This tragic scene captures the recovery of the Bayesian superyacht wreckage, hoisted from the sea’s depths after it sank off the coast of Sicily last summer, resulting in the loss of seven lives.
Among the passengers on the ill-fated yacht were tech tycoon Mike Lynch, 59, and his daughter Hannah, 18, when it descended to the Mediterranean’s bottom.
The vessel sunk in just 16 minutes after being hit by a violent downburst.
Haunting images showed the Bayesian resurface for the first time in ten months after it sank in August 2024.
A gruelling rescue operation near the fishing village of Porticello, Italy, to recover the £14million yacht has been going on since May.
Bystanders watched in awe as the multimillion-pound ship rose to the top of the water as it was dragged up by one of Europe’s biggest cranes.
A spokesperson for the rescue operation firm said the yacht had been raised slowly from its position 165ft below the surface.
An official from TMC Maritime stated that their team had been working for the past three days to properly secure the steel lifting straps, slings, and harnesses under the keel.
The top of the passenger area of the Bayesian was visible on Friday, but not the entirety of the vessel.
The huge £20million recovery undertaking has been plagued by delays and even more tragedy – after a diver working on the operation died last month.
Robcornelis Maria Huijben Uiben, 39, died when working 160ft below the ocean alongside other workers – just days after recovery operations began.
This has prompted some locals to believe that the sunken ship is “cursed”.
A source with TMC Marine told MailOnline: “It was scheduled for Saturday but with the good weather and the accelerated progress things moved quickly on Friday and she was brought to the surface earlier than planned.
“She will remain half submerged until Saturday when the final lift will take place and she will then be sailed to a specially built cradle on the dockside.”
Workmen were seen on the vessel’s deck fixing guide lines as crews geared up for the next phase of the tricky recovery mission.
When the wreck finally resurfaced, the Bayesian was missing its towering 236ft mast, which had been sliced off and left on the seabed to be hauled up later.
Salvage teams said the mast had to be cut away so the yacht’s hull could be tilted upright and brought to the surface.
It comes after a bombshell report revealed the astonishing “vulnerability” of Mike Lynch’s “unsinkable” Bayesian superyacht which led to its tragic demise.
After examining the sinking of the 180ft Bayesian off Sicily last year, investigators now say the ship was knocked over by “extreme wind” and could not recover.
And they confirmed the vessel’s critical weakness was that the ship was vulnerable to wind.
An interim report by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch said the yacht had a “vulnerability” to lighter winds but the owner and crew would not have known.
It added it had “limited verified evidence” as the criminal probe in Italy had restricted its access.
The major update comes amid the arduous salvage operation for the superyacht.
Floating cranes, remote-controlled robots, and specialist divers amongst other marine experts have been brought in to recover the vessel.
A Hebo Lift 10 crane, thought to be one of the most powerful in Europe, arrived in Sicily on Saturday, May 3, from Rotterdam.
The first parts of tycoon Lynch’s superyacht were raised from the seabed in late May
Divers recovered the main boom and anchor of the ship nine months after it sank.
A pole which holds the bottom of the sail on the 184ft yacht was also recovered.
Billionaire Dr Lynch was celebrating being cleared of a massive fraud over the sale of Autonomy to computer giant Hewlett-Packard in 2011 when the Bayesian went down.
The other victims were banker Jonathan Bloomer, 70, and his wife Judy Bloomer, 71, as well as US lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda Morvillo, and Canadian-Antiguan chef Recaldo Thomas.
A further 15 people were rescued.
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.
