DEEP below the deceptively crystal clear waters of Sicily’s Tyrrhenian Sea, the wreck of super-yacht Bayesian is yet to give up all its secrets.
The final photographs captured of the London-registered vessel, which tragically went down in a storm last year, were taken before diving expeditions to the site were prohibited following the death of a diver from a salvage team.
This recent tragedy, stemming from an explosion three weeks ago, increased the death toll to eight, including six passengers and one crew member who perished when the £30 million yacht sank on August 19 of last year.
They included multi-millionaire British tech businessman Mike Lynch, 59, and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah.
Experienced photographer Massimo Sestini, who ventured 163 feet beneath the surface to capture these haunting images of the wreck encrusted with barnacles, is acutely aware of the dangers posed by such underwater endeavors.
In January, he was left in a coma after a dive in an ice-cold Italian lake went terribly wrong.
Fortunate to survive that very close call, the 62-year-old daredevil photographer still went down to the Bayesian in April. Massimo, who has also photographed the wreck of Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia, which struck a rock and partially sank in 2012, told The Sun: “It is dangerous down there.
“It is very dark, there is a current that brings up the sand so that visibility is down to one metre at times.
“But I was not scared.”
The mystery of what brought the “unsinkable” Bayesian to its watery grave is at the centre of a multi-million-pound war of words.
This month a preliminary report by Britain’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch — involved because the Bayesian was a UK- registered vessel — said the yacht, with its 236ft aluminium mast, was “vulnerable to high winds”.
Investigators think the boat was knocked over by 100mph winds in a “mesocyclonic storm front” just before 4am while anchored half a mile off the Sicilian fishing port of Porticello.
But this theory runs counter to the one put forward by the firm which built the 184ft-long yacht.
Giovanni Costantino, boss of boat-building firm TISG, or The Italian Sea Group, insisted the ship’s design was safe.
Legal action
He believes that one of the hatches was most likely left open, letting in the water which sank the Bayesian.
He said: “It tilted 90 degrees for only one reason — because the water kept coming in.”
It is very dark, there is a current that brings up the sand so that visibility is down to one metre at times. But I was not scared.
Massimo Sestini
There were rumours that divers to the wreck had seen windows and hatches open, but photographer Massimo said that from what he saw “it seems like the hatch wasn’t open”.
TISG, which owns the Perini Navi shipyard in Viareggio, Tuscany, where the Bayesian was built in 2008, has taken legal action against the New York Times for reporting in October that the single tall mast design made the vessel “vulnerable to capsizing”.
The Italian authorities are looking into a suspicion that the crew did not react quickly enough to the storm.
Two weeks ago the yacht’s skipper, New Zealander James Cutfield, used his right to silence when magistrates tried to question him.
British engineer Tim Parker-Eaton and deckhand Matthew Griffiths have also been placed under investigation.
Eyewitnesses claimed the Bayesian went under in “seconds”, but it has also been reported that the yacht took 16 minutes to sink.
Relatives of the victims, who include chef Recaldo Thomas, 59, guests Chris and Neda Morvillo, 59 and 57, and Jonathan and Judy Bloomer, 70 and 71, may sue if negligence can be proven.
But the best chance of discovering what really happened is by returning the ill-fated boat to the surface.
The risks posed by the perilous operation were made clear on May 9, when Dutch diver Robcornelis Maria Huijben Uiben, 39, was killed in an explosion as he tried to cut the yacht’s boom — a pole along the bottom of a sail — with an oxy-acetylene torch.
Since then the salvage has been conducted by submersible robots as much as possible.
When I saw the cold images of super-professional divers of the wreck on the screen, my heart sank.
Massimo Sestini
The boom was the first part of the Bayesian to be recovered last week, and the rest is set to be salvaged any day now.
That means Massimo, from Florence, was the last person to have the chance to photograph the wreck.
But he insisted the dive did not remind him of his brush with death in Lake Lavarone, in northern Italy, at the end of January.
He had stopped breathing under the icy water when there was a malfunction with his air supply.
But fortunately a diving instructor was on hand to rescue him. Massimo, who has snapped the then Prince Charles and Princess Diana during a 40-year career, was taken to hospital in a “critical condition”.
The photographer said: “I feel so privileged because I have a new life.
“For this, a special thank you goes to those who saved me.”
His previous exploits include leaning out of helicopters and perching on the end of a ship’s rigging to get the best images possible.
But watching a coastguard diver inspect the wreck of the Bayesian did remind Massimo of the people who drowned inside the yacht nine months ago.
He said: “When I saw the cold images of super-professional divers of the wreck on the screen, my heart sank.
“I thought of the seven people who died in the shipwreck.”
