RMM 2013 Problem 1

For a positive integer $a$, define a sequence of integers $x_{1}, x_{2}, \ldots$ by letting $x_{1}=a$ and $x_{n+1}=2 x_{n}+1$ for $n \geq 1$. Let $y_{n}=2^{x_{n}}-1$. Determine the largest possible $k$ such that, for some positive integer $a$, the numbers $y_{1}, \ldots, y_{k}$ are all prime. (Russia) Valery Senderov