A superyacht has found a new home at the bottom of the Ionian Sea.
The yacht, valued at $7.8 million, capsized last weekend off the southeastern coast of Italy, according to Bloomberg. All those aboard were rescued.
The 129-foot ship, called My Saga, was 9 nautical miles from shore last Saturday when its stern began filling up with water.
The Italian coast guard responded to the yacht’s distress call.
Four passengers and a crew member were taken to safety on a Romanian patrol boat while the captain and three crew members tried to save the vessel, The Washington Post reported.
The coast guard returned the next morning along with a tugboat in hopes of getting the yacht to shore.
At that point, the caption and crew members who had remained with the yacht were transferred to the tugboat.
However, the sea was getting rougher amid bad weather, and the yacht was taking on too much water to be towed.
Efforts to save the yacht were abandoned, and it sank in the early afternoon.
The coast guard shared footage of the ship sinking beneath the waves on Twitter.
Nei giorni scorsi, la #GuardiaCostiera di #Crotone ha coordinato operazioni di salvataggio di passeggeri ed equipaggio di uno yacht di 40m, affondato a 9 miglia al largo di #CatanzaroMarina.
Avviata inchiesta amministrativa per individuarne le cause. #SAR #AlServizioDegliAltri pic.twitter.com/kezuiivqsM— Guardia Costiera (@guardiacostiera) August 22, 2022
It was not clear who owned the yacht, which sailed under the flag of the Cayman Islands.
The ship was designed by British superyacht designer Tim Heywood and built by Italian shipmaker Cantieri San Marco in 2007, according to Boat International.
Rory Jackson, head of superyachts at VesselsValue, said accidents like this are rare.
“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.”
