A suspected drug smuggler killed himself by leaping from the mast of a yacht loaded with cocaine worth £18m as it was being searched by border force officers in the Isles of Scilly. An inquest jury ruled that Christiaan Woestenburg, whose boat had been towed into harbour by a lifeboat, took his own life.
Netherlands-born Woestenburg, 62, told officers he was going to fetch some equipment to open a locked hatch on the yacht, Windrose. But he climbed up the 12-metre (40ft) mast of the yacht before jumping on to the granite quay of St Mary’s harbour. The drugs were found hidden in the yacht’s freshwater tank.
The jury in Plymouth, Devon, was told that the 11-metre Windrose was in the Atlantic heading to the Netherlands when it suffered problems with its rigging and mast 16 miles off Scilly.
Woestenburg called out the St Mary’s lifeboat on 16 June 2013 after three days without sleep. When the border force heard where the vessel was located, they sent a cutter to St Mary’s and boarded the yacht to search for drugs.
Woestenburg’s younger brother, Otto, said his sibling was an experienced sailor who had made several transatlantic voyages. He said he had bought the yacht in Turkey in 2009 and had sailed to South America and the Dutch Caribbean several times.
He said he had seen reports that a “very large” amount of drugs was found on the boat, but he said: “I cannot believe that he would have tried to smuggle drugs. His friends are in shock and disbelief. He was, in fact, anti-drugs.” He said Woestenburg lived frugally and gave generously to charity.
St Mary’s assistant harbour master, Alan Hartwell, told the jury that the skipper had been at sea for 15 days and away from home for four years. Hartwell said: “He looked completely shattered. He said it was the worst trip he had.”
Home Office forensic pathologist Dr Russell Delaney said Woestenburg had been sailing from Portugal and was believed to be heading to Holland: “He was towed to the Isles of Scilly by the RNLI. The boat was tied to a mooring in the harbour. Border Force received some intelligence and the boat was boarded and searched.”
Delaney said the boat included a secured hatch below deck, and that the yachtsman had passed officers to return to the deck to fetch hydraulic equipment to open it. Once on deck, he climbed the mast. “He then jumped off the top and landed on the solid granite harbourside,” said Delaney. An off-duty paramedic came to his aid and he was airlifted to Truro in Cornwall, where he was declared dead.
Delaney said his postmortem revealed that the yachtsman died from head, chest and pelvic injuries that were consistent with a fall from height. He added: “He was immediately unconscious and unaware of what happened. The head injury was unsurvivable.” There was no evidence that he had been forcefully restrained.
Blood tests showed that Woestenburg was slightly over the drink-drive limit. The pathologist said this may have “affected his decision-making, but he was not incapacitated by it”.
