#Zillah - The inquest into the death of a retired schoolteacher in a sailing accident off West Cork last summer has heard he was "very safety conscious".

As previously reported on Afloat.ie, the body of 66-year-old Douglas Perrin was recovered from the water near Sherkin Island on the morning of 14 August 2014 after a 12-hour search and rescue operation.

Coroner Frank O’Connell returned a verdict of accidental death, noting the cause of death as acute cardiac failure brought on by drowning.

Two companions, Marian Brown and Patrick Anwyl, were found alive on nearby Castle Island after swimming away from the capsized sailboat the three had been travelling in the day before.

Bandon Courthouse was told that Perrin had purchased his boat Zillah, a 24ft Drascombe Lugger, two years before retiring from Oxfordshire to Goleen in Co Cork in 2013, according to the Irish Examiner.

The party – each with a lifejacket – had set out for a short excursion at 4pm, planning to return in time for a 7pm dinner, when the boat overturned under the control of Anwyl in gusty weather.

"We were about 50 yards from an island, collectively we discussed it and started to swim," read a statement from Brown, who added that when the swell subsided, she and Anwyl managed to clamber onto the rocks, from where they saw Perrin "lying passively in the water, just drifting."

Later, Brown recalled an Irish Coast Guard helicopter sweeping the area with its search beam but failing to spot the pair, who were eventually met by crews from the Schull inshore lifeboat and Baltimore RNLI the following morning.

The Irish Examiner has more on the story HERE.