Captain Who Saw Sicily Yacht Sink Says Mike Lynch’s Wife Didn’t Want to Leave Scene Without Husband and Daughter

Mar. 15, 2025

Karsten Borner.Photo:Courtesy of Karsten Borner

Courtesy of Karsten Borner

“When things calmed down and the storm abated somewhat and the wind dropped a bit, we were looking around and couldn’t see theBayesiananymore,”Karsten Borner, the captain of theSir Robert Baden Powell, tells PEOPLE. “We checked the AIS [automatic identification system], and we also couldn’t see theBayesiananymore. Two passengers and two crew members saw what looked like a whale in the water and realized afterwards it was the capsized boat."

“The weather turned very quickly and reached us even more quickly,” he says. “And theBayesianwas there at the time. It was anchored like us. We kept an eye on it. We had turned the engine on to maintain our position in case the anchor didn’t hold and were carefully watching it to keep at a distance from it as well. We were the only two ships out in the bay.”

According to Borner, the weather turned into heavy rain, wind and lightning for a brief period. Then, the captain and his crew saw theBayesiansink.

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Borner and a passenger saw a red flare and then a white one. It prompted Borner and his first mate to board a tender, and they headed in the direction where theBayesianhad been. “We first found things floating in the water like cushions and chairs and stuff,” Borner continues. “And then we saw a flickering light. This was a life raft with a light on the top. And they also waved at us with a torch.”

The Sir Robert Baden Powell sailing ship.Courtesy of Karsten Borner

Borner also noticed four injured people, including Lynch’s wife and Hannah’s mother, Angela Bacares. “This was after the storm had passed,” he says, “because the wind appeared very suddenly out of the blue and it also stopped very, very quickly. When it passed, it was quiet again. And that’s when we were able to go out to search.”

Karsten Borner, captain of the sailing boat Sir Robert Baden Powell, is pictured on a small boat in Porticello near Palermo, on August 20, 2024 a day after the British-flagged luxury yacht Bayesian sank with 22 people onboard.ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP via Getty

ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP via Getty

The captain tells PEOPLE that he was busy contacting the coast guard and urging for medical help. “The coast guard hadn’t arrived yet at that point,” Borner says, “but when we came back with the survivors, they had already been on the VHF radio and were asking for news of theBayesianas they too noticed it had disappeared. It took some time for them to arrive, as they have one small in Porticello and the rest came from Palermo and elsewhere.”

The survivors told Borner there were still people inside the capsized yacht, which led the tender to be sent out again. “They looked around at sea and obviously didn’t find anything,” Borner says.

“[Bacares] didn’t want to leave because her husband and her daughter were still down," he adds. “She was picked up a little bit later because I asked the coast guard to take her as I thought she needed medical help. Then, over the course of the next two, three hours — [I] don’t know exactly how much later — the coast guards came and the rest of theBayesianpeople went away with them.”

The exact cause of the yacht’s sinking remains unknown and there are several theories about what contributed to the disaster.

Ambrogio Cartosio, the Chief Prosecutor of Termini Imerese, announced on Aug. 24 that authorities were launchingmanslaughter and negligent shipwreckinvestigations in connection with the sinking.

source: people.com