Extreme Winds Likely Toppled Mike Lynch’s Superyacht Off Sicily, Interim UK Report Finds

A sudden increase in wind speed caused the yacht to heel over to 90 degrees in less than 15 seconds, putting it in an ‘irrecoverable’ situation.

The Bayesian yacht docked at a port in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar, in an undated file photo. Illustration by The Epoch Times, @dannywheelz via TMX/Reuters

A superyacht that sank off Sicily last year, killing British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, was likely knocked over by gusts of more than 117 kilometers per hour in just 15 seconds, an interim UK report states.

The incident killed seven people, including Lynch and his daughter Hannah, when his superyacht sank off the coast of Sicily on Aug. 19 last year.

Britain’s Marine Accident Investigations Branch stated on May 15 that the 56-meter-long (184-foot) Bayesian was hit by very strong downward wind, forcing it onto its side, where it began taking on water.

“The interim report presents a desktop study of the facts as we know them,” said Andrew Moll, chief inspector of Marine Accidents.

He said the study has reviewed the yacht’s stability, the likely local weather conditions at the time, and the effect of that weather on the yacht.

“The findings indicate that the extreme wind experienced by Bayesian was sufficient to knock the yacht over. Further, once the yacht had heeled beyond an angle of 70 [degrees] the situation was irrecoverable,” Moll said.

“The results will be refined as the investigation proceeds, and more information becomes available.”

The report states that the seas were calm and that there was a very light wind from the northwest.

Thunderstorms had been forecast, and those on board the Bayesian could see occasional flashes of lightning away to the west.

But as the skipper prepared to manoeuvre the Bayesian up into the wind from their position on the flying bridge, the wind suddenly increased to more than 70 kts.

The awning over the flying bridge then ripped from port to starboard.

At 4:06 a.m., the Bayesian violently heeled over to 90 degrees to starboard, taking less than 15 seconds to do so.

People, furniture, and loose items fell across the deck. The generators shut down immediately, and battery-supplied emergency lighting came on.

The report states that the 72-meter (79-yard) aluminum mast, the highest aluminum mast in the world at the time, increased the vulnerability, accounting for half of the force that pushed the boat onto its side.

It states that it’s possible that the Bayesian was similarly vulnerable to winds of less than 63.4 kts and that these vulnerabilities were not identified in the stability information book carried on board.

Consequently, these vulnerabilities were also unknown to the owner and the crew of the Bayesian, according to the report.

An Italian investigation into the sinking is ongoing.

The vessel is still submerged.

A salvage operation is scheduled to resume on May 15 after a diver was killed on May 9 during preliminary operations to lift it.

The vessel had been deemed “unsinkable” by its manufacturer, Italian shipyard Perini Navi.

In 2024, Giovanni Costantino, CEO of Perini Navi’s parent company, The Italian Sea Group, stated: “The boat suffered a series of indescribable, unreasonable errors. The impossible happened on that boat ... but it went down because it took on water. From where, the investigators will tell.”

Lynch had invited some close friends and work colleagues on a boating trip to celebrate his June acquittal in a federal fraud case in California.

He had been cleared of defrauding Hewlett-Packard when he sold Autonomy, a software company he co-founded, to the U.S. computer giant in an $11 billion deal in 2011.

His co-defendant in the fraud trial, 52-year-old Stephen Chamberlain, who was also cleared of any wrongdoing, died after being hit by a vehicle while out running in Cambridgeshire, England, on Aug. 17, 2024.

Among the guests on the Bayesian were Morgan Stanley International Bank Chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife, Judy, and Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo—who had been part of Lynch’s defense team at the trial—and his wife, Neda.

They all died, as did Lynch and the boat’s chef, Recaldo Thomas, an Antiguan Canadian national.

The Epoch Times contacted The Italian Sea Group for comment.

Chris Summers contributed to this report.