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Some say that the late tech tycoon Mike Lynch’s superyacht, Bayesian, sank because it was vulnerable to high winds that drove the vessel past its point of stability. Others insist that a chain of human errors led to the incident that claimed seven lives, including Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah.
But in the quiet Sicilian fishing village of Porticello – where on 19 August 2024 the Bayesian was caught shortly before dawn in a violent storm while anchored off coast – everyone knows the truth lies 50 metres below the surface, in the wreckage of a yacht that divers, floating cranes and underwater drones are still struggling to bring back from the depths of the ocean.
‘‘Until then, before the vessel is brought back to the surface and examined by investigators, the causes behind this tragedy will remain a mystery,” says Pietro Guida, 68, who each morning watches the recovery efforts of the Bayesian from the breakwater of Porticello’s pier, passing the time as he waits for a fish to bite his line.
In front of him, towering floating cranes dominate the seascape. They have been at work for weeks on the salvage operation. From time to time, a group of divers emerge from the water and are pulled onboard a motorboat, where fresh divers prepare to descend and take their place.
On 9 May, a 39-year-old Dutch diver and member of their team died while working underwater in preparation to cut the ship’s mainmast, with the operations suspended for about a week.
His death has shaken the small fishing community of Porticello, where people had already labelled the yacht’s sinking “the Bayesian curse”.
It is a label that has extended beyond the incident itself. Driven by intense media coverage, the village and its coastline have also come under scrutiny – depicted on social media as a sort of Bermuda Triangle, a place sailors are being advised to avoid.
“They’ve talked about supernatural currents, about waters where ships vanish,” says Gina Lo Bue, 45, who owns a restaurant a few metres from the Porticello pier. “It’s all nonsense! The waters in front of the port have always been calm. The storm that hit the Bayesian was something we’d never seen before – something that could have happened anywhere.”
The bars that nine months ago, during the harrowing days of body recovery, teemed with curious onlookers and journalists from around the world are now almost deserted. Only the occasional pair of tourists wander up to the pier to snap a photo of the cranes still at work, eager to capture the disaster site that had the world holding its breath for weeks.
In a small bay a few hundred metres along from the breakwater, a handful of swimmers slip into the sea. They seem unfazed by the towering cranes rising behind them – or by the reason those machines are there. Summer is nearly here in Sicily.
A preliminary safety report last week by the UK’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) detailed the final, tragic 18 minutes before the 56-metre (184ft) sailboat slipped beneath the waves.
Shortly before 4am local time the Bayesian started dragging on its anchor and a young deckhand posted on his social media account a video of the storm approaching. Then he woke up the captain, who went to the bridge, while the chief engineer went to the engine room to prepare the vessel for manoeuvring. The wind suddenly increased at 4.06am, causing the yacht to heel over to 90 degrees in less than 15 seconds, sending people, furniture and loose items flying across the deck.
“I woke up with a jolt in the middle of the night,” says Lo Bue. “The wind swept away the chairs and tables of the bars along the port – it felt like an earthquake.”
What the MAIB described as a possible “tornadic waterspout” headed towards the boats in the harbour. The docks seemed to divert the whirlwind, which went straight towards the Bayesian.
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Water came in over the starboard rails and within seconds entered the vessel down the stairwells, the report said. The captain told guests and crew on the bridge to abandon the yacht and swim clear of the mast and boom as it was sinking.
Nine crew members and six guests were rescued from a life raft, including Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, whose company owned the Bayesian. The others were trapped inside the vessel as it went down.
Alongside the work of the MAIB, Sicilian prosecutors have opened an inquiry into suspected manslaughter. The captain, James Cutfield, from New Zealand, and two British crew members, Tim Parker Eaton and Matthew Griffiths, have been placed under investigation.
In Italy, being placed under investigation does not imply guilt, nor does it necessarily lead to formal charges. The prosecutors have said some members of the crew may have acted with negligence.
“Negligence? I’d like to see what the most experienced sailor in the world would’ve done in the face of a tornado’s force,” says Franco Balestrieri, 63. He and his brother Gaetano own two fishing boats in Porticello, and both are former yacht captains.
“A vortex like that often causes the anchor to twist around the keel – which was probably raised – and the boat loses stability, Franco says. “Once the power went out, water got in everywhere. When a storm like that hits, you don’t always have time to react or get to safety. You can’t condemn anyone. And you certainly can’t blame the engineers who built the boat.”
“My brother and I have seen plenty of storms,” Gaetano says. “Do you think it’s easy to stay calm when waves are crashing over you and the wind’s tearing your crew away?”
He pointed toward the calm waters just beyond the port. “You see this ocean? Look at it. In Sicily we have a saying: ‘The sea may be soft, but when it crashes, it crashes hard.’”
“And that damned night,” he adds, “the waters … they crashed really hard.”
