A hydroplane racer who died when he crashed into a houseboat at 70mph may have been distracted after forgetting to attach a safety cord to his wrist, an inquest heard today.
Brett Duncan, 51, failed to slow down or make a full turn as he rounded a marker buoy during a practice session before a race meeting.
Analysis of videos of the incident at Oulton Broad, near Lowestoft in Suffolk, suggested that he looked left and then down into his hydroplane in the seconds before the devastating impact.
The enhanced footage showed he only looked up to see where he was going in the moment before the collision on the evening of July 24 last year.
This left him no time to avoid smashing into the houseboat by the time he appeared to realise it was right in front of him, Suffolk Coroner’s Court was told.
Safety inspectors who examined the wreckage of the hydroplane, which was owned by Mr Duncan's friend Peter Rix, found no abnormalities with it and all the controls functioning normally.
They also discovered that he didn't have a kill cord attached to his left wrist, which would have stopped the engine if he had been thrown into the water.
Jennifer Jelf, who investigated the crash for the Circuit Powerboat Association, said Mr Duncan was a hugely experienced racer and familiar with the Oulton Broad course.
Brett Duncan died from head injuries after crashing into houseboat
Videos of the race meeting showed him looking left as he went round the buoy, possibly after seeing a chequered flag indicating that it was the last lap of his practice session.
The father-of-two, who was managing director of his own tech firm, may also have glanced at a faster craft coming up his inside, Ms Jelf said.
He then looked down into his hydroplane, suggesting that he may have suddenly realised that he had not attached the kill cord to himself.
Ms Jelf said Mr Duncan, of Martlesham Heath, Ipswich, had a reputation for 'meticulous attention to detail' and would have been 'frustrated' that he had failed to attach it.
She said it would have been enough to cause him 'a distraction at a critical moment', leading to him failing to make the turn and go straight into the houseboat without slowing down
Ms Jelf added: 'Whilst the exact events may never be determined… I consider this scenario to be the most likely explanation.'
Mr Duncan had not shown any similar head movements during his previous laps, she noted.
There was also a lack of spray coming from the directional skeg at the front of the hydroplane just before the collision, suggesting he was not turning at the time, she said.
The tech boss's boat failed to turn sharply around a buoy and crashed into the steel-framed vessel, which was moored nearby
Describing the accidents as being caused by 'driver error’, she continued: 'There was no evidence of him looking forward until literally the moment of impact.'
Asked if he had crashed deliberately, she said: 'I don’t believe so.'
Suffolk assistant coroner Daniel Sharpstone recorded a narrative conclusion at the hearing in Ipswich, saying Mr Duncan had died as a consequence of a collision between his hydroplane and a houseboat.
He added: 'On the balance of probabilities, driver error contributed to the collision.'
Mr Sharpstone added that given he was not wearing a lanyard to the kill cord and deviated off course for a few seconds, 'there does appear to be issues with driver performance'.
Peter Mantripp, the safety and technical director of the Circuit Powerboat Association, told the hearing he had inspected the hydroplane nearly three months after the crash and found no faults in its controls.
After observing videos of Mr Duncan in the hydroplane in the moments before the impact, he said: 'The boat was running absolutely perfectly in the water. It was perfectly trimmed and balanced.
'It didn’t look too high at the front. At no time did the boat look unstable or unsafe. Everything was doing as it should do.'
The 51-year-old crashed into the houseboat at 'high-speed' while his wife filmed him at a race meeting
Mr Mantripp estimated that the hydroplane was travelling at up to 90mph on the straight before Mr Duncan slowed to 70mph to make a 45-degree turn at the start of going round the buoy but failed to make the full manoeuvre.
Martin Smith, a member of UK governing bodies for powerboat racing who also inspected the hydroplane after the crash, said it had been involved in a 'considerable impact'.
But he said in a statement that he could not identify any faults in its structure or in its controls including the throttle and its steering which was 'completely normal' and had 'full unhindered movement'.
Mr Smith added: 'The conclusion I arrived at after inspecting the boat was that, despite its age, there was no outward indication that there had been any failure in the hull or malfunction of control functions which led to a loss of control.'
The inquest earlier heard that Mr Duncan’s wife, Rhianon Phillips-Duncan, had seen the fatal crash while filming his practice session.
She said in a statement that he had been 'rushing' on his arrival at the meeting because they had been delayed by traffic heading towards the Latitude music festival.
But race officials said that Mr Duncan did not appear stressed before getting into the hydroplane after receiving a race briefing.
Mrs Phillips-Duncan said her husband was an experienced racer and was part of an elite class after achieving speeds of more than 100mph.
The inquest heard that paramedics tried to resuscitate Mr Duncan after he was pulled from the water by divers who were on hand in a rescue boat.
He was later pronounced dead and a post-mortem examination gave his cause of death as head injuries as a result of a high speed impact.
The houseboat owner, retired nurse Jacki Beech, told an East Suffolk Council official that she had seen Mr Duncan’s hydroplane 'heading at high speed towards her'.
She said: 'He was clearly looking left at the other boat. Just before the impact, he turned and looked at the houseboat. I saw a look of horror on his face.'
Ms Beech added that the disintegration of the hydroplane as it slammed into her houseboat had left the veranda covered in wreckage that was like 'red, white and blue confetti'.
Mrs Beech said she did not think hydroplane racing was a suitable activity for Oulton Broad and it only benefited a small clique of people.
She called for the sport to be stopped in the same way that fox hunting and 'sending children up chimneys' had been.
Footage of the impact, which happened on an overcast day in relatively calm conditions, was played to the inquest.