After yacht sinks off Italy, search resumes for six missing, including Mike Lynch

By Giselda Vagnoni

PALERMO, Sicily (Reuters) -Rescue teams in Sicily resumed a search for six missing people, including British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his daughter, after a luxury yacht was struck by a violent storm and sank on Monday, killing one on board.

The British-flagged "Bayesian," a 56-metre-long (184-ft) sailboat was carrying 22 people and was anchored just off the port of Porticello when it was hit by ferocious weather.

Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of Morgan Stanley International and Chris Morvillo, a lawyer at Clifford Chance who represented Lynch in a U.S. trial, were among the missing.

The wives of both men were also unaccounted for, said Salvatore Cocina, head of civil protection in Sicily.

"The fear is that the bodies got trapped inside the vessel," he told Reuters.

Prosecutors in the nearby town of Termini Imerese have opened an investigation into the incident.

Specialist divers had reached the ship on Monday at a depth of some 50 metres, but access was limited due to objects in the way, the fire brigade said.

Fifteen people had escaped before the boat went down, including Lynch's wife, Angela Bacares, who owned the boat, and a one-year-old girl.

On Monday, rescue teams recovered the body of the yacht's onboard chef, identified as Antiguan citizen Ricardo Thomas.

Storms and heavy rainfall have swept Italy in recent days, after weeks of scorching heat lifted the temperature of the Mediterranean sea to record levels, raising the risk of extreme weather conditions, experts said.

"The sea surface temperature around Sicily was around 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit), which is almost 3 degrees more than normal. This creates an enormous source of energy that contributes to these storms," said meteorologist Luca Mercalli.

"We can't say that this is all due to global warming but we can say that it has an amplifying effect," he told Reuters.

The British government's Marine Accident Investigation Branch said four inspectors had been sent to Sicily to conduct a "preliminary assessment."

One expert at the scene of the disaster who declined to be named said an early focus of the investigation would be whether the yacht's crew had had time to close access hatches into the vessel before the storm struck.

(Writing by Crispian Balmer and Giulia SegretiEditing by Bernadette Baum)