Survivors could be alive inside Bayesian due to ‘air pockets’ – live

Rescue teams trying to access the submerged Bayesian yacht could be listening out for a timed banging noise, a senior university lecturer has said.

Dr Jean-Baptiste Souppez, who teaches mechanical, biomedical and design engineering at Aston University, said: “A sign the rescuers may be looking for is a banging noise at regular intervals: this is common practice on submarines, and was one of the signs the search mission for the Titan submarine was looking for after it went missing last year.”

He added the possibility of air pockets forming inside the vessel was “simply impossible to predict”.

A neighbour of Mike Lynch said she was “honestly horrified” when she learned he was missing after his yacht sank in a tornado.

Ruth Leigh, of Pettistree in Suffolk, said she knew the family had the Bayesian, but when she heard the news, she said: “I just couldn’t believe it, I thought this can’t be right.”

The 57-year-old writer and author added: “It’s dreadful, it’s the worst news.”

She said they had been neighbours for around 15 years and that “right from the start [Mr Lynch] was a fantastic neighbour”.

“Even though he was incredibly wealthy and a very important person, he never ever gave that impression,” said Ms Leigh.

“Whenever he met you, he always remembers your name, he would chat to you, incredibly friendly and down to earth, which we thought was a great quality. He was a really good neighbour.”

The Bayesian sank after being hit by a “violent storm”. The Italian coast guard said bad weather had been forecast, but added that it was more virulent than expected. Some locals spoke of a waterspout, or sea whirlwind, of exceptional force. The Bayesian was at anchor, its sails down, when the tempest hit, with another yacht moored nearby.

The nearby yacht, the 42-metre Sir Robert Baden Powell, remained anchored and weathered the storm after its captain turned on the engine to keep control of the vessel and avoid a collision with the Bayesian. The captain, Karsten Borner, said he did not know if the crew of the Bayesian had managed to switch on its engines. “I only know that they went flat with the mast on the water and that they sank in two minutes,” he said.

Andrea Ratti, a nautical design professor at Milan Polytechnic university, said a boat the size of the Bayesian could only sink so rapidly by taking in a huge amount of water, suggesting that one or more portholes, windows or other openings may have been broken or smashed open by the waterspout.

There has also been media speculation that a major hatch might have been inadvertently left open. However, fire department diver Marco Tilotta told Il Messaggero daily the wreck was “apparently intact” – although only one half of the hull is visible to divers.

And an industry expert in Britain said it should have taken hours for the Bayesian to fill up with enough water to sink it, making its swift demise incomprehensible.

The Bayesian was built in 2008 by Perini Navi, which said it featured the world’s tallest aluminium mast, measuring 72 metres. However, Ratti and a second expert, structural engineer Filippo Mattioni, said an unusually tall mast is not by itself an element of vulnerability in a storm. Both were also sceptical about the theory a broken mast caused damage smashing against the hull as the boat would not have capsized if this was the case.

The Bayesian had a retractable keel – the fin-like structure under the hull that helps stabilise boats and acts as a counterweight to the mast. Both Ratti and Mattioni wondered if the yacht had been anchored with the keel up, reducing its depth under water, making it less stable. Ratti said the boat might have started oscillating wildly, under strong winds, putting exceptional strain on the mast. But even if this had led to its breaking, “this by itself is not enough to justify the sinking,” he said.

Prosecutors in the nearby town of Termini Imerese have opened an investigation into the disaster. Their case is likely to take months to complete.

This includes Morgan Stanley International Chairman Jonathan Bloomer and lawyer Chris Morvillo. Lynch’s daughter, Bloomer’s wife and Morvillo’s wife were also missing and now presumed dead, according to the Journal.

The Italian Coastguard has confirmed the name of another surviving crew member.

Spokesman Vincenzo Zagarola said Leo Eppel was on board the yacht that sank.

The mother of a survivor has said she is “beyond relieved” that her daughter is safe.

Leah Randall, from South Africa, was working as a member of the crew on board the Bayesian yacht when it sank and was seen leaving the Italian coastguard’s headquarters yesterday after surviving the incident.

Her mother Heidi Randall told Sky News: “I’m beyond relieved that my daughter’s life was spared by the grace of God.

“It doesn’t make it any easier living with the heartache of those who have lost their lives or are missing.

“My very deepest condolences to the chef’s family as they formed a great friendship.”

The Italian Coastguard has confirmed the name of another crew member.

Spokesman Vincenzo Zagarola said Leo Eppel was on board the yacht that sank.

The shipwreck of a luxury yacht moored off the coast of Sicily is the latest sign that the Mediterranean is becoming a more dangerous sea to sail in, climate experts and skippers say.

One man died and six people are still missing, including British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, after the Bayesian, a 56-metre-long (184-ft) sailboat, was hit by a ferocious storm on Monday, sinking in a matter of minutes.

Climatologists say global warming is making such violent and unexpected tempests more frequent in a sea used as a summer playground for millions of tourists, including a wealthy few sailing its waters on superyachts.

Luca Mercalli, president of Italy’s meteorological society, said the sea surface temperature around Sicily in the days leading up to the shipwreck was about 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), almost three degrees more than normal. “This creates an enormous source of energy that contributes to these storms,” he told Reuters.

The changes in “Mare Nostrum” (Our Sea), as the ancient Romans called the Mediterranean, are also being noticed by experienced skippers such as Massimo Aramu, who runs the Akua sailing school on the coast near the Italian capital.

Currently sailing around Greece, Aramu said he did not like navigating Italy’s Tyrrhenian coast around Sicily or the Spanish Balearic islands because there are “often critical situations with little warning”.

Last week, a storm similar to the one that sank the Bayesian hit the Balearic archipelago, which includes the islands of Ibiza and Mallorca, leaving several yachts washed up ashore.

Giuliano Gallo, a former skipper who crossed the Atlantic and has written several books on sailing, said the Mediterranean was becoming more like the Caribbean, which has areas that many boats steer clear of at certain times of the year. “But things are less predictable in the Mediterranean,” he said.

Another sign of the more erratic weather in the Mediterranean was seen a year ago when thousands of people were killed in Libya by flash floods triggered by a so-called medicane – a supercharged Mediterranean storm fuelled by warmer seas.

Karsten Borner, the captain of a boat that was moored alongside the Bayesian but escaped harm, said Monday’s storm had been “very violent, very intense, a lot of water and I think a turning system like a tornado”. He also blamed more frequent episodes of intense heat during the summer months for playing a role in causing such storms.

Mike Lynch’s daughter 18-year-old Hannah is one of the six people missing.

Her former school, Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith, west London, has released a statement saying they are “shocked” by the news.

It reads: “We are all incredibly shocked by the news that Hannah and her father are among those missing in this tragic incident and our thoughts are with their family and everyone involved as we await further updates.”

Two more survivors have been named by Sky News as Leah Randall and Katja Chicken.

The broadcaster says they are both South African and worked as crew members on the Bayesian.