A BRITISH mum who saved her baby in the Bayesian yacht sinking said the disaster felt like the “end of the world”.
Charlotte Golunski held her one-year-old daughter above the surface of the sea to stop her drowning during yesterday’s disaster off the coast of Sicily.
They were among the reported 15 people rescued from the water early on Monday.
Six others, including British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, who owns the vessel and was hosting a party, remain missing.
The body of chef Recaldo Thomas, from Canada, was recovered from the water.
Charlotte said she, her daughter and partner survived because they were on the deck when the yacht sank at around 4am local time.
She described being woken by “thunder, lightning and waves that made our boat dance”.
They were then thrown into the water.
It comes as…
The 183ft yacht was carrying 12 passengers and 10 crew. It sank half a mile off the coast of the island’s capital Palermo.
It had been struck by tornadic waterspouts amid the storm, with witnesses describing its mast – the second longest in the world – snapping.
Speaking to Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Charlotte said: “For two seconds I lost my daughter in the sea then quickly hugged her amid the fury of the waves.”
The brave mum said she held her child “afloat with all my strength, my arms stretched upwards to keep her from drowning”.
“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,” she added.
Charlotte, her baby and partner were among 11 people able to scramble onto an inflated lifeboat.
A nearby boat, captained by Karsten Borner, took survivors on board, describing three as seriously injured.
Charlotte and her family were taken to hospital for check ups.
Clifford Chance lawyer Ayla Ronald, 36, and her partner were also among those rescued – as was Mr Lynch’s wife Angela Bacares, 57.
The latter suffered horrific injuries after walking across broken glass to safety.
Footage and pictures from the scene showed hordes of firefighters, divers and police scouring the water all day Monday, overnight and again today.
The vessel is lying 50 metres underwater, with divers continuing to navigate the wreckage.
All six people missing are tragically believed to still be inside the wreck, the Italian Coast Guard has said.
Tech tycoon Mr Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Charlotte are among those unaccounted for.
Top New York lawyer Chris Morvillo, a solicitor at major firm Clifford Chance who worked for Mr Lynch, and his wife Neda are also missing.
International chairman of bank giant Morgan Stanley, Brit Jonathan Bloomer, 70, along with his wife Judy, are also missing.
As time runs out, search and rescue workers only have 10 minutes working under water at a time.
Extreme winds and rain battered the Porticello port near Palermo overnight on Sunday before the tragic accident.
It caused swirling twister-like columns of air, called waterspouts, to engulf the 184ft superyacht.
Some 22 horrified passengers, made up of mostly Brits, screamed in fear as the boat flipped over.
Witnesses said a tornado snapped the 246ft mast – the world’s second tallest – clean in half.
Mr Lynch, previously dubbed “the British Bill Gates“, was hosting a party on the boat along with his wife and daughter.
The business tycoon – worth an estimated £852m – was surrounded by members of his legal firm and company Invoke Capital to celebrate a US jury clearing him of fraud earlier this summer.
He was extradited to the US in 2023 over the £8.5billion sale of his software firm Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard in 2011 and was accused of inflating the company’s value.
The dad-of-two had spent a year under house arrest in the States.
He was cleared of 16 counts of wire fraud, securities fraud and conspiracy, following a trial in San Francisco in June.
By Ellie Doughty, Foreign News Reporter
THE BAYESIAN superyacht was hosting a lavish party for 12 guests, with 10 crew also onboard.
After 15 people were rescued from the water on Monday, six people remain missing and one has been found dead.
Italian authorities said the man recovered near the yacht wreckage was the chef working onboard.
Four of the missing are British and two are American.
Mike Lynch, 59, and his daughter Hannah, 18, are among the four Brits lost at sea.
International chairman of bank giant Morgan Stanley, Brit Jonathan Bloomer, 70, is also missing along with his wife Judy.
As is top New York lawyer Chris Morvillo, a solicitor at major firm Clifford Chance who worked for Mike Lynch, and his wife Neda.
