An inquest into the death of company director Kevin Keeler, who was crushed while working on his boat in Weymouth a year ago, has heard that he had made the boat’s cradle unstable while painting the bottom of its hull.
As previously reported on Afloat.ie, the 56-year-old was crushed by the half-ton yacht in a Weymouth boatyard on 16 April 2018.
Keeler had been a member of Weymouth Sailing Club since the previous year with his partner Tatiana Saltykova and had purchased the 29ft yacht Ginny Kwik that Christmas, according to Mail Online.
The yacht was lifted out for maintenance in March 2018 and Wheeler, an electronics engineer, borrowed a cradle from a fellow sailor to carry out the work.
However, the inquest heard that he had made this cradle unstable when he lowered one of its supporting props to reach the underside of the hull, which caused the vessel to collapse on top of him.
Another man on a nearby slipway told the inquest how he heard a ‘loud crash’ as the boat fell in his direction — and how he attended to the fallen Wheeler whose condition deteriorated quickly before paramedics arrived.
Mail Online has more on the story HERE.
