Inside the 'delicate' operation to hoist Mike Lynch's superyacht back up to the surface

Australia Broadcast Center

23-06-2025

The sunken wreck of a superyacht has been raised from Sicilian waters as authorities investigate an accident that killed seven people, including UK tech magnate Mike Lynch.
The British-flagged luxury yacht has been underwater since it sunk off the coast of Sicily in August.
But over the weekend, it was raised from the depths.
The white top and blue hull of the 56-metre-long Bayesian, covered with algae and mud, was visibly clear of the sea in a holding area of a yellow floating crane barge off the Sicilian port of Porticello.
Crane ships were tasked with bringing the yacht back up to the surface.
But given the yacht weighed nearly 430 tonnes and was about 50 metres below the water, it was always going to take time to resurface the vessel.
It was slowly raised from the seabed over three days.
Before raising the yacht, the recovery crew cut off its 72m mast on Tuesday.
It had to be detached to allow the hull to be brought to a nearly upright position that would allow the craft to be raised.
TMC Maritime, the company conducting the recovery, said this move sped up the operation by about a week.
The recovery crew used a remote-controlled cutting tool to shear off the mast, which was left on the seabed for future removal.
Steel lifting straps were secured under the keel.
When conditions were right, a steel wire lifting system began raising the vessel out of the water.
As the superyacht was raised, seawater was pumped out of the hull.
TMC described the operation as a "delicate lifting procedure".
In photos of the operation, Bayesian's upper decks appeared badly damaged while the blue hull was encrusted with mud.
Recovery crews finalised the complex operation to lift it out of the water on Sunday.
Keeping the vessel completely out of the water, the barge moved towards the Sicilian port of Termini Imerese — about 20 kilometres away from Porticello by land.
The barge docked in Termini Imerese in the early afternoon.
From there, it's expected to be transported and settled in a specially built steel cradle on Monday, local time.
It'll be made available for investigators for further examinations to help determine the cause of the sinking.
Marine salvage experts began the operation to recover the superyacht in early May.
However, the operation was temporarily halted after a diver's death a few days later.
Italian news agencies reported the diver was a 39-year-old Dutch national who worked for the Dutch specialist salvage company Hebo Maritiemservice.
In early June, salvage teams recovered 17 pieces of suspected Bayesian debris from the sea floor identified using a remote-controlled submersible.
They were taken to shore in Termini Imerese as part of the investigation.
The yacht sank off Porticello, near Palermo, during a violent storm on August 19.
Lynch died along five of his guests and one crew member.
Fifteen people survived, including the captain and the remaining crew members.
Among the dead were Mr Lynch's 18-year-old daughter Hannah, Mr Lynch's lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda, banker Jonathan Bloomer and his wife Judy, and onboard chef Recaldo Thomas.
Mr Thomas's body was found near the wreck hours after the disaster.
The bodies of the remaining dead were recovered by divers in the days following the sinking.
Mr Lynch had been treating friends to a cruise to celebrate his acquittal on fraud charges two months earlier in the US.
He founded a search engine called Autonomy in 1996, which he ending up selling to Hewlett-Packard for $US11 billion in 2011.
However, the deal quickly turned sour after he was accused of forging the software's financial records to make the sale.
The British tycoon eventually walked free of the criminal charges in June 2024.
Italian authorities are conducting a full criminal investigation.
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 crew of the Bayesian had chosen the site where it sank as shelter from forecast thunderstorms.
Wind speeds exceeded 70 knots at the time of the sinking and "violently" knocked the vessel over to a 90-degree angle in under 15 seconds.
ABC with Wires