UK entrepreneur Mike Lynch is missing after the Bayesian superyacht he was on sank while anchored near Porticello in Palermo, Italy. This tragic event has also sparked concerns about yachts, which are popular with wealthy individuals. Here’s what we know about the accident and its victims, including Lynch, who was once regarded as Britain’s version of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.

Reportedly, there were 22 people aboard that vessel when the incident took place vessel. One of Lynch’s daughters and 4 other British and American citizens went missing too. However, Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, has been rescued along with 15 other members. The yacht’s chef is reportedly dead and at the time of writing, there wasn’t any further update on the missing people.

What Happened to Mike Lynch’s Yacht

According to Italian authorities, the accident happened due to bad weather, as a sudden thunderstorm hit the vessel shortly before sunrise. The thunderstorm created a tornado-like column of air and water but the crew members did not seem to have any weather-related warnings and made no distress signal, according to Italian coast guards.

According to Karsten Borner who was the captain of the boat that rescued survivors, the “yacht tipped to its side and sank within a few minutes. It all happened in really little time.”

Camper & Nicholsons, who are managers of the Bayesian yacht have confirmed that the vessel sank due to severe weather conditions. “Our priority is assisting with the ongoing search and providing all necessary support to the rescued passengers and crew,” they said in a statement to ABC.

According to meteorologist Luca Mercalli, “The sea surface temperature around Sicily was around 30 degrees Celsius, which is almost 3 degrees more than normal. This creates an enormous source of energy that contributes to these storms.”

Who Is Mike Lynch?

Born in 1965, Lynch was raised in Chelmsford near London. His father was a fireman and his mother was a nurse. Lynch went to Cambridge University where he studied mathematics, physics, and biochemistry. He went on to do a PhD in mathematical computing and subsequently undertook a research fellowship. He was instrumental in establishing Cambridge Neurodynamics in 1991 – a company that enabled computer-based recognition of fingerprints.

In 1996, Lynch went on to found Autonomy which developed a path-breaking search engine that could scan through internal documents and emails to retrieve information. The company saw stellar growth in the first decade which caught the eye of big companies. Eventually, HP acquired the company for a handsome sum of $11 billion.

However, it did not turn out to be a profitable investment for HP. The very next year it wrote down the value of Autonomy by a whopping $8.8 billion while alleging an accounting scandal on the part of Lynch.

A long legal battle followed and HP sued Lynch for $5 billion in London’s High Court where it won most cases in 2022 but is still awaiting the damages to be paid. He was later extradited to the US to face criminal charges over the deal – a move that was criticized by many British businesspeople.

Lynch has since been associated with his venture capital firm Invoke Capital which invests in European technology companies. Among others, it invested in Darktrace, which uses artificial intelligence to detect cyberattacks.

Conspiracy Theories Over Lynch’s Death

While the capsizing of Lynch’s yacht has been attributed to weather-related reasons, conspiracy theorists are also having a field day as Stephen Chamberlain, who was VP of finance for Autonomy and a co-defendant in the Autonomy case with Lynch, also died on Saturday after he was ‘fatally struck’ by a car while jogging.

Notably, in June, a jury in San Francisco acquitted both Lynch and Chamberlain on all 15 charges including those related to wire fraud and conspiracy. Lynch argued that HP failed to integrate Autonomy and denies any wrongdoing on his part.

Lynch was celebrating his acquittal in the US on the superyacht when it unfortunately capsized. Incidentally, Ayla Ronald, a lawyer who worked on Lynch’s fraud case in the US, and her father, Lin Ronald, were also on the yacht when it sank, but they fortunately survived.

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The UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch has deployed a team for a preliminary assessment of the sinking.

To be sure, accidents, especially fire-related incidents are regularly reported at yachts. According to Superyacht Times, which makes a record of the accidents and casualties associated with yachts, several such incidents happen every year.

Are Expensive Superyachts Safe?

Some of the 2024 incidents that the journal has compiled include

  • A yacht called Manta sunk off the coast of the French island of Corsica on August 15 after the vessel’s satellite navigation system could not pick up an approaching rock.
  • A superyacht named Atina sank in the Bay of Olbia, Sardinia on August 10 after a fire incident, whose exact reason is still unknown.
  • A yacht named Atlantis capsized off the coast of Florida on May 25 after it reportedly struck a dredge pipe piling.

While yachts cost millions, they don’t seem to be all that safe as these repeated incidents show. At the time of writing, we still aren’t totally sure what happened to the yacht and Lynch and we won’t until the investigation is complete. Until then, conspiracy theorists might continue to find a connection between the deaths of Lynch and Chamberlin.