Wreck of sunken $30m yacht Bayesian to be examined

The wreckage of the Bayesian superyacht is now on dry land in Sicily after being lifted from the seabed and carried on a slow final journey from the spot where it sank in a storm last summer, killing seven passengers and crew.

The yacht, which belonged to the British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, has finally been recovered in a complex $30m (£22.2m) operation to allow Italian prosecutors to inspect the wreck as part of their ongoing investigation.

Mr Lynch and his teenage daughter were among seven passengers and crew who died when the Bayesian was knocked over by sudden extreme winds and sank within minutes.

Their bodies were retrieved by divers several days later.

Other smaller vessels in the same area that day survived the storm intact, leaving experts struggling to understand why the luxury yacht was affected so badly.

At the time, prosecutors in Sicily announced a criminal inquiry into potential manslaughter and negligent shipwreck, describing its outcome as "completely unpredictable".

They made clear that recovering the Bayesian itself would be essential.

Now the yacht is out of the water, experts for the prosecution will be able to examine the physical evidence and start to come up with some answers.

The salvage operation began in May, but was quickly struck by fresh disaster when one of the divers was killed in an underwater explosion.

The entire operation involving dozens of experts had to be paused.

The diving team was then replaced by remote-controlled submersibles for safety, delaying the process.

Fixing straps around the hull, or the main body of the vessel, was also tougher than anticipated.

But last week the salvage team, managed by TMC Maritime, finally cut the giant, 72m aluminium mast off the yacht, allowing the hull to right itself under water.

Raising it 50m to the surface was then a delicate three-day operation with regular checks for any fuel spills or other pollution.

Prosecutors wanted the remains of the superyacht kept as intact as possible.

It was only on Sunday, dangling from a giant floating crane with multiple straps beneath its belly, that the Bayesian was ready to be carried the 16km (10 miles) or so towards shore.

On Monday morning, it was lowered into a metal cradle in the port of Termini Imerese where the wreckage, now grey and battered, will be left to dry out before any formal inspection or forensic tests are conducted.

In the meantime, salvage teams will retrieve the giant mast and the rigging from the seabed and do a final sweep for any other materials that may help the enquiry.

Mr Lynch, a tech entrepreneur sometimes dubbed "Britain's Bill Gates", was last summer acquitted of fraud charges in the US and the trip around Sicily with family and friends was planned as a celebration.

In the early hours of 19 August his luxury yacht was anchored just offshore near the port of Porticello, when the storm hit.

There has been endless speculation about why the Bayesian sank ever since: whether doors were closed in time and what other steps the crew took and how quickly.

Three crew members including the captain are under investigation.

But the Italian prosecution team have remained tight-lipped about their work. Last year, in their only comments to press, they said they would explore whether the accident was due to human error or potential design flaws on the yacht.

"Only after analysing the wreck will we understand what happened, where the water came in, whether there was enough water to cause the ship to sink or whether some other factor was involved," prosecutor Raffaele Cammarano stressed at the time.

An interim report last month by British maritime investigators, MAIB, found that the Bayesian - with its enormous single mast - was vulnerable to very high wind speeds.

The report suggested neither the owner not the crew were aware of this.

Statements given to its authors also suggested that all the relevant hatches and doors had been shut as the storm built.

The report was conducted for safety purposes - avoiding future disasters at sea - not for any criminal prosecution.

Now that the Bayesian has been brought ashore, MAIB experts will also get access to "verify and refine that information", the BBC was told, and "consider all the factors that may have contributed... to the accident."

Lawyers representing some of those killed describe this as the "most critical phase" of the investigation.

"We will finally be able to see which parts of the boat allowed water in, causing it to sink," Mario Bellavista, a lawyer acting for the family of the Bayesian's chef, Recaldo Thomas, told the BBC.

"We can see which hatches were open or closed, or any other points of entry for the water."

He said the wreckage would provide "the first real evidence" for prosecutors.

As another lawyer put it, those prosecutors now need to find out "how exactly this could have happened on such an unbelievable boat".