Coroner Simon Cooper has recommended all recreational boat users have second-hand vessel purchases checked by a qualified professional after the drowning deaths of four men in Southern Tasmania in 2016.
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An inquest into the deaths of Luke William Davies, Aleksander Drobnjak, Magnus Julian Ritter, and Anthony James Bernard Roche while on a fishing trip in Frederick Henry Bay was held earlier this year.
The men had left a boat ramp on July 31, 2016, in a fibreglass runabout that was around 50 years old which had been previously owned by numerous people and kept in different conditions since it was built.
The men did not return from the fishing trip.
The bodies of Mr Davies and Mr Ritter were found the next day.
Some remains of Mr Drobnjak were found a week later and Mr Roche's body was never recovered.
Mr Cooper in his report on the incident said neither men in the boat had much boating experience.
The boat was purchased by Mr Ritter, who did not hold a motor boat licence or any boating qualification, and Jay Armstrong who was not on the vessel at the time of the incident.
Mr Armstrong told the inquest he did not think to have the boat checked for its seaworthiness.
Mr Cooper noted the sale was made by James Castle at a personal loss of $300.
He said evidence given by Mr Castle that he needed to make a quick sale to buy a bigger boat was not implausible though the new boat was not purchased until 2018.
Mr Cooper said during the inquest, Mr Castle gave inconsistent evidence in regards to his motivation to sell the boat.
"Although it is clear the boat must have sunk, and the sinking must, logically, have been the cause of the death of the four men there is a complete absence of evidence as to how or why it did sink," he said.
"Thus the task of identifying whether the boat was in some respect defective and that defect was in effect fatal, is extremely difficult.
"It is at least a reasonable hypothesis that it may have been due to the failure of the boat's hull, or possibly transom, due to rot."
He said he recommended that all people who purchased a second-hand boat have it professionally checked before taking it into open water.
Mr Cooper said based on evidence received during the inquest, all people on the water needed to wear a personal flotation device and attention should be paid to a boat's capacity to carry a certain number of passengers.
"A recreational boat licence is not simply a piece of paper or a formality," he said.
"All recreational boat users are required to have one. It is not just the law, but also a matter of life and death."
