Bayesian superyacht sinking: Safes on tycoon Mike Lynch’s sunken boat ‘may contain intelligence service data’

Divers are searching the sea floor for Mike Lynch’s high-tech hard drives before they can fall into enemy hands reports La Repubblica - Italy’s second-biggest newspaper.

Sources told the paper the disks held: “the great digital archive of the IT entrepreneur whose clients included the British MI5, the American NSA and the Israeli services”.

The Italian newspaper said the “super drives” are protected by “cutting-edge encryption”.

The Sun reported the drives now could be a target for the hostile spy agencies of Russia, China, and Iran as they seek to steal valuable secrets.

Professor Yoav Yair, Dean of the School of Sustainability at Reichman University in Israel, told the Mirror that storms dubbed ‘medicanes’ - Mediterranean hurricanes - could cause similar sinkings like the Bayesian superyacht.

He said: “It is not a matter of if this (the Bayesian disaster) will happen again, but rather it’s when and where.

“In the last couple of years we have seen medicanes - which are a new phenomena. These are hurricane-like storms that pack a lot of energy, and create flash flooding, torrential rains, lightning, hail and severe sustained winds. The 2023 “Daniel” medicane destroyed Libya and caused over 30,000 deaths there.

“The sea surface temperature has risen globally and in the Med as well, charging the atmosphere with increased fluxes of water vapor, which means a higher potential for massive storms.”

Darktrace shares are set to stop trading publicly at the end of September, after the company set a timetable for its blockbuster private equity takeover to be completed.

The private equity group Thoma Bravo struck an almost 5.31 billion dollar (£4.3 billion) deal to buy Darktrace, co-founded by Mike Lynch, in April.

It marks one of the biggest take-private deals for a London-listed company in recent years, and will see Darktrace leave the FTSE 100 on October 1.

Founded in 2013, Cambridge-based Darktrace is a cybersecurity firm best known for using artificial intelligence to scan for hacks and data leaks inside IT networks.

The update comes after Poppy Gustafsson stepped down as chief executive earlier in September amid the takeover.

Ms Gustafsson helped to set up the Cambridge-based company in 2013 alongside Autonomy founder Mike Lynch.

Mr Lynch, and his daughter Hannah, were among seven people to die after the Bayesian superyacht sank off the coast of Sicily last month.

Navy divers recovered hard drives of the video surveillance system on board the Bayesian hopefully revealing the final moments before the tragic sinking of the superyacht.

In the engine room there were the hard disks that catalogued the parameters regarding the electric and thermal propulsion.

“We hope to be able to read something from the media”, an investigator told La Repubblica. They added “Unfortunately they are standard models that are not resistant to water and pressure”.

There was no black box on board the 700-tonne sailing vessel that sank in minutes. It was not required to have one, as it was not a commercial cruise ship.

With the Bayesian lying on her side 50 metres underneath the now gentle waters of the Mediterranean, mystery still surrounds how the 56-metre superyacht, sank in the typhoon off the port of Porticello.

Remotely controlled underwater vehicles and cave divers are looking to raise the yacht, which experts will examine in the coming days.

TMC Marine, a company specialising in “planning and executing high-risk maritime operations and investigating and resolving serious maritime incidents and disputes” have arrived in Porticello.

The delicate operation could cost as much as £15 million to raise the Bayesian superyacht will require barges with cranes as the locals complain about the impact.

“When will the recovery be carried out?” one fisherman asked workers according to La Repubblica.

“For us,” added another, “it is better that these operations end as soon as possible.”

He pointed towards a 200m radius which is still forbidden to sail on and is constantly monitored by the coast guard.

“The community is preparing for the feast of the Madonna del Lume,” added a nearby bar worker referencing an upcoming October holiday.

“That day the painting of the Madonna, symbol of the village, will be carried out of the church, passing through the hands of the faithful, and then hundreds of boats will pour into the sea.”

In Italy waterspouts can involve winds of up to 200 kilometres (124 miles) per hour, while downbursts can produce gusts of around 150 km per hour.

Statistics show that downbursts are becoming more frequent around the country, which Mercalli said may be connected to global warming.

Storms and heavy rainfall have swept down Italy in recent days after weeks of scorching heat.

“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,” Italian climatologist Luca Mercall said.

“So we can’t say that this is all due to climate change, but we can say that it has an amplifying effect.”

A similar freak storm killed four people, when their tourist boat sank on Lake Maggiore in northern Italy in May last year.

The country’s varied geology makes it prone to floods and landslides, while the fact it is flanked by rapidly warming seas means it is vulnerable to increasingly powerful storms.

The bodies of those who died after the billionaire Mike Lynch’s Bayesian superyacht sunk off the coast of Sicily have been flown back to their families by private jet.

Italian publication Giornale di Sicilia reported post-mortem examinations were completed at a Palermo hospital and the bodies have now been returned.

My colleague Tom Watling reports:

Tech billionaire Mike Lynch, his daughter Hannah, 18, and five other people died when the Bayesian went down in a downburst, which is similar to a small tornado.

Chef Recaldo Thomas, Jonathan Bloomer, the Morgan Stanley International bank chairman, his wife Judy, and Chris Morvillo, a Clifford Chance lawyer, and his wife Neda, were the other victims of the August 19 tragedy.

Four of the victims are feared to have suffocated to death in air bubbles that filled with carbon dioxide, according to their autopsies raising the frightening possibility that they may have been conscious after the yacht sank, according to Italian news outlet La Republica.

Fifteen people, including Angela Bacares, Lynch’s wife, survived when they were rescued by a nearby yacht.

The former captain of the Bayesian superyacht says he has spoken to all of the surviving crew to hear their account of the sinking.

Stephen Edwards said all the crew members who were on deck rescued as many passengers as they could but that heading down towards the flooded lower parts of the yacht “would have meant certain death”.

The former captain told The Telegraph: “They are not doing very well”

“The dominant feeling is still one of shock from the event. They are dealing with what happened, how it happened and how quickly it happened.”