Experts seen starting £20million operation to raise the doomed Bayesian almost a year after superyacht tragedy

Daily Mail​

04-05-2025

Marine salvage experts have begun a £20million operation to recover the wreck of the sunken superyacht, Bayesian.
The vessel sank in a freak storm off the fishing village of Porticello, Sicily, last August, killing seven - including billionaire tech tycoon Mike Lynch, 59, and his daughter Hannah, 18.
The salvage mission, which will see the wreckage lifted 164ft from the seabed, will be conducted by two crane ships: Hebo Lift 2 and Hebo Lift 10.
Hebo Lift 2's underwater technology will be combined with Hebo Lift 10, said to be one of the most powerful maritime structures in Europe, with the aim of raising Bayesian by mid-May.
Lifting the £30million, 543-ton vessel is key to an investigation launched by Italian authorities, who want to know why the yacht – which makers The Italian Sea Group claim was unsinkable – sank in just 16 minutes.
Prosecutors are said to be investigating the captain and two crew members for possible responsibility.
The wreckage will be raised after a series of slings have been threaded under the hull, while booms have been set up to control any spillage from the 18,000 litres of fuel still in the yacht's tanks.
The lifting is expected to take at least eight hours and the yacht will be sailed back to Termini Imerese once it is out of the water.
Mr Lynch, the founder of Cambridge-based software firm Autonomy, had invited a group of friends, family and associates on to the yacht to celebrate being cleared by a US jury of fraud charges that could have seen him jailed for 20 years.
In addition to Mr Lynch and his daughter Hannah, Morgan Stanley International Chairman Jonathan Bloomer and wife Judy, attorney Chris Morvillo and wife Neda, and ship's cook Recaldo Thomas died in the shipwreck.
With the help of nearby vessels, 15 of the 22 total people on board were rescued in the initial phase - with one body recovered and six others reported missing.
The bodies of the six missing people were later found following search efforts which continued until August 23 last year.
In the days after the tragedy, the CEO of the Italian Sea Group lay the blame at crew members on the yacht.
Giovanni Costantino said: 'This was human error, the yacht sank because it took on water.
'From where exactly the investigators will tell us. The dynamic of the sinking is seen and read from AIS (Automatic Identification System) data and lasted sixteen minutes.
'We have given this data to the prosecutors at Termini Immerse. From the images it looks as if the yacht had been taking on water for four minutes.
'All it took was another gust of wind to turn her over, that meant more water coming in. She then straightened very briefly before going down.'
Pictured: A fisherman with the backdrop of the Hebo Lift 2 earlier today
Mr Constantino told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera there were a long list of errors; the stern hatch was 'clearly' open; the ship's keel should have been lowered; people shouldn't have been in their cabins' and the crew should have known about the storm.
He said the tragedy was avoidable and added: 'Ask yourself - why were no fishermen from Porticello out that night? A fisherman reads the weather conditions and a ship doesn't?
'The storm was in all the weather charts. It couldn't have been ignored.'
Nick Barke, head of salvage operations at Boats.co.uk, previously told MailOnline that the 'only real way of knowing' why the yacht sank would be to lift it to the surface.