Bayesian yacht latest: Body recovered near sunken Sicily yacht believed to be that of chef Recaldo Thomas (2024)

Summary

The body of a man recovered near the Bayesian yacht is believed to be that of Recaldo Thomas, a Canadian-Antiguan chef who was working on the boat
Six people are still missing after British luxury yacht sank off Sicily on Monday
They include Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer, his wife Judy, British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, and jewellery designer Neda Morvillo
Divers are struggling to reach the cabins of the yacht, with a "world of objects" blocking access to the rooms
Of the 22 people on board, 15 survived, six are missing, and one body, believed to be Recaldo Thomas, has been found

Live Reporting

Edited by Sean Seddon, with Mark Lowen reporting from Sicily

British investigators arrive but hopes for miracle vanishpublished at 18:08 British Summer Time
18:08 BST
Mark Lowen
Reporting from Porticello
In cloudy skies and on choppy waters, the search has gone on all day, a helicopter scouring the site where the Bayesian capsized as divers plunged deep below.
They’re trying to access the wreckage of the yacht that was hit by a tornado-like waterspout, and is now 50m (164ft) underwater.
Given the depth, each dive can only be 10 minutes, and with the boat still largely intact it’s hard to get access inside.
British investigators are now here to assess what happened during the extreme weather that hit the Bayesian.
Severe heat and violent storms had prompted a weather alert before the yacht went down.
Tonight the search goes on - but any hope of a Mediterranean miracle survival has all but vanished.
'It's still wait and see,' says twin brother of missing manpublished at 17:50 British Summer Time
17:50 BST
Navtej Johal
Midlands correspondent
Image source, LinkedIn
Jonathan Bloomer's twin brother has told the BBC his family are "coping the best we can" as rescue workers continue to search for him off the coast of Sicily.
The banker is one of six people still missing since the Bayesian yacht capsized.
Jeremy Bloomer tells the BBC he has not received any new updates on the search efforts to find Jonathan, beyond that divers are struggling to access the wreck of the boat.
He says: "It's a slow processand it will take time. So there might be air pockets, but we don't know."
Jeremy continues: "He was my older [brother] by half an hour. So it means a lot when you lose a twin brother. It's still wait and see, so fingers crossed."
Asked how he was coping, he says the situation is "terrible" and something that's "beyond your wildest imagination".
Quote Message
I'm just numb, just numb. That's it, you don't know what to think and you can't believe it's happened."
Two members of crew named as survivors of yacht sinkingpublished at 17:39 British Summer Time
17:39 BST
We've just heard from the Italian coastguard, which has named two more survivors of the yacht sinking.
South African nationals Leah Randall and Katja Chicken, who worked as crew members on the Bayesian, managed to get to safety after the vessel sank in the early hours of Monday morning.
In total, 15 of the 22 people on board have been rescued. Among them are:
- Mike Lynch's wife, Angela Bacares
- Charlotte Golunski, her husband James and their one-year-old daughter
- Ayla Ronald, who worked as a lawyer for Mike Lynch, and her partner
How Mike Lynch's courtroom joy led to yacht tragedypublished at 17:24 British Summer Time
17:24 BST
Image source, PA Media
Twelve people were vacationing on Mike Lynch's yacht, alongside 10 crew members, when it sank in a storm off the coast of Sicily. The gathering was reportedly a celebration.
Earlier this year, Lynch was cleared of fraud and conspiracy charges arising from the sale of his firm Autonomy to US tech giant Hewlett Packard. The decade-long legal battle had led to Lynch's extradition from the UK.
Upon being cleared of the charges in June, the British entrepreneur said he was "elated" and thanked his legal team for their "tireless work". Some of them were on the yacht alongside him when it sank.
Chris Morvillo, a lawyer for Clifford Chance - the law firm that represented Lynch - is among the six people still missing. So is his wife Neda Morvillo, an American jewellery designer.
Ayla Ronald, a senior associate at the same law firm, also worked on Lynch's case. Both she and her partner were invited to the yacht and were rescued when it sank.
Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer - who appeared as a defence witness for Lynch during his trial - and his wife Judy Bloomer were on the boat when disaster struck. Both are unaccounted for.
Charlotte Golunski, the board director of Luminance - an artificial intelligence platform founded by Lynch - was on board, along with her husband and one-year-old daughter. All three survived.
Lynch's wife Angela Bacares and daughter Hannah were also there. Bacares has been rescued but 18-year-old Hannah is still missing.
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In pictures: Search operation at wreck site continuespublished at 17:03 British Summer Time
17:03 BST
A search and rescue operation, which includes boats scouring the surface of the sea and divers examining the wreck of the Bayesian yacht on the seabed, is still ongoing.
As we've been reporting, the specialist diving team have been struggling to access the cabins on the wreck - which is around 50m below the surface - because of debris blocking access.
Image source, Reuters
Image source, Reuters
Image source, Reuters
'A smile that lit up the room': Tributes to chef killed in yacht sinkingpublished at 16:52 British Summer Time
16:52 BST
Insaf Abbas
BBC News
Image source, Facebook
The body of a man recovered near the Bayesian yacht is believed to be that of Recaldo Thomas, a Canadian-Antiguan chef who was working on the boat.
His friends have been paying tribute to him. Gareth Williams, who lives in Antigua, knew Thomas for 30 years.
"I can talk for everyone that knew him when I say he was a well-loved, kind human being with a calm spirit," he told me.
The two grew up together in Antigua, where Recaldo spent his time during off-season.
"He would come over to mine over the weekend and he would sing. He had the deepest, most sultry voice in the world, and a smile that lit up the room.
"He told me just the other day that he needed to work two more seasons to fix up his late parents' house. He loved yachting, but he was tired."
Eli Fuller met Recaldo some 25 years ago while out socialising in Antigua.
"He knew everybody and was friends with everybody. He'd always ask how you were doing, how your family was - he was always positive.
"Personality was very important in his job. The world's richest people want to hang out with someone social. He was sought after."
He added that Thomas became an inspiration to young black children who wanted to get into yachting.
"The kids would see all these white people working on yachts. For them to see an Antiguan man travelling all over the world - it was important for our community."
Search efforts complicated by wreck's position underwater, coastguard sayspublished at 16:42 British Summer Time
16:42 BSTBreaking
The search for the missing six passengers "continues without stopping" but divers have not found anything, the Italian coastguard says.
The coastguard says that specialist divers are "evaluating the feasibility of safely entering the wreck", but that the search is being "complicated by the depth and the position of the hull lying on the seabed" - at 50m below the surface.
It adds there is no trace of "hydrocarbon pollution" - meaning oil or other similar fuel is not leaking from the wreck.
Why is the search and recovery operation for the Bayesian so complex?published at 16:28 British Summer Time
16:28 BST
Image source, PA Media
We're well into the second day of search and rescue operations for the six people still missing after the sinking of a luxury yacht off the coast of Sicily.
Here are some of the factors which make this a highly complex process:
- The wreckage is currently 50m (165ft) below the surface of the water
- Furniture and a "world of objects" are blocking access to the cabins of the yacht, hampering the divers' access
- Divers can only spend 12 minutes below the surface of the water, meaning by the time they reach the Bayesian, they only have 10 minutes to search the wreck
- The bridge of the yacht - the room where the captain controls the vessel - is full of electrical cables
- Divers are unable to see inside the yacht, though a possible entry point could be through a 3cm (1.2in)-thick glass window
- Specialist divers who are trained to work in small spaces have had to be flown in from Rome and Sardinia
Ex-MP John Gummer on his 'wonderfully kind' friend Lynchpublished at 16:10 British Summer Time
16:10 BST
Helen Burchell
Live reporter
Image source, Getty Images
Lord Deben, former Conservative MP John Gummer, describes his missing friend Mike Lynch as "a wonderfully kind and companionable" man.
"He is the kind of person who carries thisenormously clever mind, but carries it so lightly, and is always interested inwhat others have to say and might contribute," he says in a statement.
"It is a very serious moment... for if we have lost him, we’ve lost a very wonderful man."
He adds: "It is one of the cruellest blows that could possibly be made if it turns out that he hasn’t survived because he had so much to give, and he was giving it.
"This is a man of outstanding ability, but also the sort of person whom we were all very, very fortunate to know."
Water conditions could have led to waterspout, says oceanographerpublished at 15:54 British Summer Time
15:54 BST
Dr Simon Boxall, an oceanographer from the University of Southampton, says "there's a lot still to be discovered" about what led to the sinking of the Bayesian.
Asked about reports the boat may have been hit by a waterspout, he tells the BBC they are "not normally dangerous" but that would depend on the intensity of the weather system.
Boxall says: "What's interesting is that we saw very light winds up until the time at which the yacht was hit.
"And then suddenly, the wind went from about three or four miles an hour to 30 or 40 miles an hour, and then dropped again. And that was on land.
"So it's a sort of precursor to there being a major sort of squall or even a waterspout that would have hit the ship."
The ocean to the north of Sicily is more than three degrees warmer than it should be at this time of year, he adds, creating a "perfect storm" for waterspouts to occur.
'Yacht sank in two minutes,' captain of nearby ship sayspublished at 15:41 British Summer Time
15:41 BST
Image source, Reuters
The captain of the Dutch-flagged ship that rescued Bayesian passengers from the water before emergency services arrived has spoken again to Reuters.
Captain Karsten Borner has previously explained how he worked to keep his ship upright during the storm, before noticing the luxury yacht that had been behind his vessel had disappeared.
"I don't absolutely know what they did. I only know that they went flat with a mast on the water and that they sank in two minutes," Borner says.
He says the sea temperature, which meteorologists have told us was at an extreme high of 30C, is "way too hot for the Mediterranean, and this causes, for sure, heavy storms".
'Difficult to imagine' positive outcome - Italian coastguardpublished at 15:25 British Summer Time
15:25 BST
Image source, EPA
The Italian coastguard says it is continuing its search - but given the time that has elapsed since the yacht sank, a positive outcome is "difficult to imagine".
Frigate Captain Vincenzo Zagarola tells Italian radio station RTL 102.5: "Given the time that has passed and the circumstances of the event, it is naturally difficult to imagine that things can go well but we are not giving up, so we are busy [searching for them] with naval and air resources."
Zagarola says the sinking was clearly an "extremely particular episode", and adds: "The harbours in Italy are distributed in a natural way in the coastal docks.
"They are areas that offer a fair amount of protection from dominant events that can create dangerous situations.
"It is obvious that any harbour naturally offers shelter but it is not the same thing as being docked in a port."
Divers from Napoli and Messina are assisting with the operation.
Who is British tech tycoon Mike Lynch?published at 15:02 British Summer Time
15:02 BST
Image source, Getty Images
Mike Lynch, a British tech entrepreneur, is among six people missing after a luxury yacht sunk off the coast of Sicily.
In 1991, Lynch helped establish Cambridge Neurodynamics - a firm that specialised in using computer-based detection and recognition of fingerprints.
Five years later, he co-founded the British tech firm Autonomy.
In 2011, Lynch made his riches by selling his company to US computing giant Hewlett-Packard (HP) for $11bn (£8.6bn).
But an intense legal battle following the high-profile acquisition loomed over Lynch for over a decade. He was acquitted of multiple fraud charges in the US in June, over which he had been facing two decades in jail.
In 2006 he was awarded an OBE in recognition of his service to UK enterprise.
He served on the board of the BBC as a non-executive director, and in 2011 was appointed to the government's council for science and technology - advising then-Prime Minister David Cameron on the risks and possibilities of AI development.
- You can read more about Mike Lynch here
- Or listen to our new profile on BBC Sounds
What we've learned during second day of the Sicily rescuepublished at 14:44 British Summer Time
14:44 BST
Image source, Reuters
We’ve now entered day two of the search for six people still missing after a luxury yacht sank off the coast of Sicily yesterday. Here’s what we've learned so far today about the complex operation:
- Neda Morvillo – an American jewellery designer – and her husband, lawyer Chris Morvillo, are among the missing people. The news was confirmed by Mr Morvillo's law firm, Clifford Chance
- Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife, Judy Bloomer, are both unaccounted for
- They were guests of UK businessman Mike Lynch, who is missing along with his 18-year-old daughter Hannah Lynch
- Rescue operations are continuing near Porticello, but divers have been hampered in their efforts to get inside the wreckage on the seabed, the fire service has said
- One man’s body has been recovered since the yacht sank. The Italian Coast Guard identified him as the boat’s cook and he’s been named in reports elsewhere as Recaldo Thomas
- Lawyers who had represented Lynch were invited to join him on the yacht following his acquittal in his legal case in June, one of the survivors relatives has said
Missing people 'may be trapped inside yacht' - coastguardpublished at 14:27 British Summer Time
14:27 BST
Image source, Reuters
The Italian coastguard believes the six people still missing from the Bayesian could be trapped inside the sunken yacht.
Spokesman Vincenzo Zagarola tells the PA news agency they may not have had time to get out of the boat as it sank very quickly. We earlier heard from one of the doctors treating the survivors that it capsized "within minutes".
One of the divers told Italian media the yacht is "practically intact", resting on its side on the seabed.
Authorities have had difficulty accessing the inner cabins, where the missing people are likely to be if they did not have time to escape.
Earlier, we heard from a spokesperson for the Italian fire and rescue service, who said divers were hampered by furniture blocking access to the cabins. They were looking for alternative ways to get inside, including through a window.
Divers are restricted to just 12 minutes below the surface of the water. With the time it takes to dive down to the wreck and ascend again, they have just 10 minutes per dive to search the wreck.
The names of the six missing Bayesian passengerspublished at 14:14 British Summer Time
14:14 BST
We just reported that the sixth passenger missing following the sinking of the Bayesian yacht off Sicily has been named as Neda Morvillo.
Morvillo, a jewellery designer, is the wife of another missing passenger, Chris Morvillo. He is a partner at the Clifford Chance law firm.
The remaining four people still unaccounted for are:
- British technology tycoon Mike Lynch
- Lynch's 18-year-old daughter Hannah Lynch
- Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of Morgan Stanley Bank International
- Judy Bloomer, the wife of Jonathan Bloomer
Who is Neda Morvillo?published at 13:57 British Summer Time
13:57 BST
Image source, nedanassiri.com
Neda Morvillo, who is missing after the yacht disaster in Sicily, is a jewellery designer who works under the name Neda Nassiri.
Her website says she "has been designing and hand-crafting fine jewelry in New York City for over 20 years".
According to her social media profile, she lives in New York City, and is reported to be 57 years old.
She is married to Chris Morvillo, a Clifford Chance lawyer and former assistant US attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Neda Morvillo confirmed missing after yacht disasterpublished at 13:37 British Summer Time
13:37 BSTBreaking
Image source, Getty
American jewellery designer Neda Morvillo - wife of lawyer Chris Morvillo - is one of six missing people after the yacht disaster in Sicily, Mr Morvillo's employer Clifford Chance has confirmed.
The law firm says: "We are in shock and deeply saddened by this tragic incident.
"Our thoughts are with our partner, Christopher Morvillo, and his wife, Neda, who are among the missing.
"Our utmost priority is providing support to the family as well as our colleague Ayla Ronald, who together with her partner thankfully survived the incident.
"Our thoughts extend to the other passengers and crew and all those affected.
"We have no further comment at this time. We, and the families, ask that their request for privacy is honoured during this period."
UK ambassador confirms four Brits missing, with seven accounted forpublished at 13:10 British Summer Time
13:10 BST
Four British citizens are still missing after the Bayesian sank, with seven accounted for, the UK Ambassador to Italy Edward Llewellyn tells the BBC in Porticello.
He did not name the four missing Brits, but they are believed to be Mike Lynch, his daughter Hannah, Jonathan Bloomer, and his wife Judy.
Llewellyn says he has spoken to most of the British survivors and what they say "underlines what a desperately sad and distressing situation they all found themselves in".
"All our hearts go out to those caught up in this terrible tragedy," he says.
Yacht is 'practically intact', diver sayspublished at 12:44 British Summer Time
12:44 BST
As search and rescue efforts continue in Sicily, let's have a look at what Italian media are reporting:
- The yacht is "practically intact", a diver from Palermo's fire and rescue service tells Italian newspaper Il Messaggero, external. "It is resting on its side on the starboard side. It has no gashes, no signs of impact," Marco Tilotta says
- A "small Concordia" is how the fire and rescue service describes the operation, according to the Corriere della Sera, external. That's a reference to the Costa Concordia, which ran aground in Italy in 2012
- A professor at the University of Palermo tells La Repubblica, external that the Bayesian was in the "wrong place at the wrong time"