The skipper of a New Zealand registered yacht died after becoming entangled in a powered winch.
The accident occurred on board the 17.5 metre (57 foot) long yacht Mollie in August 2025 off the Isle of Wight, England.
Earlier in the day, Mollie had departed West Wittering near Chichester for a passage to Poole, UK, with the skipper and three crew on board.
The skipper, Lyall Babington, was a 74-year-old New Zealand national who had set off from New Zealand three years earlier, intending to sail Mollie around the world.
During a sail change on the passage, it’s thought Babington’s hand became caught in a rope around an electric winch and he was pulled progressively tighter into the winch drum.
Unresponsive
As the winch continued to turn, he became entangled with the winch drum, causing severe injuries and trauma to his head and chest, and pinning him around the winch.
The crew tried to stop the winch using the control switch and after a number of attempts the winch stopped turning, however the skipper was unresponsive by this point and a Mayday call was made.
Despite CPR being given, the skipper was declared dead.
Small boatyard
A report by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) found the winch had a known intermittent defect to its control switch, which sometimes caused it to continue to operate after the control switch had been released.
There was no local emergency stop fitted to the aft winches and no means of isolating the winches from the vessel’s 24V DC power system.
To cut power to the winches required isolating the 24V DC system by turning off the batteries in Mollie’s forward cabin.
The powered winch had likely been installed by a small boatyard, and the installation was not mass-produced.
