TRAPPED LIKE MICE

Costantino said it was “good practice when the ship is at anchor to have a guard on the bridge, and if there was one he could not have failed to see the storm coming”.

“Instead it took on water with the guests still in the cabin. They ended up in a trap, those poor people ended up like mice in a trap,” he said.

The “Bayesian”  boasted a 75-metre mast, the tallest aluminium sailing mast in the world, according to the Charter World website.

It was reportedly owned by Lynch’s family.

Lynch was acquitted on all charges in a San Francisco court in June after he was accused of an US$11 billion fraud linked to the sale of his software firm Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard.

A co-defendant, former Autonomy executive Stephen Chamberlain, died after being hit by a car on Saturday in England.

Italian authorities have opened a probe into the sinking, while the UK’s marine accident investigation branch sent four inspectors to Palermo.