Latest news with #sinking
The Guardian
8 hours ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Mike Lynch's superyacht Bayesian raised from seabed off Sicily
Mike Lynch's superyacht, Bayesian, has been resurfaced for the first time since it sank during a violent storm off the coast of Sicily in August last year, killing seven people including the tech tycoon and his teenage daughter. The white top and blue hull of the 56-metre (184ft) vessel emerged from the depths of the sea in a holding area of a yellow floating crane barge, as salvage crews readied it to be hauled ashore for further investigation. The Italian coastguard said the recovery was scheduled to begin on Saturday morning. A spokesperson for TMC Maritime, which is conducting the recovery operation, said the vessel had been slowly raised from the seabed, 50 metres (165ft) down, over the past three days to allow the steel lifting straps, slings and harnesses to be secured under the keel. The operation – which has cost approximately $30m (£22m) - was made easier after the vessel's 72-metre mast was detached using a remote-controlled cutting tool and placed on the seabed on Tuesday. The vessel will be transported to the port of Termini Imerese, where investigators are expected to examine it as part of an inquiry into the cause of the sinking. Sign up to Headlines Europe A digest of the morning's main headlines from the Europe edition emailed direct to you every week day after newsletter promotion The Bayesian was anchored just offshore near the port of Porticello, in the province of Palermo, when it sank during a violent storm shortly before dawn on 19 August 2024. Lynch had been cleared two months earlier of fraud charges in the US relating to the purchase of his company, Autonomy, by Hewlett-Packard in 2011, and was enjoying a voyage around Sicily to celebrate with his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, and his wife, Angela Baraces, whose company owned the Bayesian. The lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife, Neda, the banker Jonathan Bloomer and his wife, Judy, and the yacht's chef, Recaldo Thomas, were also killed when the vessel sank. Nine other crew members and six guests – including Baraces – were rescued. The salvage operation was very complex, and was temporarily suspended in mid-May after Rob Cornelis Maria Huijben, a 39-year-old Dutch diver, died during underwater work. The British-based consultancy TMC Marine, which oversaw a consortium of salvage specialists undertaking the project, said the hull would be lifted on to a specially manufactured steel cradle on the quayside once it had been transported to Termini Imerese. Investigators hope the yacht will yield vital clues to the causes of the sinking. A forensic examination of the hull will seek to determine whether one of the hatches remained open and whether the keel was improperly raised. Prosecutors have opened an inquiry into suspected manslaughter. The boat's captain, James Cutfield, from New Zealand, and two British crew members, Tim Parker Eaton and Matthew Griffiths, have been placed under investigation. In Italy, this does not imply guilt or mean that formal charges will necessarily follow. According to a preliminary safety report released last month by the UK's Marine Accident Investigation Branch, the Bayesian may have been vulnerable to high winds when running on its engine and that these 'vulnerabilities' were 'unknown to either the owner or the crew' as they were not included in the stability information book carried onboard. The MAIB said a possible 'tornadic waterspout' headed towards the boats in the harbour. The docks seemed to divert the whirlwind, which went straight towards the Bayesian, and the vessel sank in the space of a few seconds. In September, Italian authorities requested additional security around the wreck of the Bayesian, after fears were raised that material in watertight safes onboard might be of interest to foreign governments.
Daily Mail
9 hours ago
- Daily Mail
BREAKING NEWS Moment Mike Lynch's Bayesian superyacht is raised from the seabed ten months after it sank killing tycoon and six others off Sicily
The British superyacht that sank off Sicily last August killing seven resurfaced for the first time today as recovery crews readied it to be hauled ashore for investigation. The white top and blue hull of the 56-meter (184-foot) Bayesian emerged from the depths of the sea in a holding area of a yellow floating crane barge. The coast guard said the actual recovery was scheduled to begin Saturday morning. A spokesman for TMC Maritime, conducting the recovery operation, said the vessel has been slowly raised from the seabed, 165-feet down, over the past three days to allow the steel lifting straps, slings and harnesses to be secured under the keel. What became visible for the first time Friday on the surface of the water was the top of the passenger area of the Bayesian where passengers would sit, known as the accommodation area, said a spokesman for TMC Maritime, David Wilson. What became visible for the first time Friday on the surface of the water was the top of the passenger area of the Bayesian where passengers would sit The British-flagged luxury superyacht sank August 19 off Porticello near Palermo during a violent storm, killing U.K. tech magnate Mike Lynch, his daughter and five others. Fifteen people survived, including the captain and all crew members except the chef. Italian authorities are conducting a full criminal investigation. When it resurfaced, the Bayesian was missing its 72-meter (236-foot) mast, which was cut down and left on the seabed for future removal. The mast had to be detached to allow the hull to be brought to a nearly upright position that would allow the craft to be surfaced, TMC Maritime said earlier this week. British investigators said in an interim report issued last month that the yacht was knocked over by 'extreme wind' and couldn't recover. The report stated that the Bayesian had chosen the site where it sank as shelter from forecast thunderstorms. Wind speeds exceeded 70 knots (81 mph) at the time of the sinking and 'violently' knocked the vessel over to a 90-degree angle in under 15 seconds. Lynch had been celebrating his recent acquittal on fraud charges with his family and the people who had defended him at trial.
Associated Press
9 hours ago
- Associated Press
British superyacht Bayesian resurfaces for 1st time since August sinking ahead of recovery
ROME (AP) — The British superyacht that sank off Sicily last August killing seven people resurfaced for the first time Friday as salvage recovery crews readied it to be hauled ashore for further investigation. The white top and blue hull of the 56-meter (184-foot) Bayesian emerged from the depths of the sea in a holding area of a yellow floating crane barge. The coast guard said the actual recovery was scheduled to begin Saturday morning. A spokesman for TMC Maritime, which is conducting the recovery operation, said the vessel has been slowly raised from the seabed, 50 meters (165-feet) down, over the past three days to allow the steel lifting straps, slings and harnesses to be secured under the keel. What became visible for the first time Friday on the surface of the water was the top of the passenger area of the Bayesian where passengers would sit, known as the accommodation area, said a spokesman for TMC Maritime, David Wilson. The British-flagged luxury superyacht sank Aug. 19 off Porticello near Palermo during a violent storm, killing U.K. tech magnate Mike Lynch, his daughter and five others. Fifteen people survived, including the captain and all crew members except the chef. Italian authorities are conducting a full criminal investigation. When it resurfaced, the Bayesian was missing its 72-meter (236-foot) mast, which was cut down and left on the seabed for future removal. The mast had to be detached to allow the hull to be brought to a nearly upright position that would allow the craft to be surfaced, TMC Maritime said earlier this week. British investigators said in an interim report issued last month that the yacht was knocked over by 'extreme wind' and couldn't recover. The report stated that the Bayesian had chosen the site where it sank as shelter from forecast thunderstorms. Wind speeds exceeded 70 knots (81 mph) at the time of the sinking and 'violently' knocked the vessel over to a 90-degree angle in under 15 seconds. Lynch had been celebrating his recent acquittal on fraud charges with his family and the people who had defended him at trial.
The Independent
a day ago
- The Independent
What caused the Bayesian to sink? Superyacht to be raised from seabed 10 months after tragedy
The British superyacht that sank off Sicily last August, killing seven people, will be lifted from the seabed this weekend - nearly a year after the tragedy unfolded. Billionaire tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, 59, and his daughter Hannah, 18, were among seven people who died when the 56-metre (184ft) Bayesian sank off the coast of the Italian island on August 19. The boat's manufacturers, Italian prosecutors, British marine investigators and survivors have all made different claims about why the boat sank so suddenly. The boat's captain and two crew members are currently under investigation for manslaughter. The Independent looks at everything we know about the incident and how the boat may have sank. What do we know about the incident? The Bayesian sank off the coast of the Sicilian capital of Palermo in Italy in the early hours of 19 August last year, after it was hit by unexpected extreme weather. It took just 16 minutes to sink. There were 22 people on board and seven were killed, including Mr Lynch and his daughter Hannah. A coastguard official in Palermo said at the time that bad weather had been expected but not of the magnitude witnessed. Winds of up to 90mph were recorded on the day. Subsequent investigations have identified that the boat was hit by a mesocyclone, which is a type of powerful rotating thunderstorm that can produce tornadoes or extreme wind bursts. Why did the Bayesian sink? Sicilian prosecutors are have opened an inquiry into suspected manslaughter and have placed the captain James Cutfield, from New Zealand, and two British crew members, Tim Parker Eaton and Matthew Griffiths, under investigation. Experts have claimed that hatches and doors were left open overnight by the crew, causing the boat to sink. The owner of the boat and the wife of Mr Lynch, Angela Bacares, has also accused the crew of making 'questionable decisions' when she was up on deck with them on the night of the tragedy. But an interim report by the UK's Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) found that the vessel's design, particularly its raised centreboard and high mast, could also be responsible for the tragedy. The report suggested the structure may have compromised the boat's stability in 'motoring mode,' vulnerabilities that were not included in the yacht 's stability manual. The MAIB report also challenged claims made by yacht builder The Italian Sea Group, finding that the Bayesian would capsize at a 70.6-degree heel, contrary to the builder's assertion it could recover from 73 degrees. While TISG said 80-knot winds would tilt the yacht only 28 degrees, investigators found that winds exceeding 63 knots were enough to knock it over. Giovanni Costantino, the Chief of TISG, has described the yacht as 'unsinkable' and claimed the crew must have left doors or hatches open, allowing water in. The Bayesian is set to be recovered this weekend as part of a multimillion pound rescue operation. The yacht has sat on the seafloor for 10 months and efforts to recover it were stifled first by difficult weather conditions and later by the death of a Dutch diver helping with the rescue mission. The 184ft boat will be lifted from the seabed by the Hebo Lift 10 barge, which features one of Europe's most powerful maritime cranes. A steel sling has been fitted by undersea drones beneath the Bayesian to facilitate the lift. The hard clay sea bed had initially made fitting four of the eight cables needed to lift the yacht difficult, but on Tuesday, a remote-controlled diamond wire precision cutting tool was used to sever the mast, allowing the boat to partially right. The Hebo barge then lifted the boat enough to fit the remaining four cables beneath the Bayesian's stern. The Bayesian's insurer, British Marine, has tasked the London-based marine consultancy group TMC Marine with raising the yacht. TMC has previously said about 70 experts would be involved in the lifting operation.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
Is Venice Sinking? Here's What You Need to Know About the Floating City
Photo: Rory McDonald / Getty Images It is known as the floating city, but is Venice sinking? Venice is made up of 118 islands separated by canals and connected by more than 400 bridges. Located in a lagoon on the Adriatic Sea, Venice serves as both the capital of the Venezia province and the Veneto region of northern Italy. Together with the lagoon, Venice was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. With a history that spans just over 1600 years, Venice, Italy, has had many lives—from a maritime empire and major seaport, to a global center of art and culture that draws approximately 25 to 30 million annual visitors to absorb its intriguing mix of Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance architecture. And now, with the wedding of businessman Jeff Bezos planned for Venice this June, the conversation about the threat of overtourism seems louder than ever, along with the belief that the city of canals is both literally and figuratively sinking under the weight of it. To understand both the human and environmental threats to the future of Venice, AD spoke to historian of Renaissance Venice and associate professor at Saint Joseph's College of Maine Michelle Laughran, and Anthony Berklich, founder of luxury travel platform Inspired Citizen. Here's everything you need to know. To understand how Venice was built, one needs to know why. When the Western Roman Empire fell in AD 476 due to both internal and external factors, Venetian merchants were left vulnerable. They needed a way to protect themselves from nearby nations and possible barbarian raids, so they built the barricaded, floating city that we now know as Venice. The city's location at the northwestern end of the Adriatic Sea along a crescent-shaped lagoon served as the ideal place, as the shallow waters of the lagoon are protected by a line of sandbanks whose three gaps allow passage of the city's maritime traffic, according to Britannica. However, marshland is not a great foundation for a city, so ingenious Italian builders and engineers sourced a combination of larch, oak, alder, pine, spruce and elm trees from abroad to craft millions of sharp wooden poles, then drove them deep into the clay beneath the marsh lagoons with their tips facing downward. According to a visually illustrated report from the BBC, the piles were hammered as deep as possible by workers known as the battipali (literally translated to 'pile hitters') until they were firm and sturdy—so much so that the friction between the piles and the soil was strong enough to support a building. The layout of the piles started at the outer edge of the structure and then moved toward the center of the foundation in a spiral shape, with the heads sawn off to obtain a flat surface that lay below sea level. On top of the wooden poles (whose lengths range between 3 to 11.5 feet), workers built wooden platforms that have upheld Venice's iconic sites like St. Mark's Square and Basilica, St. Mark's Campanile, and Doge's Palace for centuries. It's unclear exactly how many millions of wooden piles are under the city, but as a reference, the BBC reports that there are 14,000 wooden poles in the foundation of the Rialto Bridge and 10,000 oak trees under St Mark's Basilica. Venice's forest foundation has avoided decay over the centuries thanks to the lack of oxygen exposure and the effects of saltwater on the wood; however, it hasn't completely avoided damage. According to the BBC, anaerobic bacteria attack the cell walls of the wood fibers, causing damage to the wood. Fortunately, the bacteria are slow acting. Seawater fills the holes hollowed out by the bacteria, and the combination of wood, water, and silt creates a perfect pressure system that has kept the foundation standing for centuries. Which leads us to arguably the most commonly asked question about Venice… The better question: Is Venice sinking, or are sea levels rising? The best answer: a bit of both. 'While it is true that parts of Venice which were once the highest points of the city are now some of its lowest—the Rialto, for example, was originally called the 'Rivo Alto' or 'high bank'—it is largely a misconception that Venice is sinking under the sea,' says Laughran. 'For centuries, there has been some compacting of the underlying sediments under the weight of the city's buildings, and then back during the 1950s and '60s, there was subsidence from groundwater and natural gas extraction, which was halted in the early '70s when its damage was noticed. Most of the water threatening Venice today, however, is from rising sea levels, not from the ongoing sinking of the city itself.' Venice has long battled with its irregular climate and lagoonal ecosystem, with flooding so frequent that raised wooden walkways are used to help people traverse the city during the acqua alta ('high water') events. A particularly catastrophic flood occurred in 1966, when water levels rose to 6.4 feet above sea level. The rising waters of climate change haven't helped. As reported by the BBC, Venice suffered its second-worst flooding event recorded in November 2019, when the tide reached a peak height of more than six feet above sea level. More than 80% of the city was left underwater, causing an estimated $1.1 billion worth of damage. Additionally, the buildings of Venice have actually sunk, but not nearly much as one may think. According to the BBC, the piles below the city's foundation are being pushed further into a layer of compressed clay. 'Many of the buildings built atop this unstable foundation have shifted position and, in numerous instances, started to sink into the mud. Historical groundwater extraction has enhanced this impact, and Venice has sunk roughly 15 cm (5.9in) over the past century.' The idea that Venice could one day sink into the sea has also been perpetuated by pop culture references, 'like the Bond film Casino Royale,' says Laughran. 'In that movie, an entire palace on the Grand Canal disastrously sinks below the waterline in a matter of seconds, but in reality, that's completely impossible, since all the buildings in Venice have actually been constructed on a solid foundation…. So, thankfully, Venice can never ever sink like that CGI building did!' After a damning 2024 report by Italian scientists stated that Venice could be underwater by 2150, global attention turned to the MOSE project (Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico), a flood barrier system designed to protect the city and the lagoon from flooding. The system is made up of 78 mobile gates situated at strategic locations that can be raised to temporarily isolate the lagoon from the Adriatic Sea during high tides and minimize major flooding events. Due to complicated construction and less-than-speedy Italian bureaucracy, it has taken decades for the MOSE project to see the light of day. It was first conceived of in the 80s, and construction officially began in 2003, with the original aim for completion in 2011. The project has been riddled with soaring costs and delays, but was finally tested for the first time in 2020. Though it may help prevent catastrophic flooding, it is widely not considered to be a permanent solution, and may potentially cause other unforeseen issues for the city and its residents. 'Venice doesn't have a modern waste treatment system. Greywater is released directly into the canals. For blackwater, the city uses septic tanks, and their leach field is also the canals, which—until now—had always been flushed twice daily by the Adriatic's tides,' says Laughran, who has been living between the US and Venice for 30 years. 'So, if rising sea levels eventually force the floodgates to be closed most of the time in order to preserve the city, not only will the Venetian lagoon be at risk, but Venice will also have to build an entire new waste treatment system.' Additionally, Laughran says that 'the more the flood barriers have to be raised, the more the Venetian lagoon will be damaged, because they cut off its natural water exchange with the Adriatic Sea.' So with all this knowledge of the fragility of Venice, the question remains… Of course, but there are ways to do it responsibly. First, consider the fact that tourists to Venice are estimated to average between 75,000 and 110,000 per day during peak season, and that the city has lost more than 60% of the resident population since the 1950s, much thanks to overtourism and high living costs. This means that there literally aren't enough residents to welcome, serve, and accommodate that great of an influx of people on a daily basis. 'Venice is one of those destinations that is phenomenally majestic but suffers greatly from overtourism, and that can completely destroy something,' says Anthony Berklich, founder of luxury travel agency Inspired Citizen. In his work, Berklich books more than 200 Venice trips for clients each year, but he hasn't booked a trip to Venice for a group of more than eight people. 'When I plan a client trip, I always steer them towards more conscious ground partners that take more care and don't do things en masse. These partners prefer to do things in small numbers, and it has an impact because it encourages that type of tourism.' The city has attempted to control the tourist population to mixed results. In 2021, the Italian government banned large cruise ships from sailing through the city center of Venice (specifically the Giudecca Canal after a 2019 crash), but ships under 25,000 gross tons are still allowed. Last year, a trial Venice access fee of five euros was charged to visitors who weren't staying overnight in a Venetian hotel—including day-trippers and cruisers—in an attempt to curb crowds, but visitor numbers remained high. This year, the fee has doubled to 10 euros for last-minute travelers, with many residents arguing that it is not an effective means of deterring overtourism. Conversely, Berklich says that the best way to be mindful of your impact is to focus on the timing of your trip and do your own research on vendors. 'Venice is busy year-round…. I always say the best time to visit is from the beginning of October into the first couple weeks of December, and then again in March through the first two weeks of May.' Although he recognizes the higher costs, Berklich recommends choosing tour companies or travel agencies that have an 'eco-conscious' mentality. 'When you choose [a company] that prioritizes quality over quantity, you're enabling them to put more effort into actually making a difference and having an impact on [Venice].' Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest More Great Stories From AD Not a subscriber? Join AD for print and digital access now. Inside Yoga Star Adriene Mishler's Warm and Wonderfully Understated Austin Home The 15 Best Places to Buy Bedding of All Kinds Actor Michael Shannon's Moody, Meditative Brooklyn Home
