Video: Salvors Raise Wreck of Burned Superyacht off Sardinia

 

The sunken superyacht Atina has been raised from the bottom off Sardinia and will be removed for scrapping, according to Italy's coast guard. 

On August 10, the 154-foot superyacht Atina caught fire off the coast of Olbia, a luxury destination on the northeastern shores of Sardinia. All 16 passengers and crew abandoned ship safely and made it to shore. Local media reported that the passengers were Turkish nationals, and may have included the vessel's suspected owner, Turkish delivery-company founder Serkan Borancili. 

The fire-damaged yacht quickly sank, coming to rest in shallow water. It had about 13,000 gallons of fuel on board, but no significant spill was reported. 

Courtesy Guardia Costiera

Atina was declared a total loss, at considerable cost to her insurers; the 2008-built vessel's last sale price in a secondhand transaction was about $18 million, plus the cost of a recent top-to-bottom shipyard refit. Given the shallow depth of the site, wreck removal was deemed a practical option, and the Dutch Offshore-operated crane barge Conquest MB1 was chartered for the operation. 

Video released by the Guardia Costiera shows that the contractors righted the yacht using anchor chains in a parbuckling operation, pulling with the barge's crane until the wreck was back in a vertical orientation. After several days of additional preparation, they lifted the wreckage clear of the water for safe transport to a demolition yard in Piombino. 

For purposes of an ongoing investigation, the authorities plan to scan the seabed at the wreck site, according to the Superyacht Times.