A dad-of-three who drowned off the coast of Scotland during a solo sailing holiday told his worried wife that ‘he’d be fine’ just hours before his body was found by a fisherman. Bryn Watkins was enjoying his ‘last sail of the season’ on his yacht - Athena 2 - when he began experiencing engine problems near the Isle of Bute on October 18 last year.
The 74-year-old, from Kidderminster, near Birmingham, decided to try to sail to Port Bannatyne marina where he would attach the vessel to a buoy, Worcestershire Coroner's Court heard. His grieving wife Jenny said she'd been in constant touch with her husband by phone but he told her to “stop worrying about him" and that "he'd be fine".
Birmingham Live reports that the following morning at around 8am, a fisherman found the experienced sailor’s body in the water with the yacht and its dingy ‘beached’ nearby. Sergeant Christopher Dibbs, based at Rothesay Police Station, was called out to the scene and said Mr Watkins' life jacket had not inflated.
