Inquiry finds St Abbs fisherman's drowning was unavoidable

No reasonable precautions could have been taken that would have avoided the drowning of a lone fisherman off the Borders coast, an inquiry has found.

John Wilson, 64, was pulled overboard after his foot got entangled in a chain weight attached to a fleet of creels.

He was on board his boat the Harriet J near Fast Castle Head when the accident happened on 28 August 2021.

A fatal accident inquiry found no defects in any working system had contributed to his death.

Mr Wilson, from St Abbs, was creel fishing on the boat which he had owned and operated for nearly a decade when the accident took place.

A Marine Accident Investigation Branch investigation found he was not wearing a lifejacket or a personal locator beacon (PLB) at the time.

The inquiry into his death examined whether the use of deck dividers might have helped to avoid the incident in which he died.

Sheriff Kenneth Campbell concluded there was insufficient evidence of the practicality of that as a solution and said it was beyond the scope of the inquiry to make such a recommendation.

However, he did recommend that PLBs should be part of standard safety equipment on single-person operated fishing boats and that crew members should wear lifejackets at all times.