Raising Bayesian superyacht ‘will take up to two months’

Salvage engineer who led operation to recover Costa Concordia says cost likely to be around €15m

Raising the Bayesian superyacht from the seabed off Sicily would cost around €15 million and take six to eight weeks, one of the world’s leading maritime salvage experts has said.
Nick Sloane, the South African salvage engineer who led the operation to recover the Costa Concordia cruise ship after it capsized off Tuscany in 2012 with the loss of 32 lives, said around 40 highly-trained divers would be required.
Mike Lynch, his daughter Hannah, Jonathan Bloomer, the Morgan Stanley International bank chairman, and his wife Judy, Chris Morvillo, the Clifford Chance lawyer and his wife Neda and Recaldo Thomas, the yacht’s chef, died when the yacht sank at around 5am on Monday.
A large platform would have to be constructed and towed half a mile out to sea, above the spot where the vessel sank in an intense storm.
The luxury yacht’s aluminium mast – the tallest of its kind in the world when the boat was constructed – would need to be cut off and removed prior to the Bayesian being lifted to the surface.
The floating platform would support giant cranes, which would be able to raise the vessel from a depth of 165ft – but very slowly. 
If the boat is pulled up too quickly, it could break up under the huge pressure of water inside it, Mr Sloane told La Repubblica newspaper.
“This is the most delicate part of the operation and needs to be done very, very slowly, because the Bayesian is full of water,” he said. 
“The important thing is that when the yacht reaches the surface the sea must be calm. So they’ll have to carefully check the weather forecasts. The yacht should be recovered exactly as it is, in one piece, with the aim of maintaining it as intact as possible.”
“I would say it would cost up to €15 million but possibly you could do it for a bit less. The recovery operation would take six to eight weeks. It could be completed before the second half of October.”
Recovering the wreck could help investigators find evidence that could shed light on how it sank in a matter of minutes after being hit by a waterspout or tornado.
Although he was feted in Italy for his successful refloating of the Costa Concordia, the South African stressed that he has not been approached in an official capacity about raising the Bayesian.
Italy has more than enough expertise and technical capacity to carry out the operation, he said. But he has been discussing how the operation might unfold with Italian divers who were involved in the Costa Concordia recovery.
There are parallels between the two wrecks. Italian coast guard and fire service divers exploring the cramped confines of the Bayesian this week as they searched for bodies encountered “a miniature Concordia,” said Luca Cari, spokesman for the Italian fire service.
They could only stay under water for 12 minutes and had to negotiate a pitch-black world of tilted surfaces, floating debris and dislodged furniture, he said.
Italian authorities have so far said nothing officially about when, or even if, the Bayesian will be recovered from the seabed and brought to shore.
The Concordia operation took months of careful planning and dangerous underwater work, whereas bringing up the much smaller yacht would be a quicker operation, albeit still fraught with technical challenges.
The 114,500-tonne Concordia, about twice the size of the Titanic, was eventually towed to Genoa to be broken up for scrap two and a half years after it capsized. The effort to raise and salvage it was the largest operation of its kind ever attempted, and cost around €1.5 billion.