PORTICELLO, Italy (Reuters) -Salvage experts lifted Mike Lynch’s sunken superyacht to the surface and began pumping seawater out of it on Saturday, 10 months after it sank off the coast of Sicily, killing the British tech tycoon, his teenage daughter and five others.
Work resumed at first light, with one of the most powerful maritime cranes in Europe having been used to haul the 56-metre-long (184-foot) Bayesian from beneath the waves.
The upper decks appeared badly damaged while the blue hull was encrusted with mud.
The Bayesian was moored off the small port of Porticello, near Palermo, in August last year when it sank during a sudden storm. The yacht was vulnerable to violent winds and was probably knocked over by gusts of more than 117 km (73 miles) per hour, an interim British report said last month.
The vessel will be held in an elevated position over the weekend while checks and preparations are made, said TMC Marine, which has been leading the salvage operation, working with Dutch specialists Hebo Maritiemservice to lift the yacht 50 metres from the seabed over the past few days.
It is then expected to be transported to the nearby port of Termini Imerese on Monday and handed over to the authorities who are investigating the sinking.
The recovery process has been made easier after the vessel’s 72-metre mast was detached using a remote-controlled cutting tool and placed on the seabed on Tuesday.
In addition to Lynch, founder of the software company Autonomy, his daughter Hannah, lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda, banker Jonathan Bloomer and his wife Judy, and chef Recaldo Thomas were killed when the yacht sank. Nine other crew members and six guests were rescued.
(Reporting by Roberto Mignucci; Additional reporting by Wladimir Pantaleone, Danilo Arnone, Igor Petyx and Rosaura Bonafardino; Writing by Keith Weir; Editing by William Mallard)
