Search resumes for second day to find missing Brits in Palermo yacht disaster

 ROME -- The search has resumed for a second day to find the missing passengers, including four British tourists, of a luxury yacht which sank off the coast of Palermo on Monday morning. Divers are facing “considerable difficulties” in finding the missing tourists, Luca Cari, spokesperson for Italy’s fire service, has said.

 The British technology tycoon Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah are among those unaccounted for after a freak tornado caused the yacht they were travelling on to capsize and sink on Monday morning. Morgan Stanley International Chairman Jonathan Bloomer, 70, his wife Anna Elizabeth Judith Bloomer, Chris Morvillo, Lynch’s lawyer in his recent US trial, and Morvillo’s wife Neda are all still missing.

 Specialist divers arrived in Palermo last night from Rome and Sassari, with three rescue teams working on the recovery operation. The first of the day's dives was carried out this morning, Giornale di Sicilia has reported. Marco Tilotta, one of the divers, has said "we will do everything to recover the bodies".

 "We've just finished our first dive, now we will have a briefing and we will carry on throughout the rest of the day. We have checked the boat from the outside, the visibility is good, now our objective is getting inside the boat."

 The rescue team faces challenges in finding the missing tourists, unable to stay submerged at the 49-metre depth the yacht has sunk to for more than 12 minutes and obstructed by the vessel’s objects obstructing access into the cabins.

 “Inside the boat, the spaces are very small,” Cari said. “If you come across an obstacle, it’s very difficult to move forward, just as it’s difficult to find alternative routes in.”

 Although hope is fading that the missing passengers can be rescued alive, Cari added that divers are looking for different ways to get into the yacht.

 “We’ve located a glass window which we could enter through. But it’s closed from the inside and three centimetres thick, so we have to manage to remove it and then we can get inside better.”

 The sailing boat, known as Bayesian and identified by a British flag, was carrying 22 passengers and crew members in the harbour near Porticello when it was hit by a freak tornado at around 5 a.m on Monday morning. The chef of the boat’s crew, Ricardo Tomas, has been confirmed dead.

 The tornado, caused by a waterspout, was a freak meteorelogical event, but it comes as the Italian Meteorological Society declared the sea temperature in Sicily and Sardinia to be three degrees higher than average temperatures at this time of year.

 Mike Lynch, the British technology tycoon known for founding Autonomy Corporation and recently acquitted for fraud charges, was travelling on the yacht when it sank but has not yet been found. The ownership of the luxury boat is tied to Angela Bacares, Lynch’s wife, who survived the disaster.

 “We are providing consular support to a number of British nationals and their families following an Incident in Sicily, and are in contact with the local authorities," a spokesperson for the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said yesterday. Lord Llwellyn, the British Ambassador to Rome, travelled to Palermo to meet the survivors.

 The luxury 56-metre long Bayesan boat, carrying 12 tourists and ten crew members, had been used for a party in the hours before the sinking. The vessel got into trouble around 4:30 a.m. on Monday when the storm hit, causing the main mast to be dislodged and, with the anchor lowered, the boat to overturn. An investigation has been opened to establish how the boat capsized, Termini Imerese's public prosecutor's office said yesterday. 

 "All that was needed was for the boat to raise its anchor and head into port," a witness in Porticello described. "They were obviously surprised by the storm that hit them suddenly and weren't able to avoid sinking."

 Another boat in the harbour, anchored a short distance away from the Bayesan, alerted the coastguard after members on board noticed the yacht had got into trouble. A passenger on the neighbouring boat said he saw the Bayesan "had disappeared".

 "We saw a flare shot into the sky and we went to see who had shot it. We saw there was a lifeboat with 15 people inside. We called the coast guard and they came to help."

 British, Irish, and New Zealand nationals are among those to have been saved. The fifteen people inside the lifeboat were rescued by the coast guard, with eight in a stable condition. A 1-year-old girl, Sofia, was also rescued in the lifeboat and was taken to Palermo's Children's Hospital as a precaution. The baby's mother Charlotte Golunski, 35, said she "was sleeping" when the boat capsized.

 "For two seconds, I lost my little girl in the water, but then I immediately hugged her amid the fury of the waves."

 "So many people were shouting," she added. "Luckily the lifeboat inflated and 11 of us managed to get into it."

 Divers and coastguard rescue teams have been searching the water this morning to find the six missing passengers, as rescue divers search the hull of the boat which sank 49 metres. It has been reported that those missing might have been trapped in the boat's cabins when the storm hit.

 "In this moment, my prayers go to the missing people from the sinking of the yacht in Porticello," Roberto Lagalla, the mayor of Palermo, said yesterday. "I also want to thank the coast guard, the fire service, and all the emergency operation that responded immediately and is still carrying out operations."

 Among the survivors, as reported in Giornale di Sicilia, are Britons Ayla Ronald, 36, Matthew Fletcher, 41, James Emsilie, 35, and his wife, Charlotte, and daughter Sofia.

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