"I monitored the weather conditions all evening," including wind that was coming in around 40 kilometres per hour (25 mph), Matthew Griffiths said, according to Italian 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," Griffiths added, according to Ansa.
Prosecutors on the Italian island are investigating possible shipwreck and manslaughter charges after the Bayesian sank in a pre-dawn storm on August 19th, killing Mike Lynch and six others.
Captain James Cutfield, a New Zealand citizen who was among the 15 survivors (nine of the 10 crew members and six of the 12 passengers), is under investigation, as are engineer Tim Parker Eaton, who was in charge of the engine room that night, and seaman Matthew Griffith, who was on watch duty.
Cutfield confirmed that he was woken up by the sailor and gave the order "to inform the others because I didn't like the situation", according to the Corriere della Sera daily.
Then the yacht suddenly tilted and several crew members ended up at sea.
"We managed to get back on board and we tried to make a human chain to save those who reached the deck," the sailor said.
He maintained that the captain was the first in this chain and that he "helped everyone, the ladies, the mother with her little girl."
Mike Lynch, 59, a wealthy businessman nicknamed the "British Bill Gates," was celebrating his acquittal in June in a fraud trial in the United States that could have cost him years in prison with his friends, colleagues and lawyers .
But the 56-metre yacht was hit by a mini-tornado while it was anchored off Porticello, near Palermo.
The body of the yacht's cook was found shortly afterwards, and the bodies of six people, including Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter, were found by divers in the following days.
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