Sicily yacht latest: British tech tycoon Mike Lynch and daughter missing after superyacht capsized in Italy

The daughter of Mike Lynch is among those missing after a luxury yacht sank off the coast of Sicily, local authorities have said.

Salvatore Cocina, director general of Sicily’s civil protection agency, told the BBC that 18-year-old Hannah Lynch was confirmed to be missing with her father, along with the yacht’s chef, Ricardo Thomas.

He added the rescue operation would continue overnight.

Italian authorities have said it doesn’t “make sense” that they haven’t found more missing people despite searching all day.

A spokesperson for Sicily’s civil protection agency told the BBC that they “must be there [in the boat]”.

“We’ve been searching all day with helicopters and boats, we’ve found nothing. That wouldn’t make sense, in this conditions we should have found something by now,” Mr Venuto added.

It comes after a spokesman for Italy’s firefighting service told The Times earlier that it was unlikely more survivors would be found.

After hours of searching, the Palermo coastguard have confirmed the body recovered from the sunken yacht this morning was the ship’s cook.

They said six passengers remain missing as the coastguard continue their search and rescue operation ‘incessantly’.

Four patrol boats, a helicopters and a team of divers are involved, in the search effort. A naval and underwater team from the Palermo fire brigade have also joined the search

The yacht is about half a mile out to sea and is 50 metres underwater

The luxury yacht sunk off the coast of Palermo, Sicily.

The 56-metre long sailboat sank with 22 people on board shortly before sunrise, the Italian coast guard said in a statement.

“The wind was very strong. Bad weather was expected, but not of this magnitude,” a coast guard official in Palermo told Reuters.

Storms and heavy rainfall have swept down Italy in recent days – with floods and landslides causing major damage in the north of the country – after weeks of scorching heat.

The boat left the Sicilian port of Milazzo on 14 August and was last tracked east of Palermo on Sunday evening, with a navigation status of “at anchor”, according to vessel tracking app Vesselfinder.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office says it is supporting “a number of British nationals and their families” after a luxury yacht sunk off the coast of Sicily.

“We are providing consular support to a number of British nationals and their families following an incident in Sicily, and are in contact with the local authorities,” an FCDO spokesperson said in a statement.

15 people are believed to have been rescued from a British-flagged luxury superyacht that sank in bad weather off the coast of Sicily in the early hours of the morning.

22 people are believed to have been on board, including the owner of the boat British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, who is missing.

Of the 15 people, eight are believed to have been taken to hospital to treat injuries.

Mr Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, is one of the 15 rescued.

Other survivors have been confirmed as Charlotte and James Emsley and their one-year-old daughter Sofia. They are all being treated in hospital.

“I held her afloat with all my strength, my arms stretched upwards to keep her from drowning,” Charlotte told local media. “It was all dark. In the water I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I screamed for help but all I could hear around me was the screams of others.”

The ship that has sunk off the coast of Sicily with British technology tycoon Mike Lynch was called the Bayesian.

It had completed a number of sailings in recent days, calling at various ports in Sicily, according to ship-tracking website VesselFinder.

The superyacht can accommodate up to 12 guests in six suites, and is listed for rent for up to 195,000 euros (£166,000 ) a week.

 56-metre sailing yacht was built in 2008 by Italian company Perini Navi.

Her registered owner is listed as Revtom Ltd, which is based on the Isle of Man.

CCTV footage posted on Facebook shows the storm that blew through parts of Sicily overnight on Sunday and Monday, before a yachtcarrying British tourists capsized off Palermo.

One person died and seven are missing after the British-flagged vessel – named by the coast guard as the Bayesian – capsized and sank at about 5am on Monday 19 August.

The Independent understands that British tech tycoon Mike Lynch is among six people missing after the 56-metre (184-foot) yacht sank.

Footage shows the storm in the village of Santa Nicolicchia.

The British technology tycoon currently amongst those missing from a sunken super-yacht off the cost of Sicily told a journalist he was “about to go on a very long holiday” just last month.

Mike Lynch, 59, had spent more than a year under house arrest in the US when he was finally cleared of conducting a massive fraud relating to an 11 billion dollar sale to US company Hewlett Packard (HP).

Upon his acquittal, he told Sunday Times journalist Danny Fortson that he was ready to take a “big deep breath” and relax with his family.

In the interview he said: “It’s bizarre, but now you have a second life. The question is, what do you want to do with it?”