The last words of British tech mogul Mike Lynch, who tragically perished with his daughter when the Bayesian superyacht sank, have been shared by his grieving widow.
On August 19 of the previous year, Lynch, aged 59, died with his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, the yacht’s chef, and four other guests when the vessel went down during an unexpected summer storm near Sicily’s coast.
His wife, Angela Bacares, survived because she had left bed moments earlier—after the yacht sharply tilted—and moved to the deck to speak with the crew.
In a conversation with Termini Imerese prosecutor, Raffaele Cammarano, three days following the tragedy, a heartbroken Angela recounted Lynch asking her, “What’s the time?” They had both been stirred from sleep by the ship’s movements.
‘I told him it was 4:03am or 4:04am and I went up to ask the captain what was happening,’ she told investigators at the time.
Unbeknownst to Angela, this would be the last conversation with her husband, who had been joyfully marking his recent exoneration from fraud accusations alongside family and his defense team before disaster struck.
Just six minutes later, at 4:10am, the vessel was struck by a violent downburst, and 16 minutes after that, the Bayesian was underwater.
Angela had already reached the deck as the yacht started listing to one side; she remembered clinging to the captain while the vessel began to take on water.
The Bayesian superyacht, which sank off the coast of Sicily on August 19, 2024
Mike Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, survived the ordeal because she’d gotten out of bed just a few moments earlier – after the boat had tilted sharply – and had made her way to the deck to speak to the crew
Lynch, 59, and Hannah, 18, were among seven people who died when the Bayesian sunk in August
The Bayesian superyacht, which sank off the coast of Sicily
‘I wanted to go back down to warn the others, but Sasha (the Irish stewardess) told me not to come down… In an instant, something happened, I no longer recognised what was in front of me,’ she said in the interview.
The panicked wife and mother claimed she was reassured by the captain that the 183ft yacht would not capsize.
‘I thought my husband and daughter could swim and get over,’ she said, but tragically, both would lose their lives.
Despite Italian coastguards issuing their interim report last month, which blamed the 52-year-old captain, James Cutfield, and the crew for the disaster, Angela said she had always felt ‘reassured’ by the crew in bad weather.
‘We’ve had the Bayesian scanner for 10 years, and generally the only fears were about hitting the rocks or getting tangled in another anchor.
‘I’ve never had to wake the others because of bad weather… I didn’t think something so catastrophic could happen,’ she told Cammarano.
Last June, part of the Bayesian was resurfaced following a two-month operation.
When it was raised, the superyacht was missing its 236ft mast, which was cut down and left on the seabed for future removal.
The mast had to be detached to allow the hull to be brought to a nearly upright position that would allow the craft to be surfaced, TMC Maritime said at the time.
British investigators said in an interim report issued last month that the yacht was knocked over by ‘extreme wind’ and couldn’t recover.
The report stated that the Bayesian had chosen the site where it sank as shelter from forecast thunderstorms.
Wind speeds exceeded 70 knots (81 mph) at the time of the sinking and ‘violently’ knocked the vessel over to a 90-degree angle in under 15 seconds.
Three crew members including the New Zealand born skipper James Cutfield, first engineer Tim Parker Eaton and night watchman Matthew Griffith, both from Britain, were placed under formal investigation for manslaughter and causing a disaster.
Lynch and Hannah, lost their lives in the tragegy, as did a lawyer, Chris Morvillo, and his wife, Neda; Jonathan Bloomer, a banker, and his wife, Judy; and the yacht’s chef, Recaldo Thomas. Nine other crew members and six guests were rescued.
