When the luxury super yacht Bayesian capsized on August 19 off the coast of Sicily, a nearby boat captain saw it all and he’s telling the media what it looked like on that day.
The yacht, a sailing vessel, was carrying 22 passengers and crew, and only 15 made it onto a lifeboat. Seven people died, including tech billionaire Mike Lynch. The captain of a nearby boat named the Sir Robert Baden Powell—captain Karsten Borner—said Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares did not want to leave the scene of the accident until her husband and 18-year-old daughter Hannah were found.
The ship sank in a raging storm, and Borner said that when the sky started to clear he and his crew looked around but they “couldn’t see the Bayesian anymore.” Borner also checked the radar systems on his ship, which also did not pick up the sailing yacht. Two of his passengers reported what they thought was a whale only to realize they were looking at the underside of the boat as it sank beneath the waves.
Just a moment later, he said, the scene was lit up by a lightning flash, and Borner saw “a triangle in the sea in a split second,” which was the bow of the Bayesian as it went down.
The boat was 183-feet long with massively tall sailing masts. It sank while it was anchored off Sicily when a “violent storm” hit the area, said the Italian coast guard. Initial reports indicated that a waterspout—a tornado over water—sunk the Bayesian, though later reports believe it was a sudden downburst of wind that was responsible.
Borner said his ship and the Bayesian were close together and similarly situated, with both resting at anchor. The weather turned sour “very quickly,” he said, and he had the Sir Robert Baden Powell’s engines going to keep station as the water roiled. Borner said it was so rough at sea that he was worried the anchor wouldn’t hold. At the same time, he had to be careful to keep the same distance from the doomed Bayesian, which he said was the only other ship in the bay.
Borner saw a flashing light coming from what turned out to be a lifeboat with 15 on board, and he steered his ship toward it and picked up the passengers.
The storm passed as quickly as it sprang up, he said, but everyone was desperate for rescuers and coast guard to arrive. The surviving passengers told Borner there were people trapped in the sunk ship.
As authorities try to pin down the cause of the sinking they have interrogated the Bayesian’s captain, 50-year-old James Cutfield of New Zealand, three times. Italian police are also questioning two additional crew members.
