Great Britain Two bodies recovered from sunken yacht

Two and a half days after the sinking of the luxury yacht "Bayesian" off Sicily, two bodies have been recovered from the sunken ship.

The two dead bodies were spotted by special divers inside the yacht at a depth of around 50 meters and then brought to the surface, as the Italian news agency Ansa reported, citing the authorities. Initially, only the body of the ship's cook was recovered. It is feared that a total of seven people may have lost their lives.

The exact course of the accident, which occurred on Monday just half a nautical mile - around 900 meters - from the shore, is still unclear. The injured captain of the "Bayesian" was questioned by the police for hours. The newspaper "La Repubblica" quoted him as saying: "We didn't see it coming." A total of 22 people were on board at the invitation of British billionaire Mike Lynch. The 59-year-old presumably died, as did his 18-year-old daughter. His wife survived.

Divers search for fatalities

According to the fire department, the sunken ship tipped to one side on the seabed, which made the search for the fatalities considerably more difficult. On Tuesday, special divers from the fire department were first able to examine a few rooms below the bridge before reaching the passengers' cabins on the lower deck. The hope of finding anyone alive is now practically zero.

The 56-metre-long "Bayesian" sank in a heavy storm off the port of Porticello, not far from the island's capital Palermo, early on Monday morning - allegedly within 60 seconds. Experts are still puzzling over how this could have happened. There has been speculation about a hatch left open during a monster wave or an incorrectly adjusted centerboard on the hull, which can be used to regulate the draft of the ship.

Luxury yacht not thoroughly renovated until 2020

The 15-year-old luxury yacht was only thoroughly renovated in 2020. The ship was equipped with a system that could more than halve its draught: Under normal sailing conditions, it had a keel depth of close to ten meters when the movable daggerboard was fully extended. This compensated for the counter forces of the 75 meter high mast. However, the draft could be reduced to around four meters - for example, to get into a harbour.

Lynch is often referred to as the "British Bill Gates" by tabloid media in his home country. The tech entrepreneur sold the software company Autonomy to the US group Hewlett-Packard in 2011 for eleven billion US dollars (currently 9.94 billion euros) - one of the worst takeover debacles in Silicon Valley.

Lynch and former finance manager Steve Chamberlain, who was recently fatally hit by a car while jogging, were accused of misleading Hewlett-Packard about the financial state of the company. However, a jury in San Francisco acquitted them both.