A sudden storm wreaked havoc off the coast of Sicily, Italy, sinking a luxury yacht and leaving at least one dead and six missing.
On the morning of August 19, the 56-meter superyacht named Bayesian was anchored approximately 700 meters from the Porticello harbor, east of Palermo on the island of Sicily. Without warning, the skies unleashed a torrent of rain and fierce winds. The yacht was struck by a waterspout and quickly went under.
“I saw the boat, it had just one enormous mast. Then, suddenly, it vanished beneath the waves,” said Pietro Asciutto, a fisherman who witnessed the event, as he recounted to the ANSA news agency.
waterspouts are whirling columns of air and water that extend from a cloud down to the sea surface, often forming during intense thunderstorms.
According to a report from the European Severe Weather Database, a small waterspout had indeed formed in the area on the morning of August 19. The night before, other powerful storms had unleashed over 100 mm of rain within four hours across eastern Palermo. Italy’s Coast Guard noted that weather forecasts had already warned of strong winds and storms across the entire southern region of the country on August 18.
At the time of the sinking, the yacht, flying the British flag, was carrying 22 people, including 10 crew members, according to the Coast Guard. Italian media reported that most of the passengers were British nationals.
“It was horrific. The yacht was hit by incredibly strong winds and then it just went under,” recounted Charlotte, a British survivor.
Charlotte described a harrowing moment when her daughter nearly drowned. “For a couple of seconds, I couldn’t see her anywhere, and then I managed to grab her hand. I held her tight as the sea raged around us. People were screaming everywhere,” she said, adding that they eventually climbed into a lifeboat.
A nearby yacht rushed to assist while rescue teams were still en route. Fisherman Fabio Cefalu mentioned that he and some colleagues quickly joined the rescue efforts. “But we didn’t find anyone in the water, just some cushions and remnants of the yacht,” Cefalu recalled.
A few hours later, as the sea calmed, rescue teams recovered a body from the area where the Bayesian had sunk. Authorities confirmed that six people remain missing, including four British citizens and two Americans.
Among the missing is British businessman Mike Lynch, founder of the software company Autonomy, a leading figure in the UK’s tech scene during the mid-1990s, once hailed as “Britain’s Bill Gates.”
Camper & Nicholson, the yacht’s management company, stated that they are supporting the ongoing search efforts. The Italian government has launched an investigation into the incident.
The luxurious Bayesian superyacht was built by the Italian shipyard Perini Navi in 2008. It boasts a mast height of 11.51 meters and can reach a maximum speed of 28 km/h, according to Boat International.
