Mike Lynch arriving at federal court in San Francisco on Monday

Six individuals, including British IT entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter, went missing when the luxury yacht Bayesian went down early Monday morning off the coast of Sicily, Italy. The boat was carrying twelve passengers and ten staff members.

British, American, and Canadian nationals made up 22 of the passengers on board the 56-meter-long (183-foot) yacht. Authorities are continuing their search into the night, and fifteen individuals, including a one-year-old British girl, were recovered.

According to local media, the Bayesian yacht went down at approximately 5:00 local time after a severe storm the night before produced waterspouts, which are rotating columns of air visible over the ocean.
When IT behemoth Hewlett-Packard acquired software startup Autonomy for $11 billion (£8.6 billion), Mr. Lynch—sometimes referred to as “the British Bill Gates”—was one of its co-founders.

In 2006, Mike Lynch received the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his services to business.
The Bayesian sank off the coast of the village of Porticello, close to the Sicilian capital Palermo, according to eyewitnesses who spoke with the Italian news agency Ansa. The storm had already broken the mast, they said.
A waterspout, which resembles a tornado, can develop over vast bodies of water like oceans, seas, or lakes.
Scuba divers have located debris 50 meters below the surface and are continuing their search for the missing.
Salvatore Cocina is the head of Sicily’s safety office. Among the missing were Mr. Lynch, his daughter Hannah Lynch, and the cook of the yacht.
The search, which includes rescue divers and cavers, will go on at midnight, he added.
One man’s corpse was discovered outside the debris field. We do not yet know his nationality.
BBC Angela Bacares, who is married to Mr. Lynch, is listed as the owner of the Bayesian in the company records that Verify reviewed.
Fifteen people managed to get to safety after the storm hit.
Ansa news agency reported that a 35-year-old mother held her one-year-old daughter in her arms in the sea.
“I immediately embraced the little girl again amidst the fury of the waves,” the woman, who is known locally as Charlotte Golunski, said after losing sight of the girl for two seconds in the water.In the midst of the raging storm, I cradled her close to me. A lot of people were yelling.The lifeboat thankfully inflated, and eleven of us were able to board it.
According to the agency, the mother was stitched up and the baby is doing well.
She went on to say that she and her husband, who is likewise unharmed, along with coworkers from a London firm, were on the boat.
A physician at Palermo’s Di Cristina Hospital, where some of the survivors were transferred, expressed fatigue and the “constant asking about the missing people” as the main concerns.
They are talking and crying all the time because they have realized there is little hope of finding their friends alive.”
Survivors said the trip was organized by Mr. Lynch for his work colleagues.
In the initial aftermath, a nearby Dutch-flagged vessel rescued survivors from the waves, tending to them until emergency services arrived.
Captain Karsten Borner said that after the storm had passed, the crew noticed that the yacht that had been behind them had disappeared.
As per the Italian coastguard, one life has been verified lost.
Severe storms have been pounding the western Mediterranean since last week’s midpoint.
A swath of inclement weather swept around Sicily’s northern coast on Sunday night and into Monday morning.

The UK Foreign Office said it is supporting a number of British nationals and their families following an incident in Sicily. Britain’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch is also sending a team of inspectors to conduct a “preliminary assessment” into the sinking of the UK-registered boat.
The Bayesian’s registered owner is listed as Revtom Ltd. The superyacht can accommodate up to 12 guests in six suites.
The yacht’s name is understood to be based on Bayesian theory, which Mr. Lynch’s PhD thesis was based on.
Mr. Lynch’s wife, Ms. Bacares, is named as the sole legal owner of Revtom, registered in the Isle of Man.
“Our priority is assisting with the ongoing search and providing all necessary support to the rescued passengers and crew.”
Mr. Lynch sold his company, Autonomy, to American computing giant Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2011 for $11 billion (£8.6 billion).
But a heated court struggle following the high-profile acquisition hovered over Mr Lynch for nearly a decade. He was acquitted in the US in June on various fraud counts, for which he had been facing two decades in jail.
The sinking of the yacht happened on the same day that Mr Lynch’s co-defendant in the fraud case, Stephen Chamberlain, was confirmed by his lawyer as having died after being hit by a car in Cambridgeshire on Saturday.