Superyacht that sank with British tech magnate Mike Lynch on board recovered by salvage crews
A British-flagged luxury superyacht that sank off Sicily last year, killing U.K. tech magnate Mike Lynch and six others, resurfaced Saturday as salvage recovery crews finalized the complex operation to bring it ashore for further investigation.
The white top and blue hull of the 184-foot Bayesian was visible on the surface but was not clear of the sea yet in a holding area of a yellow floating crane barge.
"Pumping out of sea water will continue and it will be lunchtime, following a series of lifting and resting procedures to satisfy the salvage team, before Bayesian is fully and finally out of the water," said David Wilson, spokesman for TMC Maritime, which is conducting the recovery operation.
The local coast guard said the lifting operation is expected to be concluded by the early afternoon and will be followed by some technical tests on the hull. On Sunday, the vessel will be transported to the Sicilian port of Termini Imerese, where it will be made available for investigators to help determine the cause of the sinking.
The hull of the superyacht Bayesian, which sank near Palermo, Sicily, on August 19, 2024, is pulled out of the sea and dewatered off the village of Porticello Saturday, June 21, 2025.
Salvatore Cavalli / AP
The Bayesian sank Aug. 19 off Porticello, near Palermo, during a violent storm as Lynch was treating friends to a cruise to celebrate his acquittal two months earlier in the U.S. on fraud charges. Lynch, his daughter and five others died. Fifteen people survived, including the captain and all crew members except the chef. One survivor reported holding her 1-year-old child above the waves.
Italian authorities are conducting a full criminal investigation.
TMC Maritime said the vessel has been slowly raised from the seabed, 165 feet down, over the past three days to allow the steel lifting straps, slings and harnesses to be secured under the keel. The depth of the wreck requires special precautions. It's far deeper than most recreational divers are certified for. One diver died during an earlier operation to try and raise the ship. In the immediate aftermath of the sinking, recovery crews could only stay for 12-minute shifts. Specialized cave divers were used to help search the wreckage.
Eight steel lifting straps are being used to support the hull upright and to form part of a steel wire lifting system that began raising the vessel out of the water Saturday. As it is lifted up, sea water is pumped out of the hull.
TMC Maritime said the vessel will be held upright, out of the water, for checks and preparations for its final journey.
The hull of the superyacht Bayesian, which sank near Palermo, Sicily, on August 19, 2024, is lifted by cranes during salvage operations off the village of Porticello Saturday, June 21, 2025.
Salvatore Cavalli / AP
The floating crane platform will then move the Bayesian to Termini Imerese, where a special steel cradle is waiting for it.
The Bayesian is missing its 236-foot mast, which was cut off and left on the seabed for future removal. The mast had to be detached to allow the hull to be brought to a nearly upright position that would allow the craft to be raised.
British investigators said in an interim report issued last month that the yacht was knocked over by "extreme wind" and couldn't recover.
The report said the Bayesian had chosen the site where it sank as shelter from forecast thunderstorms. Wind speeds exceeded 70 knots, or 81 miles per hour, at the time of the sinking and "violently" knocked the vessel over to a 90-degree angle in under 15 seconds.
Karsten Borner, the captain of the Sir Robert Baden Powell that rescued the 15 survivors who managed to get into a lifeboat, said he was close enough to be able to see the Bayesian as the storm came in.
"A moment later, she was gone," he said.
Lynch, who sold Autonomy, a software maker he founded in 1996, to Hewlett-Packard for $11 billion in 2011, had been acquitted on fraud charges in June 2024 by a federal court jury in San Francisco.
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