Mike Lynch yacht latest: Two crew investigated as Bayesian captain refuses questions

Three people are being investigated by the Italian authorities for manslaughter after the sinking of the Bayesian yacht off the coast of Sicily.

On Monday, the boats 51-year-old captain James Cutfield, from New Zealand, was put under investigation. He declined to respond to prosecutors during questioning on Tuesday

Two British crew members are now also being investigated. Ship engineer Tim Parker Eaton and sailor Matthew Griffith are being investigated over the same crimes.

A source told Reuters that Parker Eaton is suspected of having failed to protect the yacht’s engine room and operating systems.

Being investigated does not imply guilt and does not mean formal charges will follow.

Recaldo Thomas was the superyacht’s chef and the first person whose death was confirmed.

The Canadian-Antiguan national was found by the Italian coastguard near the sunken boat. A friend of Mr Thomas, who asked to remain anonymous, said the yachting community has been saddened by his death.

She told The Independent: “He was a one-of-a-kind special human being. Incredibly talented, contagious smile and laugh, an incredible voice with a deep love of the ocean and the moon. I spoke to him nearly every day. He loved his life his friends and his job.”

Autonomy, the software firm which Mike Lynch sold in a £8.64bn deal in 2011, was a pioneer of business data analysis, using machine learning and what Mr Lynch called “adaptive pattern recognition”.

It used a statistical method called “Bayesian inference” at the heart of its software, devised by the 18th-century mathematician Thomas Bayes.

The yacht’s name, Bayesian, harks to the same model that was at the heart of Autonomy’s – and Mr Lynch’s – success.

Hannah Lynch had just completed her A-levels and secured a place to study English at Oxford University.

Her former English teacher Jon Mitropoulos-Monk said she was “one of the best English students in the country” having scored 100% in her English Literature GCSE.

Patrick Jacob, a family friend, paid tribute to her on Friday, saying: “Hannah was charming and ferociously intelligent with an insatiable thirst for life and knowledge. She was also warm, loving and deeply considerate; remarkably for her age.

“I am 50 years older than her and in my life I have never met anybody like Hannah. We have lost one of our brightest stars whose future held so much promise. Her loss is unbearable.”

The captain of the Bayesian insisted he did not see the storm that sank the Bayesian last week.

Speaking of the storm, James Catfield, 51, said on Tuesday: “We didn’t see it coming.”

A judicial official, who asked not to be named, confirmed to Reuters on Monday the earlier reports in Italian media that the New Zealander was being investigated by Italian prosecutors after the superyacht capsized in a tornado off the coast of Sicily last Monday.

British tech tycoon Mike Lynch was among seven people who died after the luxury superyacht Bayesian sank off the coast of Sicily.

The 59-year-old is known for founding Invoke Capital and Autonomy Corporation and had been in the headlines after he was cleared of charges in a high-profile fraud case.

Once dubbed the “British Bill Gates”, Mr Lynch and his wife Angela Bacares were valued at £852m in 2023 by the Sunday Times Rich List.

He then went to Cambridge University and started his first business while studying for a PhD in signal processing and communications research.

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Three people are being investigated by the Italian authorities for manslaughter after the sinking of the Bayesian yacht off the coast of Sicily.

Ship engineer Tim Parker Eaton, is one of the two British crew members now also being investigated.

A source told Reuters that Parker Eaton is suspected of having failed to protect the yacht’s engine room and operating systems.

Being investigated does not imply guilt and does not mean formal charges will follow.

Five corpses were all found in the same cabin on the Bayesian while the body of Hannah Lynch was found alone in another, according to Italian officials.

The five people that rescue divers found together appeared to have gathered in the first cabin on the left of the superyacht in an attempt to escape, reported The Telegraph, while the 18-year-old was discovered in the third cabin on the left on her own.

Girolamo Bentivoglio Fiandra, a senior officer from the fire service, said on Saturday: “The yacht tended to the right and obviously the bodies tried to go to the other side and take refuge in their cabins. We found five bodies in a cabin on the left and another one in the third cabin on the left. They were in the higher part of the shipwreck.”

The sinking of the Bayesian off the coast of Sicily made headlines across the world, with interest rising when it was revealed that British technology tycoon Mike Lynch was among those onboard.

It then emerged that the boat trip was a celebration by Mr Lynch with friends, colleagues and his legal team after he won a decade-long legal battle.

Here we explain who was onboard the ship during the tragedy:

Chief prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio confirmed an investigation has been launched on Saturday.

He said his team will consider each possible element of responsibility, including those of the captain, the crew, individuals in charge of supervision, and the yacht’s manufacturer.

The Bayesian, a 184ft (56m) British-flagged luxury yacht, went down near the Mediterranean island in southern Italy last Monday.

Investigators are focusing on how a vessel deemed “unsinkable” by its manufacturer, Italian shipyard Perini Navi, sank while a nearby sailing boat remained largely unscathed.

Prosecutors said the event was “extremely rapid” and could have been a “downburst” – a localised, powerful wind that descends from a thunderstorm and spreads out rapidly upon hitting the ground.

The crew were saved, apart from the chef, while six passengers were trapped in the hull.