Watchman woke captain ahead of Sicily yacht sinking—reports

The sailor on duty the night a superyacht sank off the coast of Sicily last month, killing seven people, had sounded an alarm and woke the captain, Italian press reported.

Prosecutors on the Italian island have been investigating possible shipwreck and manslaughter charges after the Bayesian sank in a pre-dawn storm on Aug. 19, killing British tech tycoon Mike Lynch, his daughter, and five others. 

"I monitored the weather conditions all evening" including wind that was coming in around 40 kilometers per hour (25 mph), Matthew Griffiths was quoted by news agency Ansa, which did not provide a source. 

"I then immediately woke the captain who took charge of operations. He gave the order to wake the others," he said. 

Captain James Cutfield, a 51-year-old New Zealand national, was one of 15 people who survived—nine of the 10 crew members and six of the 12 passengers. 

He has been the focus of the investigation along with engineer Tim Parker Eaton, who was in charge of the engine room that night, and Griffith, the crewman on lookout. 

Cutfield confirmed he was woken by the lookout and had ordered "to inform the others because I didn't like the situation," he was quoted as saying by the Corriere della Sera newspaper. 

The crew said the vessel then suddenly tilted and several crew members found themselves at sea. 

"We managed to get back on board and tried to form a human chain to save those who made it to the deck," Griffith said. 

He added that the captain was the first in the chain and he helped everyone. 

Lynch, 59, had invited friends and family onto the boat to celebrate his recent acquittal in a huge US fraud case.

But the 56-meter (185-foot) yacht was struck by a storm as it was anchored off Porticello, near Palermo, and sank within minutes.

The bodies of Lynch, his 18-year-old daughter Hannah and friends were recovered over the subsequent days in a major search operation. (AFP)