun celebrating weeks before the yacht party. In the days following the not-guilty verdict, Lynch and his wife; Stephen Chamberlain and his wife; the attorney Chris Morvillo—who drowned on the Bayesian —and 20 other lawyers gathered at a restaurant at a hotel near the San Francisco courthouse.

Brian Heberlig, an attorney at Steptoe who gave the closing argument in Lynch’s trial, recalls that Morvillo gave a moving toast, telling those assembled that the trial was more than just a job, but one of their life’s works. “He really was a brilliant man,” Heberlig told Fortune , fighting back tears as he remembered Lynch. “And he ran his legal defense the same way I imagine he ran Autonomy. He let the experts do their jobs, while still having a strong grasp on the material. As he used to say, ‘Let the brain surgeons do the surgery.’”

That night was the last time Heberlig ever saw Lynch or Morvillo.

A ‘virtually unsinkable’ boat

The sailing party departed Aug. 14—five days before the storm—and comprised 12 guests and 10 crew members. The Bayesian was one of the biggest yachts of its kind. Its first stop was a cluster of small islands off the coast of Sicily. Then it jetted across the sea to the Sicilian town of Cefalù, before putting down anchor for the final time on the coast of Palermo, a favorite getaway for the rich and famous, and a former haunt for the Mafia.

Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, who reportedly held the couple’s entire $1.1 billion fortune, was jolted awake on Aug. 18 as the boat began to tilt. Glass from a shattered window exploded across the deck, according to reports, cutting her feet as she ran to investigate.

Black and white security  footage  appears to show the outline of what is believed to be the 184-foot sailing yacht, which used call sign 2ICB8, slowly disappearing behind a thicker and thicker veil of rain. Nearby villagers and fishermen say they saw a sea tornado called a waterspout. Soon after, the yacht lay on the ocean floor.

Theories are swirling about why the yacht sank. One holds that a bay door was left open in the storm, causing the ship to flood and sink in minutes. Another holds that the Bayesian’ s 246-foot-tall aluminum mast—one of the tallest in the world— broke in the wind and took the boat down with it.

Most news reports say the yacht sank almost instantly, but the CEO of the company that bought the boat’s maker after it went bankrupt in 2021 disputes that. In a Financial Times report, he called the boat “virtually unsinkable,” and says that it dragged its anchor for 16 minutes before it sank. 

During those fateful moments, a far older nearby yacht, the Sir Robert Baden Powell, built in 1957, was drifting on a similar course as the Bayesian and not only survived, but also came to help. Some onboard saw a red flare shooting across the rainy sky—an emergency signal from those who had fled the doomed yacht, drawing the attention to a life raft filled with 15 of the 22 passengers.

Passenger Golunski, 35, who helped run Autonomy the first year it was at HP, described holding her 1-year old daughter Sophia as she screamed for help. One of Lynch’s most trusted employees, Golunski was a founding partner at Invoke Capital, the London-based firm that backed Darktrace. Lynch’s wife Bacares was also in the life raft along with Clifford Chance lawyer Ayla Ronald, 36, who reportedly texted to her father: “there are deaths.”

The lifeboat survivors were soon plucked from the sea while the Bayesian came to its current resting place 50 meters below the surface. Over the course of the next 72 hours, a team of scuba divers from the Guardia Costiera and specially trained cave divers from the Vigili del Fuoco, the local fire department, used boats and a helicopter to triangulate the yacht’s position. The divers, working in bursts of 8 to 12 minutes, searched the Bayesian’ s six guest suites, master suite, multiple living areas, and dining room.

The body of the yacht’s chef, Recaldo Thomas, was the first to be found, floating on the water’s surface. On Wednesday, two days after the wreck, four more bodies were discovered, and on Thursday a fifth. Among them were Lynch and Chris Morvillo of the prestigious law firm Clifford Chance, who had made the controversial decision to have Lynch testify, and questioned him on the stand right before he was acquitted. The others discovered were Morvillo’s wife, Neda, as well as the Morgan Stanley banker and key witness Jonathan Bloomer, who had been a former executive director at Autonomy, and his wife, Judy. The body of Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, was pulled from the sea on Friday.

The U.K. Maritime and Coastguard Agency tells Fortune it is in contact with the Italian authorities but would not provide further information. The U.K.’s Foreign Office told Fortune it is providing “consular support to a number of British nationals and their families…and are in contact with the local authorities.”

More questions than answers

Even as loved ones and the survivors begin to come to terms with the human toll of the tragedy, the business world has begun assessing Lynch’s complicated past and his many business dealings. 

Lynch was born of modest means to a nurse and firefighter in a suburb of London. From an early age he showed a proclivity toward technology and a fiery determination. He studied natural sciences at Cambridge, then returned for a PhD in artificial neural networks, the building blocks of artificial intelligence. When he was still studying for his PhD, he started his first venture, Cambridge Neurodynamics, monetizing computerized fingerprint recognition, eventually evolving into Autonomy. 

Founded in 1996 with David Tabizel and Richard Gaunt, Autonomy used an early version of artificial intelligence to quickly scan what’s known as “unstructured data,” especially including language. Autonomy quickly became a darling of the U.K.’s fledgling tech scene, and it was seen as a crowning achievement when, in 2011, the company struck an $11 billion deal to be purchased by HP, now HPE. The deal, however, was quickly engulfed in scandal when a year later the new owner alleged accounting fraud and wrote down its investment by $8.8 billion.

Despite the baggage around Autonomy, Lynch continued to ride high in the tech world through his venture firm, Invoke Capital, which he founded in 2012. One of its most profitable investments was Darktrace, which he backed in 2013 and joined as a board member. By 2016 he told TechCrunch that 60 employees from Autonomy were working at Invoke, that he’d raised a billion dollars to invest in startups, and that Darktrace was worth $500 million.

While fighting the legal battle over Autonomy and building Invoke, Lynch enjoyed the trappings of a mogul. The same year he announced his billion-dollar startup fund, he was sailing the Bayesian , worth an estimated $25 million. He reportedly also owned a $6 million, 69-acre Georgian manor.

By early 2020 Darktrace shared deep connections with Autonomy, including half of Darktrace’s board and six of its eight top executives. The following year Darktrace went public, soaring 40% above its pre-market value. But the victory lap was brief. In September 2022, an acquisition talk between private equity firm Thoma Bravo and Darktrace fell through , sending share prices tumbling. In early 2023, the short-selling firm Quintessential Capital Management published a 70-page report accusing Darktrace of similar misconduct that had sunk Autonomy.

“We are deeply skeptical about the validity of Darktrace’s financial statements,” the report read. Darktrace’s shares plunged as much as 17% after the report was published, though the company said at the time that the management team and board had “rigorous controls in place.” Darktrace hired EY to perform an audit, which stabilized its share price after the accounting firm found the company’s earlier financial results did not need to be restated. Darktrace never publicly released the report, however, with a spokesperson saying at the time that it contained “commercially sensitive information.”

More recently, Darktrace’s CEO Poppy Gustafsson wrote in the firm’s Q4 trading report of “shareholders voting overwhelmingly in favour” of the acquisition, and added the company is “awaiting the conclusion of the remaining regulatory processes.”

Until very recently, Darktrace had sought to distance itself from Lynch and his VC firm. In December, shareholders passed a resolution that rejected Invoke non-executive director Patrick Jacob’s reappointment to its board. This April, Invoke lost the right to that same board seat when it was discovered its shares had fallen below the required 10% threshold. Nonetheless, in a memorial to Lynch, Gustafsson wrote : “Without Mike, there would be no Darktrace. We owe him so much.”

While the Italian authorities continue to investigate the crash site, one thing is certain: The swirl of legal and business battles that surrounded Lynch during his lifetime are likely to continue after his death. A local Italian news site reports that the public prosecutor’s office in a nearby town, Termini Imerese, is looking into allegations of manslaughter surrounding the sunken boat. And two months before Lynch died, former U.K. Secretary of State David Davis reportedly said he was working with Lynch to scrap U.S./U.K extradition agreements that allowed Lynch’s trial to happen in the first place. 

On Wednesday, Aug. 21, Davis told GB News he would continue that fight in memory of Lynch. “We need to get a grip of this,” said Davis. “Mike, when he’d won his case, almost the first thing he did was ring me up and say, ‘We’re going to have to defeat this treaty, we’re going to have to overcome this treaty and get it changed for the better.’”

“I am looking forward to returning to the U.K. and getting back to what I love most: my family and innovating in my field,” Lynch said after the verdict.

Lynch’s desire to extend the legal fight even after his not-guilty verdict reflects the scrappiness he displayed throughout his life. This helped him ascend to the highest rungs of business and moguldom—but the success also came with a tenuous quality as questions about his business dealings dogged him for years. The not-guilty verdict and the pending Darktrace sale meant Lynch was in position to finally cast off that shadow. But now his ultimate legacy is poised to be tied forever to a mysterious and tragic hour on the Mediterranean Sea.

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