yacht investor magazine

Bayesian: ‘One minute the vessel was there, the next it was gone’

The search for survivors is continuing after the luxury yacht Bayesian, capsized in a storm off Scilly on Monday. Matthew Schanck, chairperson, Maritime Search and…

CEO chat: Fraser’s Kurten on impact, goals & leadership

Anders Kurten describes himself as a “pathological optimist” whose role is to “nurture and protect the trust” of his people and clients. He became CEO, Fraser Yachts in…

Coote to help MarineMax superyacht brands flourish

Like a gardener encouraging different flowers to bloom at their best, Patrick Coote will look to nurture the various superyacht brands of MarineMax after leaving…

MarineMax beats revenue estimates in 3Q

MarineMax, the world’s largest recreational boat, yacht and superyacht services company, reported financial results for the third fiscal quarter of 2024, posting revenue of $757.7m,…

Antigua happy to remove ‘major liability’ with sale of Alfa Nero

Antigua officials insist they took the “best price they could” to remove a “major liability” with the $40m sale of abandoned superyacht Alfa Nero. The…

Alfa Nero: ‘Not everyone can land a blue whale deal’

She's a celebrity with a notorious backstory but one buyer was willing to take the risk.

The ‘$1bn marina’ hoping to address an ‘acute crisis’

He describes it as a “billion-dollar plus” project but Ra’anan Ben-Zur insists the “overwhelming” demand for his planned Habacoa superyacht marina in the Bahamas will answer an “acute crisis”.…

‘I wasn’t a great yacht broker’ – Bob Denison

He was a reluctant yacht broker, but his father insisted. He quickly realised he wasn’t much good at it either, despite an illustrious yachting name.…

Island Capital bids on MarineMax yachting, marina business

Private equity firm Island Capital Group (ICG) has offered to acquire the MarineMax yachting and marine business for $480m. “We propose acquiring the YMRS assets…

‘The word yacht management is completely misunderstood’

The world of yacht management needs an overhaul to better educate owners and ensure the experience matches their dreams, according to a panel of industry…

Goldsworthy: ‘I thought I’d been absolutely brilliant’

He thought yacht broking was an “absolute doddle”. It had to be. Four months in the game and he had already landed his first sale,…

Lurssen fire update: Shipyard blaze put out in Germany

Firefighters have put out the major fire which broke out on Tuesday at a Lürssen shipyard in Rendsburg, Germany. The blaze engulfed a hall containing…

Monaco added to anti-money laundering ‘grey list’

Monaco has been added to the anti-money laundering “grey list” of countries subject to increased monitoring. The principality is deemed to have “strategic deficiencies” in…

Feeling the fear, doing it anyway – Ikonic rises

Clambering over the guard rail of the Perrine bridge 500ft above the Snake River, every nerve ending screamed at him not to do it. This…

SEA Index adopted by 15 ports on Cote d’Azur

The SEA Index carbon assessment tool for superyachts is now recognised in 15 harbours and marinas on France’s Cote d’Azur and Corsica. The tool, developed in…

Why nuclear could be the viable nuclear option

A nuclear option is an extreme and unlikely course of action, but in superyachts the future could be, well, nuclear. It might induce a cold…

IYC links up with Bitcashier as crypto partner

Brokerage house IYC has partnered with crypto payment company Bitcashier to offer sales and charter clients a straightforward digital currency solution. The link-up will provide…

Feadship launches benchmark solar cell yacht

Feadship has launched the 59.5-metre Project 713 which it says is the first of its yachts to carry solar cells for auxiliary power generation. The…

Why yacht brokers are braced for revolution

Antiquated industry ripe for disruption or relationship business reliant on human connections? Superyacht brokerage could be at an inflexion point, but change might not come…

SEA Index awarded environmental innovation label

The SEA Index carbon assessment tool for superyachts has been awarded the CAPENERGIES label recognising innovation and economic potential. The tool, developed with the Yacht…

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$5.3 billion sale of Darktrace to move forward despite tragic yacht death of founding investor Mike Lynch

The passing of Mike Lynch, the U.K. tech entrepreneur who perished last weekend when his luxury yacht abruptly sank in the Mediterranean, is unlikely to impact the sale of cybersecurity firm Darktrace, of which he and his wife own a significant share.

Thoma Bravo, a software-focused private equity firm, had agreed to buy Darktrace in April for $5.3 billion, and Darktrace shareholders voted to approve the sale in June. The deal still needs regulatory approval, but Thoma Bravo is expected to complete the acquisition by the end of 2024, a person familiar with the transaction said.

“If the shares have already been voted, there is no obvious mechanism or need for further approval or action to be taken by any shareholders, including the Lynch family or estate,” an attorney who advises on M&A transactions told Fortune .

The sale has been back in the spotlight in the wake of the yacht tragedy , which also took the life of Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter as well as of a prominent banker and lawyer. The deaths came the same week that Lynch’s co-defendant in a related fraud case was fatally run over by a car. The fraud case involved Autonomy, a software firm that Lynch founded and sold to U.S. tech giant HP , which accused him of using accounting improprieties to inflate the company’s value.

Lynch’s connection to Darktrace is through his venture capital firm Invoke Capital. In 2013, a team of Cambridge mathematicians, including current CEO Poppy Gustafsson, along with business people and intelligence experts, founded the startup that relies on A.I. to combat cyberthreats. The U.K.-based Darktrace raised $230.5 million in funding, according to Crunchbase . Invoke was an early investor of Darktrace.

Darktrace went public in 2021, during the height of the IPO boom. But rather than listing in the U.S., Darktrace opened for trading on the London Stock Exchange. Invoke Capital was said to be Darktrace’s largest investor at the time, owning 39.5% of the company, the Guardian reported . Within months of the IPO, Darktrace’s valuation soared to nearly 7 billion pounds ($9.2 billion).

In 2022, Thoma Bravo made its first attempt to buy Darktrace, but walked away from negotiations when the two sides couldn’t agree on terms. The PE firm returned this year, clinching a deal for Darktrace in April. By this time, Lynch’s stake in Darktrace had fallen. The entrepreneur and his wife, Angela Bacares, owned roughly 7% of Darktrace, the person said. The couple’s stake then dropped further, to a little more than 3% by mid-August, according to a different person familiar with Darktrace.

Lynch and his wife were aboard a yacht named Bayesian after the Bayesian inference, a statistical model that formed the foundations of his company Autonomy. The boat sank off the coast of Sicily earlier this week and Lynch was pronounced dead Thursday, Aug. 22, while his wife survived. Lynch hasn’t been affiliated with Darktrace for some time. When he passed, he was not an executive of Darktrace but a shareholder.

Lynch’s influence on the U.K. tech scene was enormous and he was hailed as the “ British Bill Gates ,” although he was better known for his legal problems. A Cambridge-educated mathematician, he developed software that could extract useful information from unstructured sources including phone calls, emails, and video. 

This software was at the core of Autonomy, which HP purchased for $11 billion in 2011. But the next year, HP was forced to write down $8.8 billion of Autonomy’s value, making it one of the worst deals in history. 

HP, along with U.S. prosecutors, alleged that Lynch and Autonomy’s former finance chief used accounting tricks to inflate the company’s revenue ahead of the 2011 sale, Fortune reported . In August, a federal court in San Francisco acquitted Lynch of criminal fraud charges.

Lynch’s late co-defendant in the fraud trial, Stephen Chamberlain, served as Autonomy’s former vice president of finance. Both men were acquitted in a U.S. criminal trial, but civil lawsuits remain ongoing. Chamberlain also worked for Darktrace; he joined in 2016 as CFO and was named COO in September 2020. He went on administrative leave in June 2023, his LinkedIn said .

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Mike Lynch, Tech Mogul Acquitted of Fraud, Dies at 59

The British entrepreneur was found not guilty of fraud charges in the sale of his company to Hewlett-Packard. He was celebrating his acquittal when his yacht sank off the coast of Sicily.

• Share full article

By Michael J. de la Merced

Michael de la Merced reported on Mike Lynch’s career and legal battles over the course of 13 years across two continents.

Mike Lynch , a British software mogul who was once celebrated as a top technology leader — only to spend more than a decade defending himself against accusations that he orchestrated one of the biggest frauds in Silicon Valley history — died on Monday after his yacht sank off the coast of Sicily . He was 59.

An official in the Italian city of Palermo confirmed on Thursday that Mr. Lynch’s body had been recovered by divers.

Twelve guests and 10 crew members were onboard the yacht, the Bayesian, when it went down during a violent storm. Mr. Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, was rescued, along with nine crew members and five other passengers. Seven bodies have been recovered, including one thought to be that of Mr. Lynch’s daughter, Hannah Lynch.

Mr. Lynch’s death came two months after he was acquitted in federal court in San Francisco of criminal fraud charges, tied to the $11 billion sale of his company, Autonomy, to Hewlett-Packard in 2011. The takeover, widely regarded among investors as one of the worst deals in history , led HP to accuse Mr. Lynch of deception.

Prosecutors in the United States charged Mr. Lynch with more than a dozen counts of fraud and conspiracy related to the deal, with a potential sentence running to about two decades in prison.

On the day in 2023 that a British judge found him liable for civil fraud in the matter, the British government — despite numerous appeals by Mr. Lynch — approved his extradition to the United States. He was confined to a townhouse in San Francisco under 24-hour surveillance, on his own dime. During his house arrest, his mother, Dolores, and his brother, Richard, died.

The accusations sullied the reputation of Mr. Lynch, who was known at one point as Britain’s Bill Gates.

Michael Richard Lynch was born on June 16, 1965, to Michael and Dolores Lynch, working-class immigrants from Ireland, and grew up outside London. He attended private school on a scholarship and graduated from Cambridge before founding Autonomy in 1996. The company helped clients analyze unstructured information to unearth hidden insights about their businesses.

By 2011, Autonomy had become one of Britain’s most prominent technology companies, with its home base sometimes called “Silicon Fen” — a name derived from its location at the southern tip of the Fenland, a marshy area in eastern England.

Mr. Lynch became a celebrity in British tech circles. He was a member of the Royal Society, one of the country’s top scientific associations; an adviser to David Cameron, the prime minister at the time; and a member of the BBC’s board.

Autonomy drew the attention of HP, which had sought to transform its fortunes by buying a high-powered software company, and which eventually paid 60 percent over the British company’s market value. But investors and analysts opposed the deal, and HP wrote down the value of the transaction by $8.8 billion. HP fired the chief executive who led the deal and, soon after, Mr. Lynch himself.

Meg Whitman, the former eBay leader who took over HP, accused Mr. Lynch and his lieutenants of “serious accounting improprieties” that misled her company over the state of Autonomy’s business.

But Mr. Lynch — armed with the hundreds of millions that he collected from Autonomy’s sale — hired an army of lawyers to argue that HP had been aware of the company’s practices. His team also said that Mr. Lynch had largely delegated the company’s day-to-day financial operations.

Mr. Lynch’s trial began in San Francisco in March. It stretched out over three months and involved reams of often dense internal documents. After two days of deliberations, a jury found Mr. Lynch and Stephen Chamberlain, a former Autonomy vice president of finance who faced similar charges, not guilty on all counts. (Mr. Chamberlain was fatally struck by a car on Saturday while out for a run, his lawyer, Gary S. Lincenberg, said Monday in an emailed statement.)

After the verdict, Mr. Lynch said in a statement, “I am looking forward to returning to the U.K. and getting back to what I love most: my family and innovating in my field.” He later returned to his homes, in London and Suffolk.

While defending himself against the HP accusations, Mr. Lynch became a venture capitalist, founding Invoke Capital to invest in companies including the cybersecurity provider Darktrace.

More recently, he had begun to focus on artificial intelligence research, including ways the technology could help those with hearing difficulties.

His survivors include his wife and another daughter, Esme.

Kirsten Noyes contributed research.

Michael J. de la Merced has covered global business and finance news for The Times since 2006. More about Michael J. de la Merced

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Riviera to Unveil 6800 Sport Yacht at Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show

• By Sam White
• August 22, 2024

Australian yacht builder Riviera will introduce its latest model to the North American yachting audience during the 2024 Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show. The 6800 Sport Yacht Platinum Edition will be part of Riviera’s 11-model showcase.

Following three years of development, the Riviera design group—in collaboration with superyacht designer Luca Vallebona—have created this series’ flagship. It features well-defined areas for guest enjoyment, from the foredeck to the protected aft deck and salon. The stern has an electro-hydraulic, articulating swim platform that morphs into steps which can be lowered below the water or raised above to match the level of dock or quay, with aft wing doors on either side as well. Snorkeling, diving, paddleboarding and fishing enthusiasts will find stowage for watersports gear in the tender garage, and there’s also a tender cradle and electric winch system.

The aft deck is the entertaining and dining center, with an extended hardtop providing all-weather protection. A guest lounge extends across the width of the transom; forward to port is an L-shaped lounge dining area with folding teak table. This area also has an entertainer’s galley with a grill and hotplate, exhaust fan, two drawer fridges, an ice maker, stainless-steel sink with a mixer and solid-surface benchtop. An LED TV folds down from the hardtop.

The galley window lowers with the push of a button to connect the salon and aft deck. The U-shaped galley is outfitted with all the requisite meal-prep appliances and stowage for extended cruising. Forward of the galley to port is a U-shaped lounge with matching ottomans, along with a handcrafted solid-wood table that folds out from the lounge for dining inside. The salon also has a very practical starboard door for foredeck access to tend to mooring lines when short-handed cruising.

The 6800 Platinum Edition has  four staterooms and three heads belowdecks, plus a utility/crew cabin. The full-beam master has a walkaround king-size berth while the VIP forward has a queen berth. The portside guest stateroom has twin berths that slide together for a single berth  while the starboard guest stateroom adds two adult-sized single berths overlapping at 90 degrees. This can also be laid out as a media room to entertain young children. Finally, there are crew quarters which can also be used for laundry or utility as needed. 

Access to the full-height engine room is via a watertight door from the utility cabin aft of the master stateroom, or through a lift-up door on the transom. Standard power is twin 1,000 hp Volvo Penta D13 IPS 1350s.

Quick Specifications

• Length Overall: 72’9”
• Beam: 18’3”
• Draft: 5’5”
• Displacement: 81,791 lb.
• Fuel Capacity: 1,189 gal.
• Freshwater Capacity: 211 gal.
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PEOPLE Explains: The Mystery of Who Massacred 8, Including a Family, on Fishing Boat in Alaska

It's not a mystery how the Coulthurst family and a group of deckhands were killed on the Investor on Sept. 6, 1982 — but who did it and why?

Johnny Dodd is a senior writer at PEOPLE, who focuses on human interest, crime and sports stories.

It’s not a mystery how the Coulthurst family and a group of teenage deckhands were killed on their fishing boat, Investor , on Sept. 6, 1982, in the tiny southeast Alaskan fishing village of Craig.

What remains unknown, more than 35 years later, is who did it — and why.

“You never stop thinking about them,” says Dave Freeman, who grew up with Jerome Keown and Dave Moon, two of the massacre’s eight victims.

“The shock of losing everyone really tore up our town,” Freeman tells PEOPLE. “They all had their whole lives in front of them, and they were just blown away. It’s just such a shame and tragic for no reason.”

The slaying of skipper Mark Coulthurst and his pregnant wife, Irene, both 28, along with their children Kimberly, 5, and John, 4, and four deckhands — Chris Heyman, 18; and Keown, Moon and Mike Stewart, all 19 — is still Alaska’s worst unsolved mass homicide.

The case will be featured on Monday night’s People Magazine Investigates , on Investigation Discovery, and in this week’s issue, on newsstands now. The PMI episode is exclusively previewed above.

Here are five things to know about the case.

• For more on this case, subscribe to PEOPLE or pick up this week’s issue, on newsstands now, and watch People Magazine Investigates: Murder at Sea on Monday, Dec. 11, at 10 p.m. ET on Investigation Discovery.

1. The Killer Moved in Plain Sight

Hours after shooting his victims with what police believe was a .22-caliber pistol or rifle, the gunman fired up the engines on the 58-foot, $850,000 Investor , waving nonchalantly to a nearby skipper as he moved the vessel — with his victims’ bodies inside — to a secluded bay a mile outside of town.

He motored back to the weather-beaten docks in the Investor’s skiff, returning the next afternoon with a can of gasoline to set the craft ablaze before speeding back to town and then vanishing.

Authorities would later describe the suspect as a white male in his early 20s with a pockmarked complexion.

“When I got there [to the boat], black smoke was coming out of the wheelhouse, but there was nobody on deck,” former Craig police chief Ray Shapley recalls in a story about the Investor killings in this week’s issue of PEOPLE. “It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.”

2. Slain Family Celebrated Soon Before Death

Police said Mark, who was based in Blaine, Washington, and his crew arrived in the rowdy town of Craig, Alaska, on Sept. 5, 1982, shortly before for the final days of the commercial fishing season.

The ambitious, hard-working and well-liked skipper had recently become the proud owner of one of the most expensive, high-tech commercial fishing boats of its kind in the region.

“Every one of his crew wanted to be like Mark,” recalls Keown’s older brother Brian. “He was one of the best skippers around.”

Hours before the family was killed, Mark and his wife and kids attended a birthday party thrown for him at a restaurant near the docks, returning around 9:30 p.m. as a storm began to rage.

The killer then crept onto the Investor in the darkness, police said, and executed his victims.

3. Prime Suspect Has Been Exonerated

Two years passed before police arrested John Peel — who once worked for Mark and who had been working on another fishing boat and claimed to be asleep at the time of the killings — based on his similarity to sketches of the suspect.

Peel’s first trial in 1986 hinged on circumstantial evidence and lasted over six months. Prosecutors suggested that he committed the murders because of a falling out he’d had with Mark. It ended in a hung jury.

After being found not-guilty in a retrial two years later, Peel filed a wrongful prosecution suit against the state to recoup his legal fees and was awarded a reported financial settlement of $900,000.

Police are no longer looking for the killer. “The case is closed,” says Tim DeSpain, spokesman for the Alaska State Troopers. But the Investor slayings are hardly resolved.

• Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.

“It was a pretty damn good investigation,” says former Bellingham, Washington, police detective David McNeill, who helped Alaskan authorities investigate.

“They got the right guy,” McNeill says. “Just because someone is acquitted doesn’t mean they’re innocent, just means there’s not enough evidence to show guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”

“Somebody out there knows what happened,” Peel tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue, in an exclusive interview after years of silence.

“Somebody was responsible for this,” he says. “Somebody out there knows what happened, but I’m not going to waste any more of my life on it.”

4. Motive Was Never Clear

Craig’s former police chief Shapley is convinced the killings were the result of a drug deal gone bad.

“I’ve heard a lot of talk that it was a drug boat,” explains Shapley, who spent days sifting through the ashes on Investor for bone fragments and teeth. “They say Craig floated on drugs in those days.”

But McNeill describes the drug angle as “a bunch of bull crap.”

“They charged the man they felt was responsible, and he was acquitted,” he says.

5. Victims’ Friends, Family Still Live in Shadow of the Crime

Those whose who knew Mark say he was born to fish. “He was just an incredibly hard worker who always said he was going retire by the time he was 50, and I never doubted it,” recalls his younger sister Laurie Hart.

He “always had irons in the fire,” she says. “He was making money.”

For decades Hart was convinced of Peel’s guilt, but her opinion changed last year after he agreed to meet with her and her sister at a local diner and answer their questions.

“I don’t know if he’s actually the one who pulled the trigger,” Hart says. “But I think he knows more than he’s saying.”

For those whose lives were upended by the killings — including Peel — the case remains a painful cloud that refuses to lift.

Says Freeman, who knew both Keown and Moon: “It’s hard to move on because there are just no answers.”

People Magazine Investigates: Murder at Sea airs Monday (10 p.m. ET) on Investigation Discovery.

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Divers recover 5 bodies from wrecked superyacht off Sicily; 1 still missing

APTOPIX Italy Boaters Missing Italian firefighter scuba divers bring ashore, in the green bag, the body of one of the victims from the British-flagged vessel Bayesian, Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024. The yacht was hit by a violent sudden storm and sank early Monday, while at anchor off the Sicilian village of Porticello near Palermo, in southern Italy. (AP Photo/Salvatore Cavalli) (Salvatore Cavalli/AP)

PORTICELLO, Sicily — (AP) — Divers searching the wreck of a superyacht that sank off Sicily found the bodies of five passengers Wednesday, leaving one still missing as questions intensified about why the vessel sank so quickly when a nearby sailboat remained largely unscathed.

Rescue crews brought four body bags ashore at Porticello. Salvatore Cocina, head of the Sicily civil protection agency, said a fifth body had been located. Divers on-scene said they would try to recover it on Thursday while continuing the search for the sixth.

The discovery made clear the operation to search the hull on the seabed 50 meters (164 feet) underwater had quickly turned into a recovery one, not a rescue, given the amount of time that had passed and with no signs of life over three days of searching.

The Bayesian, a 56-meter (184-foot) British-flagged yacht, went down in a storm early Monday as it was moored about a kilometer (a half-mile) offshore. Civil protection officials said they believed the ship was struck by a tornado over the water, known as a waterspout.

Fifteen people escaped in a lifeboat and were rescued by a nearby sailboat. The body of the ship's chef, Recaldo Thomas of Antigua, was recovered Monday.

Thomas was born in Canada, according to his cousin David Isaac, but visited his parents’ homeland of Antigua as a child, and moved permanently to the tiny eastern Caribbean island in his early 20s. Italian officials previously listed Antigua and Canada as the nationality of people on board.

The fate of six missing passengers had driven the search effort, including British tech magnate Mike Lynch , his 18-year-old daughter and associates who had successfully defended him in a recent U.S. federal fraud trial.

Lynch’s spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Termini Imerese Public Prosecutor's Office investigators were acquiring evidence for their criminal investigation, which they opened immediately after the tragedy despite no formal suspects having been publicly identified.

Questions have abounded about what caused the superyacht, built in 2008 by Italian shipyard Perini Navi, to rapidly sink, when the nearby Sir Robert Baden Powell sailboat was largely spared and managed to rescue the survivors.

Giovanni Costantino, head of The Italian Sea Group, which owns the ship maker, blamed human error for the disaster, which he said took 16 minutes. “The ship sank because it took on water. From where, the investigators will say,” he told RAI state television after he met with prosecutors.

Costantino cited AIS ship tracking data which he said showed the Bayesian had taken on water for four minutes when a sudden gust of wind flipped it and it continued taking on water. The ship straightened up slightly and then went down, he said.

But was it merely the case of a freak waterspout that knocked the ship to its side and allowed water to pour in through open hatches? What was the position of the keel, which on a large sailboat like the Bayesian might have been retractable to allow it to enter shallower ports?

“There’s a lot of uncertainty as to whether it had a lifting keel and whether it might have been up,” said Jean-Baptiste Souppez, a fellow of the Royal Institute of Naval Architects and the editor of the Journal of Sailing Technology. “But if it had, then that would reduce the amount of stability that the vessel had, and therefore made it easier for it to roll over on its side,” he said in an interview.

The captain of the sailboat that rescued survivors said his craft sustained minimal damage — the frame of a sun awning broke — even with winds that he estimated reached 12 on the Beaufort wind scale, which is the highest hurricane-strength force on the scale.

He said he had remained anchored with his engines running to try to maintain the ship’s position as the forecast storm rolled in.

“Another possibility is to heave anchor before the storm and to run downwind at open sea,” Karsten Borner said in a text message. But he said that might not have been possible for the Bayesian, given its trademark 75-meter (246-foot) tall mast.

“If there was a stability problem, caused by the extremely tall mast, it would not have been better at open sea,” he said.

Yachts like the Bayesian are required to have watertight, sub-compartments that are specifically designed to prevent a rapid, catastrophic sinking even when some parts fill with water.

The underwater search continued in dangerous and time-consuming conditions. Because of the wreck’s depth, which requires special precautions, divers working in pairs could only spend about 12 minutes at a time searching, though reinforcements outfitted with special equipment to enable longer dives were on the wreck Wednesday.

In all, some 27 divers took rotations, including four who helped with recovery after the 2012 Costa Concordia disaster off Tuscany. They called the Porticello wreck a “little Concordia,” fire crews said in a statement.

The limited dive time was aimed in part at avoiding decompression sickness, also known as the “bends,” which can occur when divers stay underwater for long periods and ascend too quickly, allowing nitrogen gas dissolved in the blood to form bubbles.

“The longer you stay, the slower your ascent has to be,” said Simon Rogerson, the editor of SCUBA magazine. He said the tight turnaround time suggested the operation's managers were trying to limit the risks and recovery time after each dive.

“It sounds like they’re operating essentially on no decompression or very tight decompression, or they’re being extremely conservative,” he said.

Divers were also working with debris floating around them, limited visibility and air tanks on their backs.

“We are trying to advance in tight spaces, but any single thing slows us down,” said Luca Cari, spokesman for the fire rescue service. “An electric panel could set us back for five hours. These aren’t normal conditions. We’re at the limit of possibility.”

Winfield reported from Rome and Kirka from London. Associated Press journalists Trisha Thomas in Rome; Andrea Rosa in Porticello; and Anika Kentish in St. John’s, Antigua, contributed to this report.

This story has been corrected to reflect that Thomas was born in Canada, not Antigua.

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

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Who is Mike Lynch? A look at the British tech tycoon killed when his yacht sank off Sicily

FILE - British tech magnate Mike Lynch walks into federal court in San Francisco, March 26, 2024, (AP Photo/Michael Liedtke, File)[ASSOCIATED PRESS/Michael Liedtke]

Tech tycoon Mike Lynch, who died after his yacht sank off Sicily, had been trying to move past a Silicon Valley debacle that had tarnished his legacy as an icon of British ingenuity.

Lynch, 59, struck gold when he sold Autonomy, a software maker he founded in 1996, to Hewlett-Packard for $11 billion in 2011 . But the deal quickly turned into an albatross for him after he was accused of cooking the books to make the sale and fired by HP’s then-CEO Meg Whitman.

His death, confirmed on Thursday by Italian officials after they recovered his body and five others from the sea, was a dramatic turn of events that came after he was cleared of criminal charges in the U.S. in June.

Before becoming entangled with HP, Lynch was widely hailed as a visionary who inspired descriptions casting him as the British version of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

Lynch was science and technology adviser to two British prime ministers. He also founded Invoke Capital, a venture capital firm that was a founding investor of British cybersecurity company Darktrace, and Luminance, an artificial intelligence platform for the legal industry.

Italian firefighters scuba divers are docked at the harbor of Porticello, southern Italy, Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2024, as rescue teams returned to the site of a storm-sunken superyacht to search for six people, including British tech magnate Mike Lynch, who are believed to be still trapped in the hull 50 meters (164-feet) underwater. (AP Photo/Salvatore Cavalli)

Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS/Salvatore Cavalli

Lynch was “an instrumental figurehead from the Cambridge (England) technology scene,” said friend Brent Hoberman, former CEO of travel website lastminute.com. Hoberman told the BBC that Lynch was “leading the path forward for U.K. entrepreneurs to commercialize their inventions at a global scale.”

A decade-long legal battle had resulted in Lynch’s extradition from the U.K. to face criminal charges of engineering a massive fraud against HP, a company that helped shape Silicon Valley’s zeitgeist after starting in a Palo Alto, California, garage in 1939.

Lynch steadfastly denied any wrongdoing, asserting that he was being made a scapegoat for HP’s own bungling — a position he maintained while testifying before a jury during a 2 1/2 month trial in San Francisco earlier this year. U.S. Justice Department prosecutors called more than 30 witnesses in an attempt to prove allegations that Lynch engaged in accounting duplicity that bilked billions of dollars from HP.

The trial ended up vindicating Lynch and he pledged to return to the U.K. and explore new ways to innovate.

Although he avoided a possible prison sentence, Lynch still faced a civil case in London that HP mostly won during 2022. Damages haven’t been determined in that case, but HP is seeking $4 billion. Lynch made more than $800 million from the Autonomy sale.

Forbes pegged his wealth $1 billion in 2015, the only year he was on the magazine’s rich list. Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper estimated this year that Lynch and his wife Angela Bacares were worth 500 million pounds ($655 million).

Lynch, a Cambridge-educated mathematician, made his mark running Autonomy, which made a search engine that could pore through emails and other internal business documents to help companies find vital information more quickly. Autonomy’s steady growth during its first decade resulted in Lynch being awarded one of the U.K’s highest honors, the Office of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 2006.

John Browne, chair of Francis Crick Institute, a biomedical research institute, and former head of energy giant BP, said Lynch’s “ideas and his personal vision were a powerful contribution to science and technology in both Britain and globally.”

The Royal Academy of Engineering, where Lynch was a Fellow, said it was “deeply saddened” to learn of his death and that he played an “active role” as a mentor and donor.

In the months leading up to the deal that would go awry, HP valued Autonomy at $46 billion, according to evidence presented at Lynch’s trial.

The trial also presented contrasting portraits of Lynch. Prosecutors painted him as an iron-fisted boss obsessed with hitting revenue targets, even if it meant resorting to duplicity. But his lawyers cast him as entrepreneur with integrity and a prototypical tech nerd who enjoyed eating cold pizza late at night while pondering new ways to innovate.

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

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Christine Quinn Implies She’s ‘Healing’ While Estranged Husband Christian Richard Is ‘Balding’

Selling Sunset alum Christine Quinn is in a better place following her separation from estranged husband Christian Richard .

“Remember ladies, while you’re healing, he’s balding,” Quinn, 35, wrote via Instagram on Thursday, August 22, sharing a video of herself lounging on a yacht in a blush-colored bikini.

She also added green heart and apple emojis to her post, a nod to Charli XCX ’s Brat album and accompanying “Brat Summer” viral trend.

While Quinn did not clarify that she was specifically talking about Richard’s receding hairline, she did amend her caption in the comments section.

Related: Selling Sunset' Christine Quinn and Christian Richard's Relationship Timeline

“Correction ‘Still Balding’ 👨‍🦲 ,” she added.

Elsewhere in the comments, a fan alluded that Richard’s “hairline isn’t very demure,” using Jools Lebron’s viral TikTok quotes. Quinn replied with a string of crying laughing emojis.

Another social media user pointed out that Quinn’s comments about Richard’s hairline were “putting it lightly” considering his recent arrest for assault.

“I’m being nice,” Quinn replied. “He deserves all that’s coming 💣 .”

Quinn and Richard, 45, separated in March after five years of marriage when the businessman was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon . Us Weekly confirmed at the time that Richard was taken into police custody for allegedly throwing a bag with glass in it at Quinn. The real estate agent claimed the glass missed her and instead hit the couple’s 2-year-old son, Christian.

Richard was released from police custody that same day on a $30,000 bond. Quinn also filed a temporary restraining order against Richard, which he was arrested for violating the next day. He was ultimately released from jail after posting bail again.

Related: Inside Christine Quinn's Legal Battle With Her Ex-Husband: A Timeline

Richard officially filed for divorce from Quinn in April, citing irreconcilable differences as the reason for their breakup. In her own documents, the reality TV star noted that she is seeking sole legal and physical custody of son Christian because Richard’s “actions and behavior have put [their] son’s health and wellbeing at risk.”

Richard has not publicly addressed any of Quinn’s allegations. He was formally charged with three misdemeanor counts of child abuse/endangerment, assault and violation of a protective order in May.

“[Christian] has now been formally charged with child abuse against his 2-year-old toddler, assault against Christine Quinn, and for violating a restraining order,” Quinn’s attorney said in a statement that month. “We believe this development is a crucial step toward safeguarding the legal and personal interests of both victims and trust that the matter will continue to be handled with the utmost seriousness it deserves.”

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Richard did not enter a plea during a June hearing, leading a judge to issue a criminal restraining order .

While Quinn has not further addressed the legal battle, her former Selling Sunset costar Nicole Young exclusively told Us in June that Quinn is “doing great despite everything she’s dealing with.”

“I’m really proud of her,” Young, 37, said. “She’s got her game face on and she’s not one to be taken down. She’s in a really good headspace and she’s doing well so it’s been fun to be with her.”

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