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yacht horror: how did billionaire's 'unsinkable' boat end up on sea bottom?
the man dubbed the british bill gates spent most of the...
aug 22 2024
3 minute read
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the man dubbed the british bill gates spent most of the past year under house arrest as he awaited his trial on fraud charges.
billionaire tech entrepreneur mike lynch’s cage was gilded to be sure but a cage nonetheless.
and when he was cleared, lynch took pals for a mediterranean cruise on his super yacht, the bayesian, which he was mulling selling. that will never happen.
on monday morning, the bayesian sank off the coast of sicily killing lynch, his daughter hannah, 18, two couples and the yacht’s canadian chef.
now, investigators are trying to determine how — and why — the “unsinkable” 184-foot yacht sank 160 feet to the bottom of the sea. the yacht’s captain may be the only person who has the answers.
mike lynch, ceo of autonomy group, attends the times ceo summit at the savoy hotel in london, june 21, 2011. u.k. businessman mike lynch, who was recently acquitted in the u.s. of an $11 billion fraud, is among those missing after a superyacht sank off southern italy, on monday, aug. 19, 2024.
ben gurr / afp / pool / files
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getty images
here is the latest:
— lynch’s daughter hannah, 18, is still missing after five bodies were found in the wreck;
— his wife revealed she was awoken by a “tilt” as the yacht went down;
— experts believe the yacht’s “tallest mast in the world” may have contributed to the tragedy after a freak “black swan” weather event;
— frantic text messages from survivors who piled into a tiny raft revealed the chaos.
for two hours following the disaster, police questioned kiwi captain james cutfield, 51.
one major question is why the bayesian sank so quickly.
“every time a vessel sinks, there is never just one reason,” shipwreck researcher bertrand scibo told the uk sun . “it could be that the keel was also inside or outside, because they can remove the keel [sic].”
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he added: [there would be] no reason to remove the keel because they do that only when they go into harbour. only the captain will be able to answer this special question.”
emergency services at the scene of the search for a missing boat, in porticello, southern italy, tuesday, aug. 20, 2024.
salvatore cavalli
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the associated press
so far, five bodies — including lynch’s — have been recovered with six being confirmed dead. there were 15 survivors.
scibo was also concerned regarding the slow trickle of information and answers being released by officials. he said “all the information seems to be a bit secret.”
the ceo of the company that manufactured the yacht, giovanni costantino, claimed his boats are “unsinkable” and the “safest ever.” instead, he told italian tv that “human error” was to blame.
as the horror unfolded in porticello harbour on monday morning, witnesses in a smaller boat claimed the mast was hammered by a waterspout causing the boat to capsize — and then vanish beneath the waves.
a british lawyer specializing in maritime law told the daily mail that officials will likely target the crew for answers.
“they will want to find out if the captain was at fault over anything,” lawyer stephen askins said. “if i was looking at this i’d be very interested in the weather report, what the captain was briefing the crew and what the captain was briefing the owner.”
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he added: “it’s a case of looking at what happened and then asking yourself whether in all the circumstances what he did was reasonable.”
shipwreck researcher scibo said open windows and portholes could also be a recipe for disaster with the water flooding in “very quickly,” expediting the yacht’s demise.
“if you’ve got a combination of all these reasons, the keel, the mast, the portal, the windows and this very big tornado,” he said. “you find the reason of the sinking.”
the child of irish immigrants, lynch won a scholarship to a posh private school and then attended cambridge.
only two months ago he won a shocking landmark victory in the u.s. courts. tech giant hewlett packard claimed lynch artificially inflated the value of his software firm, autonomy.
he had sold autonomy to hp for a whopping $11.7 billion in 2011.
prosecutors had accused lynch, along with autonomy’s finance executive stephen chamberlain — who died in a tragic car crash saturday — padded autonomy’s bottom line.
after being cleared, lynch told the times of london that he had feared dying in prison.
′if this had gone the wrong way, it would have been the end of my life as i have known it in any sense,” lynch told the newspaper. “it’s bizarre, but now you have a second life — the question is, what do you want to do with it?”
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