Accident caused fatal head injury

Over three years after Sam Richmond died at the 2022 Superyacht Challenge Antigua, an inquest determined that his fatal head injury on a superyacht was an accident.

Richmond, 37, was hit by a rigging block after a deck pad eye failed, knocking him unconscious. He died in a Florida hospital two days later. The coroner Jason Pegg said the pad eye had fractured because of “fatigue cracking,” which had developed over time since the construction of the 102-foot Southern Wind yacht Farfalla.

“The fatigue cracking was caused when cyclical forces were applied to the pad eye when the yacht was under sail and the pad eye was not aligned with the load of the rigging, which reduced the load-carrying capacity of the pad eye,” he added. “The pad eye had an inadequate maximum working load capacity for securing the runner turning block.”

Sam Laidlaw, of yacht owners Red Birdwing, told the inquest how the “pad eye is genuinely thought to be solid, it’s a very solid piece of metal, you would expect the rigging to fail or training blocks to fail but you wouldn’t expect the pad eye to be the weak link.

“I hope lessons will be learnt about rigging design and boat design, there have been modifications to more recent boats which hopefully will prevent this from happening.”

He said further checks had been introduced to inspect pad eyes and replace them every two years and that new, stronger titanium fittings were also being used.