Divers search Sicily yacht wreck with UK tech boss among missing

PORTICELLO, (Italy): Divers spent a second day Tuesday searching for six people believed trapped when a luxury yacht sank off the Italian island of Sicily, including a British tech tycoon, colleagues and his teenage daughter.

The 56-metre sailing yacht “Bayesian” was anchored some 700 metres from port with 10 crew and 12 passengers on board when it was struck by a waterspout, a sort of mini tornado, before dawn on Monday.

Fifteen people, including a mother and her one-year-old baby, were rescued but the body of one man — reported to be the yacht’s chef — was found.

Among the six missing were UK tech entrepreneur and investor Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, and Jonathan Bloomer, the chair of Morgan Stanley International, and his wife Judy.

The passengers were guests of Lynch — sometimes referred to as the UK’s answer to Bill Gates — celebrating his recent acquittal in a massive US fraud case.