Sunk superyacht, Bayesian, to be raised from seabed ‘within weeks’

The Italian coastguard is formulating plans to pull the doomed superyacht Bayesian from 50 metres underwater in a move funded by late tech billionaire Mike Lynch’s widow.

The late British billionaire Mike Lynch’s luxury superyacht, Bayesian, will be raised from the ocean’s floor within weeks, the Italian coastguard has said.

Special balloons could be used and the 72-metre mast may be removed to haul the A$68 million boat from 50 metres underwater.

Lynch was among seven people, including the tech mogul’s 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, who died after the luxury yacht went down amid a freak storm off the coast of Sicily in August.

The 55-metre Bayesian superyacht. Picture: Supplied

According to The Sun, the recovery will be paid for by Revtom, a firm controlled by Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares.

It will help a probe of possible culpable shipwreck and manslaughter.

The Bayesian’s New Zealand-born captain and two crew members are under investigation.

A coastguard spokesman told The Times: “We expect to see the plan for the raising of the Bayesian submitted to us for our approval in a few weeks.

“Everyone wants to move quickly.”

The superyacht’s black-box data recorder was being analysed to discover how it drifted for 400 metres from the port of Porticello before being dragged under in minutes.

Tech billionaire Mike Lynch died in the sinking but wife Angela Bacares survived. A company owned by Bacares is paying for the doomed ship to be recovered. Picture: Supplied

Prosecutors were also probing ship engineer Tim Parker-Eaton, from Clophill, Beds, and sailor Matthew Griffith, 22 under the same charges.

The yacht was sunk by a freak “Black Swan” waterspout which would have appeared without warning, maritime experts said.

It also emerged that Lynch’s widow, Ms Bacares, was being sued for A$360 million, with lawyers claiming the accident caused the shipbuilder massive “reputational damage.”

Filed last week in Palermo by lawyer Tommaso Bertuccelli on behalf of The Italian Sea Group, the lawsuit said liability for the sunken vessel lay squarely with Lynch’s widow and the yacht’s crew, according to Fortune.

Divers recover bodies from the yacht last month. Picture: AFP

And it said TISG had lost significant business because of the disaster, such as a well-known fashion company that cancelled plans to hold a brand launch on one of the company’s yachts, the outlet said.

But in a bizarre twist, the sea group immediately distanced itself from the suit, claiming it didn’t authorise the filing and wants Bertuccelli to pull the claim, Fortune said.

“The Italian Sea Group … strongly denies the claims published in [Italian newspaper] La Nazione regarding a legal action following the Bayesian tragedy,” a spokesman said.

“Although TISG has given a generic mandate to the lawyers named in the article, no legal representative of the company has examined, signed or authorised any writ of summons.”

Images of The Bayesian Yacht which sunk of the Italian coast. Picture: www.yachtcharterfleet.com

Inside the luxury Bayesian superyacht. Picture: www.yachtcharterfleet.com

Still, the shipbuilder has been trying to control a mushrooming PR nightmare ever since the vessel sank.

Giovanni Costantino, the company’s CEO, had called the yacht “unsinkable,” and said human error must have led to the disaster.

“The first thought when I read the news of the sinking was that there was a problem related to the management of the boat or the fact that the hull may have hit a rock,” Costantino told the Guardian.

The Bayesian was considered “unsinkable”. Picture: EPA/Perini Naval Press Office

“But when the passengers declared they had not heard a loud noise on-board, which would have meant that the yacht had struck a reef, I realised the yacht had taken on water due to a hatch that was left open. Otherwise the Bayesian cannot sink.”

Prosecutors have said the boat was likely hit by a “downburst,” or a very strong downward wind.

But naval experts remain confounded by the yacht’s sinking — it should have withstood the storm, and shouldn’t have sunk as quickly as it did.

The extravagant ship won best interior at the International Superyacht Society Awards in 2008 and was also voted one of the best large sailing yachts at the 2009 World Superyacht Awards, according to the Telegraph.

An unnamed friend of the family told the Times that the TISG “should be ashamed” of the suit.