The 56-meter sailing yacht Bayesian sank early Monday morning in severe weather while at anchor off the coast of Sicily. The yacht is believed to have been struck by a waterspout. There were 22 passengers and crew aboard when the yacht sank.  Fifteen were rescued from a life raft, while one person died. Six are reported missing and feared dead.

Among the missing are British tech tycoon Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah. His wife, Angela Bacares, was reported to have been rescued.

Also among the rescued was a one-year-old British girl. The child was airlifted to the children’s hospital in Palermo. Eight people were hospitalized in total, according to the mayor’s office.

Salvo Cocina from Sicily’s civil protection agency has said the Bayesian was “in the wrong place at the wrong time”.

Mike Lynch, known by some as the ‘UK’s Bill Gates’, had been plagued by legal woes since 2011, when he sold his company to tech firm Hewlett-Packard (HP) for $11 billion.

In June, he was acquitted of fraud by a jury in San Francisco, after prosecutors accused him of trying to inflate Autonomy’s revenue in the latest chapter of the legal saga.

The Telegraph reports that Lynch and his guests were celebrating his acquittal when disaster struck.

There are also media reports that among the missing are Christopher Morvillo and his wife. Morvillio helped Lynch win acquittal at a recent trial. Jonathan Bloomer, the chairman of Morgan Stanley International, was also reported to be among the missing.

The yacht Bayesian was a custom sloop launched in 2008 by Perini Navi, in Italy. She was 56.00 meters in length, with a max draft of 9.73 meters and a beam of 11.51 meters. She has a gross tonnage of 473 tonnes. Bayesian has an aluminum hull with an aluminum superstructure. The sloop was said to have the tallest aluminum mast in the world.

Thanks to Alaric Bond for contributing to this post.

One dead, six missing, 15 rescued after luxury British yacht sinks off Sicily