Pictured: Luxury superyacht chef killed when £30m vessel sunk
This is the first photo of a luxury superyacht chef who was killed when the vessel sank after being hit by a freak storm off the Sicilian coast.
Recaldo Thomas, a Canadian citizen working in Antigua, is the first confirmed victim of the disaster yesterday morning.
Tributes poured in to him today, with a friend hailing him as a ‘very special person’ who ‘had so much to give’.
Others shared photos of the chef on his travels around the world, during which he would regularly post on social media about his stunning culinary creations.
Six people including British tech tycoon Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter, as well as a Morgan Stanley boss, remain missing after the £30million Bayesian sank amid a freak thunderstorm early on Monday morning.
Recaldo Thomas, a Canadian citizen working in Antigua, is the first confirmed victim of the disaster yesterday morning
Tributes poured in to him today, with a friend hailing him as a ‘very special person’ who ‘had so much to give’
The chef would regularly post on social media about his stunning culinary creations
A file photo showing the Bayesian sailing off Palermo, Sicily
Search teams say the boat is marooned 164ft below the surface on the seabed and is so deep that dive teams can only go down for 10 minutes at a time, with their efforts being hampered by furniture blocking the entrances.
One expert has claimed that the ship, which is almost completely intact despite not being ‘anchored in a safe place’ before it sank, could have trapped pockets of air inside that might allow survivors to stay alive after the ‘unprecedented’ disaster.
Nick Sloane, an engineer who led the salvage operation on the Costa Concordia, said ‘the next 24 hours are critical’ if any of the missing people are to be found alive, with a time limit of ‘two to three days’ before anyone who has found an air pocket runs out of oxygen.
There have been instances in the past of people surviving for days underwater in these circumstances, but rescue divers have warned that they are prepared to find bodies instead of living, breathing survivors.
Despite the sliver of hope, Italian Coastguard officials have said they believe the six people who are still missing have died and their bodies are inside the wreck.
Vincenzo Zagarola said: ‘We think they are still inside the boat, that is our very hard idea.
‘Our search and rescue activity by sea and air has gone on for around 36 hours. Of course, we do not exclude that they are not inside the boat, but we know the boat sank quickly.
‘We suppose that the six people missing may not have had time to get out of the boat.’
Asked about the likelihood of them being alive, he replied: ‘Never say never, but reasonably the answer should be not.’
British tech tycoon Mike Lynch is still missing. His wife Angela Bacares (right) was among the 15 people who were rescued from the yacht
Engineering expert Nick Sloane, who led the salvage operation for the Costa Concordia, has claimed that there is a chance there may be survivors trapped in air pockets inside the wrecked ship
Among those missing is Mr Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, a former pupil at Latymer Upper School in West London who received her A-Level results last week and was offered a place at Oxford.
Today, a spokesman for the school said they were ‘incredibly shocked’ by the news of the sinking and shared their thoughts with ‘her family and everyone involved’.
Also believed to be in the wreck is Clifford Chance lawyer Chris Morvillo, who represented Mr Lynch in a recent legal battle and his wife Neda, and Morgan Stanley International bank chairman Jonathan Bloomer and his wife Judy.
Athena Lamnisos, CEO of Gynaecological cancer research charity Eve Appeal, where Ms Bloomer has been a trustee for more than 20 years, today hailed her a ‘brilliant champion for women’s health’.
Mr Lynch had invited family and friends onto the yacht to celebrate his ‘second life’ after being acquitted of all charges in a US fraud trial, and in an extraordinary twist his co-defendant Stephen Chamberlain – who was also cleared of the charges – has also died after being hit by a car while running in England over the weekend.
Those who could escape piled into the Survitech Zodiac liferaft, which self-inflated on hitting the water in an emergency. The French-made device comes packed in a compact cube the size of a large suitcase and is rated to hold 12 people.
However, in the chaos 15 people were forced to take shelter on the craft before they were rescued by a nearby yacht and taken to shore.
The injured who were rescued by the medics and taken to hospital are James Emsilie, 35 years old with his wife Sharlotte Golunski 35 years old and little Sophia, one year old. They are all English and are in the Children’s Hospital.
