Bayesian shipwreck, chef's lawyer: some hatches open. Recovery from 18 May

'All that is certain is that it sank'. The lawyer Mario Bellavista quotes, perhaps unwittingly, the famous attack in the piece on the death of the bandit Turiddu Giuliano. And never was the comparison more apt. Because even in the case of the Bayesian, billionaire Mike Lynch's luxury yacht that lies 50 metres underwater just off Porticello in the province of Palermo, it risks revealing more truths than the actual fact: it sank on a cursed summer night on 19 August last year, swept away by unprecedented bad weather fuelling speculation about the real causes, about how it was possible that such a yacht, considered unsinkable, went down like a paper boat. A shipwreck in which, let us remember, seven people died, including Mike Lynch himself, his daughter Hannah, Jonathan Bloomer (chairman of Morgan Stanley International) and wife Judy, Chris and Neda Morvillo and Recaldo Thomas, and the on-board cook Recaldo Thomas.

For the truth, if it can be achieved, it will have to wait, but the time for the time for checks, for verifications, for gathering evidence, is approaching. First you have to get it out of there, then everything else will come. Timing is important. And this is what was discussed in almost two hours around a table in the Porticello Coast Guard premises: the lawyers were present, the public prosecutor Raffaele Cammarano, of the Termini Imerese public prosecutor's office, who is coordinating the investigation with the hypotheses of manslaughter and manslaughter and who has so far entered three people in the register of suspects: the captain James Cutfield, the engineer officer Tim Parker Eaton and the English sailor Matthew Griffiths.

And in the meantime, new elements are beginning to emerge that certainly point in a direction, albeit uncertain with the evidence we now have in hand. These are revealed by lawyer Bellavista, counsel for the widow of Recaldo Thomas, the Bayesian's cook who died in the shipwreck: "There are some hatches of the Bayesian open, they have been described by the consultants. Those that are certainly open are in the bow. Then we do not know if the one above deck is open, because it is currently covered by the awning. The others we don't know if they are open or closed, or if they closed in the sinking,' says the lawyer. 'The hypotheses are broad and we are waiting for feedback to give us an idea closer to reality. It is not irrelevant, as it is clear, because just today in an interview with AdnKronos is Karsten Börner, the German captain of the Sir Robert Baden Powell, the yacht anchored about 100 metres from the Bayesian on the night of the sinking, said: 'The hatches of the Bayesian were all closed, even a few moments before the sinking. I have evidence. Photographs to prove it. They would like to blame the crew. But, I repeat, we saw that the hatches of the vessel were all closed. We took photos at 9.45pm, when we passed right around the boat. And there was not a single hatch open. And this is also evident from the photos. We have other shots of eight minutes before the sinking. I have also reported this to the magistrates and the British Guard Coast Agency'.

Who is right? We will be able to tell when the boat will be pulled out: 'The actual salvage of the Bayesian, with its surfacing, will be done from 18 May onwards,' explains Alessandro Biriaco, an engineer and consultant to the Termini Imerese public prosecutor's office. 'The mast of the sailing ship will be cut first because otherwise the boat cannot be pulled up. The meeting was useful for communicating to the parties the timetable on the recovery, a planning was made on the acts to be done later'.

The timescale therefore: twenty days or so to arrive at the recovery, another twenty days to reclaim the boat and let it dry out, another twenty days to gather evidence and make further investigations. With the guarantee that any technical assessments that may be made in the meantime will be communicated to the parties and documented on video. After this informal meeting, another will be held on 18 June in Palermo to then proceed with the appointments of experts and consultants. The first clear idea will have to wait until the first week of July but, it seems almost obvious, it will only be a starting point. The work to be done is enormous. There is, for example, the data contained in the Bayesian hard disks to be read and translated into comprehensible language: the boat's life is contained there, and that data could tell us whether there were any particular criticalities in the last moments of the yacht's life, as the storm raged off the coast of Palermo. Little or nothing, however, will come from the images of the CCTV cameras that were on the boat. The importance of all these investigations for the future of James Cutfield, the captain of the yacht who is under investigation for manslaughter, cannot be overlooked. "We will prove the absolute innocence of the Bayesian's captain and the entire crew, of which we are absolutely certain. There is no doubt about that,' says Giovanni Rizzuti who is defending the captain. It will not be easy.