Salvage experts winched Mike Lynch’s sunken superyacht towards the surface on Friday, 10 months after it went down off the coast of Sicily, killing the British tech tycoon, his teenage daughter and five others.
The vessel is scheduled to be lifted out of the water in the final phase of the recovery on Saturday, TMC Marine, the company leading the salvage operation, said.
“Accelerated progress in salvage works off the coast of northern Sicily mean that all preparations are now nearing completion, ahead of the delicate lifting procedure,” the statement said.
The work was briefly halted last month after the death of a diver involved in the operation.
The 184-foot 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 73 miles per hour, an interim UK report said last month.
The recovery process has been made easier after the vessel’s 236-foot mast was detached using a remote-controlled cutting tool and placed on the seabed on Tuesday.
The hull of the yacht has been supported by a specially designed steel wire lifting arrangement which is, in turn, attached to a floating lifting asset.
The vessel is between two barges supplied by Hebo Maritimeservice, a Dutch specialist salvage company.
The salvage experts are now reinforcing the cables because the yacht will be heavier once pulled out of the water, a source at the Italian coast guard said.
The yacht is expected to be transported to the nearby port of Termini Imerese on Monday and handed over to the authorities who are investigating the tragedy.
Lynch’s 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.
