Superyacht crew ‘had 16-minute window’ to avoid tragedy
The crew of Mike Lynch’s superyacht had 16 minutes to avoid the tragedy, the chief executive of the firm that built the boat has claimed.
Giovanni Costantino, the founder and chief executive of the Italian Sea Group, which owns the Perini Navi shipyard where the Bayesian was built, has defended the boat’s construction and blamed human error for the disaster.
Hannah Lynch, the 18-year-old daughter of tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, is the last person unaccounted for after the yacht sank half a mile off the coast of Sicily in the early hours of Monday morning. Specialist cave divers will continue their search for her on Friday.
The bodies of six people killed in the tragedy have been recovered.
On Thursday, five of the dead were confirmed as Mr Lynch, Jonathan Bloomer, the chairman of Morgan Stanley International bank, and his wife Judy, and Chris Morvillo, a lawyer at Clifford Chance, and his wife Neda. The body of the yacht’s chef was recovered on Monday.
Jonathan and Judy Bloomer were confirmed dead on Thursday
Chris and Neda Morvillo were also confirmed to have died in the yacht tragedy – Patrick McMullan/Getty Images
Italian officials said on Wednesday that they believed Hannah Lynch to be among those recovered, but she is now thought to still be inside the boat. Rescue teams have also not ruled out the possibility that the teenager could have been thrown into the sea during the sinking.
Prosecutors in the town of Termini Imerese, close to Porticello, where the vessel went down, have opened an investigation into the disaster. They will seek to establish what caused the yacht to sink and whether any of the crew are criminally liable.
They are expected to investigate whether the keel played a role in the incident after divers found it partially deployed, and also examine whether the crew failed to close access hatches into the vessel before it was hit by a tornado.
Previous claims suggested that the sinking occurred in 60 seconds, giving the crew little time to respond.
But Mr Costantino rejected this, telling The Financial Times: “The torture lasted 16 minutes. It went down, not in one minute as some scientists have said. It went down in 16 minutes. You can see it from the charts, from the AIS [Automatic Identification System] tracking chart.
“The captain should have prepared the boat and put it in a state of alert and of safety, just like the boat [the Sir Robert Baden Powell] anchored 350 metres away, which was built in 1957 and handled the [weather] event brilliantly.”
Giovanni Costantino, the founder and chief executive of the Italian Sea Group, which owns the shipyard where the Bayesian was built, defended the construction of the vessel
He claimed the Bayesian was “one of the safest boats in the world” and was virtually “unsinkable”, telling Corriere della Sera: “The passengers reported something absurd, that the storm came unexpectedly, suddenly. That is not true. Everything was predictable.
“Ask yourself – why were none of the Porticello fishermen out that night? A fisherman checks the conditions and a ship doesn’t? The disturbance was completely readable on all the weather maps. It was impossible not to know.
“A Perini vessel survived Hurricane Katrina. You don’t think it could survive a tornado like this?”
When divers searched the Bayesian, 158ft underwater, it was reported that the vessel’s retractable keel was partially raised, prompting questions about the boat’s stability at the time of the sinking.
The fin-like structure, which sits under the hull and is 32ft long when fully deployed, was designed to help stabilise the yacht, acting as a counterweight to the 237ft mast.
Experts have suggested the keel would normally be fully extended for extra stability during bad weather. It has also been reported that the space housing the boat’s tender was not fully closed when it went down.
From photos and video images of the sinking that have been published, Mr Costantino said it was clear the boat had a blackout caused by a surge of water inside it.
He said there was no doubt the aft hatch had been left open, adding: “It tilted 90 degrees for only one reason – because the water kept coming in. The time it started coming in to the time it went down was six minutes. Those who say it disappeared in a few seconds are speaking rubbish.”
Specialist divers will continue the hunt for Hannah Lynch on Friday. She had joined her father, along with other guests, to celebrate the British tech tycoon’s court victory after he was acquitted of fraud in San Francisco.
Massimo Mariani, an interior ministry official, said that she may still be inside the ship or could have been tossed into the sea when the superyacht sank. Vincenzo Zagarola, a spokesman from the Italian coastguard, said the working theory was still that she was inside the boat.
A decision on whether to raise the yacht from the seabed is “not on the agenda” but will be in future, he added.
Hannah Lynch had just won a place at the University of Oxford to read English after receiving her A-level results last week at Latymer Upper School in west London.
The Telegraph understands she received an award for outstanding academic achievement last year. Her parents were also frequent donors to the school, contributing to the bursary fund in 2023, 2022 and 2021.
Her mother, Angela Bacares, 57, survived the disaster but was seen using a wheelchair after suffering lacerations to her feet. Of the 22 passengers and crew on board, 15 were rescued after escaping on to a lifeboat.
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