Edited by: TJVNews.com
A 39.4-meter (129-foot) superyacht valued at $7.8 million capsized and plunged into the Ionian Sea this weekend, with the Italian Coast Guard springing into action to rescue all nine people on board, according to a Bloomberg news report.
The vessel, “My Saga” was built in Italy in 2007 under the Monaco Yachting & Technologies brand as Yuko. According to the Bloomberg report it was built by Italian shipmaker Cantieri San Marco and designed by popular British superyacht designer Tim Heywood. According to Boat International, the vessel, which had a teak deck and could accommodate up to 12 passengers, was one of only 1,068 motor yachts in the 35- to 40-meter size range, as was reported by Bloomberg News.
The steel-hulled superyacht was flying the Cayman Islands flag and she was cruising from Gallipoli to Milazzo with an all-Italian crew, who were rescued from the superyacht, as was reported on August 20th by SuperYacht Times.
My Saga, was motoring through the Gulf of Squillace on Saturday evening when the coast guard responded to a call from the crew that the boat’s stern was filling up with water, as was reported by Bloomberg News. Superyacht Times reported that the CP321 patrol boat from Crotone and a Romanian patrol boat, which is in service on behalf of the Frontex agency, reached out to the yacht and rescued the first passengers.
At dawn, a tugboat from Crotone arrived at the scene and started towing the superyacht towards Crotone, but as can be seen on the video the weather conditions got worse and the vessel was already partly submerged and listing heavily to starboard, according to the Superyacht Times report. It sank in the early afternoon.
The Italian Coast Guard shared a video of the 15-year old luxury yacht’s final moments before it pitched forward and sank into the sea. Authorities are investigating the cause, as was reported by Bloomberg.
Rory Jackson, head of superyachts at VesselsValue told Bloomberg that the scale of the accident is a rare occurrence in the boating world.
“If the highest levels of safety are adhered to and procedures followed properly, they should occur even less frequently,” he said. “There will now be a period of investigation to ascertain exactly what occurred and why. We can all be thankful that the crew escaped unharmed.”