All hell broke loose: Sicily yacht sunk in brutal storm

It was still dark when a storm hit the Sicilian port of Porticello early Monday, and within minutes a superyacht had disappeared, taking many of those on board with it.

"At around 4:00am, all hell broke loose," local fisherman Giovanni Lococco told AFP on Tuesday as he surveyed rescuers searching for six people missing.

"First came the wind, then the water -- it was definitely a tornado."

UK tech tycoon Mike Lynch had invited friends and family on board the 56-metre sailing yacht "Bayesian" to celebrate his recent acquittal in a massive US fraud case.

A photograph posted on social media by a local bar showed the yacht all lit up just hours before the storm.

Bad weather had been expected, and the yacht was anchored some 700 metres from the port of Porticello, east of Palermo on Sicily's spectacular northwest coast.

The storm whipped across the coast, upending tables, chairs and plants from outside restaurants.

But the yacht was struck by a waterspout, a sort of mini tornado, that one expert described as "pretty unprecedented".

"We didn't see it coming," captain James Catfield told Italian daily La Repubblica, one of 15 of the 22 passengers and crew who was rescued.

The power of the storm knocked out the video feed on Angelo Formica's boat in Porticello, which he monitored from home.

- 'Gone' -

He had been woken up by the noise, and so went to the port to see what was happening.

"It was about 15, 20 minutes -- maybe 30 at the most -- already the boat was gone," he told AFP of the "Bayesian".

He said he had seen similar whirlwinds before, elsewhere off the Sicilian coast.

"Once I saw a boat a 42-footer that was almost submerged inside the water but fortunately it managed to get out," he said.

Locals were called to help as the news of the shipwreck spread, rushing to the water.

"But we didn't find anyone in the sea, we only found cushions and the remains of the boat," fisherman Fabio Cefalu told AFP.

Karsten Borner, the captain of another yacht anchored nearby, said there was a "very strong hurricane gust" and he had to battle to keep his vessel steady.

All of a sudden "we noticed that the ship behind us was gone", he told journalists in Porticello.

Charlotte Golunski, 35, a colleague of Lynch's, was on deck when the yacht sank and briefly, terrifyingly lost hold of her one-year-old daughter.

She grabbed her again and managed to climb aboard a life raft. "Lots of people were screaming," she told Italian media.

Her partner James Emslie also survived, as did Lynch's wife Angela Bacares, aided by the coastguard but also private boats.

But the body of one man was found, reportedly the yacht's chef, while Lynch, his 18-year-old daughter Hannah and four others remained missing.