THE salvage operation for the Bayesian superyacht that sank off the coast of Sicily has begun.

Seven people died when Brit billionaire Mike Lynch’s luxury vessel sank off the coast of Porticello during a storm last summer.

The salvage operation begun on Sunday and includes floating cranes, remote-controlled robots, and specialist divers amongst other marine experts.

The Hebo Lift 10 crane is thought to be one of the most powerful in Europe and arrived in Sicily on Saturday from Rotterdam.

The Italian Coast Guard believe the operation could take between 20 and 25 days.

The boat lies 160ft below the surface on the ocean floor.

The yacht’s 246-foot aluminum mast, which is the second tallest globally, will be shortened to simplify raising the hull to the surface, according to Coast Guard Captain Nicola Silvestri.

About ten steel cables will then be threaded underneath the yacht to create a harness to raise it from the seabed. 

From there the yacht will be hoisted to the surface in a complex procedure which will probably last two days.

After the wreck is brought ashore, judicial authorities investigating the sinking will examine it.

Marcus Cave, Head of Naval Architecture and a Director of TMC Marine, said that the next seven to 10 days would be spent planning.

Then they would begun the underwater work.

The 184ft Bayesian sank while anchored 985ft off the coast of a small fishing port near Palermo. 

Among the victims were businessman Mike Lynch, 59, and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah.

Merely two months before the tragedy, Lynch had been acquitted of accusations regarding a substantial fraud related to his software company, Autonomy’s sale to Hewlett-Packard in 2011.

The boat trip was a celebration of his acquittal in the case in the US.

Among those who lost their lives on board were Morgan Stanley executive Jonathan Bloomer and his wife Judy, US attorney Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda, as well as the yacht’s chef, Recaldo Thomas.

Fifteen others were rescued from the yacht on emergency lifeboats.

The accident is still being treated as suspected manslaughter, with New Zealander captain James Cutfield and two British crew members under investigation by Italian authorities.  

Tragically, initial investigations revealed that four victims survived the sinking but died in an air pocket.

It comes after the boss of the Perini Navi company which built the Bayesian Giovanni Costantino, branded the boat “unsinkable” and slammed the crew  for making key “mistakes” and failing to “close the doors and hatches.”  

Mr Costantino told The Sun in August : “Modern sailing ships, especially high-tech ones like the Perini, are designed to be extremely safe and stable.

“Even in very critical conditions, if procedures are followed, a sailing yacht like the Bayesian will return to an upright position.

“However, if the ship takes on water, this stability is compromised.

“Where the water entered will be determined by the investigators.

“What is certain is that the ship took on hundreds of thousands of litres of water.”

He added: “The crew did not handle the adverse weather conditions properly and did not follow the correct procedures to ensure safety.”

Inside the Bayesian’s final 16 minutes

By Ellie Doughty, Foreign News Reporter

Data recovered from the Bayesian’s Automatic Identification System (AIS) breaks down exactly how it sank in a painful minute-by-minute timeline.

At 3.50am on Monday August 19 the Bayesian began to shake “dangerously” during a fierce storm, Italian outlet Corriere revealed.

Just minutes later at 3.59am the boat’s anchor gave way, with a source saying the data showed there was “no anchor left to hold”.

After the ferocious weather ripped away the boat’s mooring it was dragged some 358 metres through the water.

By 4am it had began to take on water and was plunged into a blackout, indicating that the waves had reached its generator or even engine room.

At 4.05am the Bayesian fully disappeared underneath the waves.

An emergency GPS signal was finally emitted at 4.06am to the coastguard station in Bari, a city nearby, alerting them that the vessel had sunk.

Early reports suggested the disaster struck around 5am local time off the coast of Porticello Harbour in Palermo, Sicily.

The new data pulled from the boat’s AIS appears to suggest it happened an hour earlier at around 4am.

Some 15 of the 22 onboard were rescued, 11 of them scrambling onto an inflatable life raft that sprung up on the deck.

A smaller nearby boat – named Sir Robert Baden Powell – then helped take those people to shore.