Alert – As hopes faded with the setting sun, ROBERT HARDMAN explores the many unanswered questions about what could have caused the Bayesian disaster

And so the last flicker of hope went down with the sun last night. As body bags started to come ashore in quick succession on a sullen Sicilian quayside late yesterday afternoon, the first two of those recovered from the wreck of the 183ft British superyacht, Bayesian, were feared to be the owner, Mike Lynch, and his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah.

According to Italian reports from the diving team, they had been found in the same section of the hull, now lying on its side in 150 feet of water half a mile from the fishing town of Porticello.

Shortly after that, the remains of two more of the six missing passengers were located, brought to the surface and ferried ashore.

Each time, the emergency services did their best to make things as dignified as possible. 

Each bodybag arrived in a procession of patrol boats, before it was lifted by firemen into the screened-off quayside tent of the Department of Civil Protection for registration.

Robert Hardman (pictured) witnesses the recovery operation from the offshore sinking of the British yacht Bayesian on August 21, 2024

Rescue personnel transport a body bag after a luxury yacht sank off the coast of Porticello, near the Sicilian city of Palermo yesterday

Rescuers and divers of the Vigili del Fuoco, the Italian Corps of Firefighters attend the operations off Porticello near Palermo yesterday

Each was then taken in a separate ambulance under police escort to the main hospital in Palermo for further formalities. One person remains unaccounted for following Monday morning’s tragedy which saw the world’s second-tallest yacht disappear in seconds, while another victim is set to be recovered today.

A special sub-aqua drone continues to scour the wreck as much as it can while teams of divers from the fire brigade and police continue to search the Bayesian in ten-minute shifts – all that time permits.

If there might perhaps be any scintilla of solace for Dr Lynch’s poor wife, Angela Bacares, and elder daughter, Esme, 21, it is the divers’ log stating that the first two bodies found yesterday – later reported to be those of Mike and Hannah Lynch – were in the same section of the yacht.

That Angela may have managed to make it from the more accessible master cabin to safety while Mike apparently did not, and that he was subsequently found in the same place as Hannah, could raise the possibility that he went to find his daughter just before the Bayesian went down.

Divers recover a body at the scene of the offshore sinking of the British yacht Bayesian yesterday. Two of the bodies were found in the same part of the ship

In other words, did Mike Lynch die while trying to save his daughter’s life?

Until we know the full chronology of what began as a frantic rescue attempt and ended as a salvage operation, we cannot say.

However, that is surely the most poignant of the numerous questions still piling up in the aftermath of this tragedy.

Why, for example, did Bayesian not just right herself instantly after being flattened by the waterspout which has been blamed for her sinking?

One eminent yachting industry figure, who understandably does not wish to pass early judgement on such a shocking mishap, simply points me towards a clip from New Zealand.

A fire service helicopter flies in the air above Porticello yesterday as the search operation takes place

Rescue personnel and divers operate on the water above the shipwrecked superyacht yesterday

The superyacht (pictured) was docked off the coast of Porticello, near Palermo, when it was hit by an over-sea tornado, known as a waterspout 

It is CCTV footage of a tornado flipping a large catamaran in a marina in Auckland in 2019. Yet, watch immediately before the catamaran goes flying and you clearly see a superyacht just like Bayesian. 

It has the same multiple tiers of metal ‘spreaders’ up its huge mast and it is flattened by the tornado. Then, it does exactly what Bayesian should have done.

It goes straight back to its original ramrod upright position.

That is what a well-designed yacht with the correct depth of keel should do. The Italian authorities yesterday came closer to explaining why Bayesian did not.

At a meeting of the different rescue teams involved in the hunt for the missing passengers, divers reported that the yacht’s lifting keel was not fully lowered.

According to state broadcaster, RAI, the keel – which gives a yacht its stability and its capacity to steer in a straight line – was lowered to a depth of 4 metres instead of the full 7.5.

It has also been reported that the lower deck space housing the boat's tender (the motor launch for ferrying passengers and crew ashore) was not fully closed when the ship went down.

They had returned to the yacht from a trip ashore late that night. We do not know whether it was a crew errand, a passenger transfer or dinner ashore.

'They had partially pulled up the tender,' one of the experts informed RAI, but they had not then properly stowed it aboard.

Looking at plans for the ship, the relevant compartment appears to rest beneath the starboard bow. One senior maritime expert tells me that neither of these factors was exceptional for a yacht at anchor, as Bayesian was.

'You might well not have a lifting keel right down when anchored close to the shore as you don't want to hit the bottom,' he explains. 'And you might well not stow the tender or close all your hatches when at anchor. You close them when you go to sea.'

Tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch was on board the Bayesian  (pictured at his renovated mill at his Suffolk farm in 2021)

However, these factors could have made a big difference in the early hours of Monday morning. Had the keel been fully extended, the yacht would have had a better chance of righting itself. Had the doors to the tender compartment been sealed, then there would not have been what RAI report as 'a river of water' into the hull when the wind blew the yacht on to its side. Once any significant volume of water enters the hull, stability is compromised almost immediately.

One unnamed engineer from the yard which built the yacht is convinced that we cannot pin this entirely on freak weather.

'The Bayesian yacht most likely sank due to human error, an unsuitable attitude to the possible arrival of a disturbance,' said the engineer from the Italian Sea Group, the company that owns Perini Navi. It was Perini Navi of Viareggio which launched the yacht in 2008.

Mr Lynch at Autonomy's headquarters at Cambridge Business Park in 2000 

Mr Lynch (second left) is seen in the early days of his technology firm Autonomy in Cambridge

Speaking anonymously to state television, the engineer pointed to possible failures, from open doors to the fact that the engines were not running (whereas the skipper on a neighbouring yacht put his engines to good use and suffered no damage). There has been repeated criticism of the fact that passengers were still in their cabins and unprepared – and quite possibly asleep. 'Even with the whirlwind arriving,' the engineer added, 'there was plenty of time. Fifteen minutes would have been enough to activate all the safety measures.'

These are just a few of the issues demanding an explanation from the yacht's captain, New Zealand-born James Cutfield, who has already undergone extensive questioning by the authorities.

All the survivors are currently being housed at a luxury hotel complex overlooking the bay where Bayesian went down. It is firmly off-limits to the media. Viewing it from the sea yesterday, it could be just another holiday resort hotel in mid-August, but for the sadness and shock within.

The Bayesian (pictured) overturned during a severe thunderstorm on Monday morning

One guest yesterday said that they had seen Cutfield looking 'very tired' in a green shirt and pink shorts as he was driven through the hotel grounds in a golf buggy, holding a pair of crutches.

Yachting experts are already puzzled by the apparent lack of ship's readiness for such violent weather. 'I am surprised that they were not tracking this extreme weather pattern as it moved across the Mediterranean,' says one, pointing out that a very large yacht had been wrecked in Majorca a few days before and that there had been multiple reports of atrocious wind and storms gradually moving south and east via Corsica.

Yesterday, I reported that the maritime world was astonished by the speed with which a well-built superyacht from a world-class shipyard and top designers had capsized while at anchor and then gone down almost instantly.

It now seems that the immediate explanation – namely that the Bayesian was freakishly unlucky enough to be hit by a waterspout which flipped its record-breaking 246-ft aluminium mast – is only half the story.