Boat smashed by breaching whale

[rbgarr]

http://www.boattest.com/Resources/view_news.aspx?NewsID=3766

[tomlarkin]

Smart, well-prepared crew:



The boat immediately started taking on water. At first it was coming in at a faster rate than the pumps could keep up, said the captain. The crew hooked the raw water intake from the generator to a hose in the bilge and began pumping water overboard. Then the crew had a condenser pump for A/C pumping water as well. That got them home and to the repair yard.

[George.]

Our raw-water intake is a hose in the bilge. All we have to do in an emergency is close the seacock, loosen three hose clamps (of the sort that even a coin will unscrew), and stick the end of the hose in the bilge. There is a filter before the engine, of course.

[Bruce Hooke]

Wow.

[Figment]

Someone posted this comment:

Its amazing that the bowthruster probably saved the boat. You might think that putting one in weakens the hull but the opposite is true due to the structural reinforcement. Another reason to get a bowthruster!

Better run out and install a bowthruster quick, before your whale insurance rates spike!

[paladin]

I installed a "Y" valve on the intake to the engine....just in case.....one side to the bilge with a strainer, the other to the thru hull....luckily never had to use it.

[Hal Forsen]

Not sure where they got the date on the story but it happened way back in February.
The guys are locals around here and well known Tournie fisherman. The story got a lot of press at the time.

Here's Steve Lassley's first email to Viking:

We had just finished catching all the bait for Anthony's trip and caught several Marlin. It was 11:30 am.

We had seen Whales everywhere all morning. Many breaching. One had jumped two days prior and hit a boat upon falling back into the water. We had just gotten the boat to 22 knots. 2 people on the bridge looking for Whales. When the bow was thrown straight up into the air. 40 tons of Whale colliding with 40 tons of boat at 90 degree angles.

You can see the point of impact in the pix. After careful examination of the damage , the only conclusion is the Whale was just about to breach. It struck with such force that Pete was thrown several feet in the salon into the aft bulkhead. If I had not been with my back against my chair I would have been thrown from the bridge.

I have seen several boats that have hit Whales in the past. Usually, you ride up on the back much as a boat going up on a sandbar, roll down the side and do strut, prop and rudder damage. None of this happened. All of the damage was sustained forward , at a hard angle to the chine. I can't begin to explain the violence of the collision. If I had to guess I would say the Whale was going to jump quartering towards us, almost straight up. You can see this in the pics. The fiberglass that is peeled back is from the hydraulic force of the water peeling it loose as we traveled home. The picture of the Port side shows the force of impact knocking the tube loose and punching a hole in the opposite side.( Note the fiberglass strands sticking out)

We were very fortunate to save the boat and not wind up in the water. It wouldn't have been a bad thing as several boats were around us. I would have lost 30 years of unreplaceable notes and all our personal belongings though.

Unbelievable amount of fiberglass forward in this boat. I can't belive how many laminations were in the stem. I don't know how the boat survived the impact.

Last thing. We spent about a half hour today helping a guy with a broken boat. Lending him tools, talking him through his problem until he was running. I spent my weekend on the phone helping someone else out that was having all kinds of boat issues and was stranded in San Carlos. Talked him through all his issues. It took several hours.I saw the guy we helped today, he was pulling his boat out of the water as ours was coming out. He looked at me shakes his head and says" All those people on the bank today, your the only one that came on the radio when I needed help. Of all the people for this to happen to, sometimes there just is not any justice"

I am sick right now. Gonna try to thing about something else for a few minutes.

Steve

Better pictures here:

http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/viking-yacht/10794-viking-sportfish-bad-company-hit-whale.html

More on the story:
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/weblogs/san-diego-outdoors-blog/2009/feb/26/team-bad-company-survives-collision-whale/

[George.]

The thing is, as far as I know, blue whales don't breach. Humpbacks, grays, rights and sperms do.

[Lew Barrett]

The article seemed to have little interest in the fauna. I hope the whale is OK, though a 30 knot collision couldn't have been healthful, even for so large a creature as a gray. I think Viking's press corps did a great job of focusing interest on the glass. But here's a vote for the whale......

[Hal Forsen]

The article seemed to have little interest in the fauna. I hope the whale is OK The press has a tough time getting them to hold still for interviews.........:D

[BrianW]

I love watching the humpbacks around here, but they do make me nervous.

Once we were running through a narrow straight and one guy kept breeching ahead of us. Ran down the opposite side, as much as the rocks would allow, and the damn whale started coming over too.

Finally as it got closer, it breached one more time and having a good idea of it's position and course, we took off and got around it.

Found some pictures... not the best.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v136/BrianW/Camping/P1020924-1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v136/BrianW/Camping/closebreech.jpg

[mizzenman]

That looks spectacular, Brian.

[Mrleft8]

When I was out in Mendocino, I used to watch the whales migrating just behind my house. To watch what I was told were Gray Whales breaching was amazing. I wouldn't want to be in a little boat right near one though. They put out a pretty impressive wave.

[rbgarr]

This youtube is a fake, but funny nonetheless: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q0YdRQTX3s

[Yeadon]

My understanding is that around Puget Sound, when you see a whale you're supposed to slow down or stop. These guys were running full-bore through an area where they'd known whales were breaching consistently.

Not hard to believe they got smacked.

Now, all I have to go on is the newspaper story up above but in the grand scheme of things it seems like they were operating irresponsibly, even if their own local rules said what they were doing was fine.

[Lew Barrett]

Found some pictures... not the best.


But not bad at all by any means!

[rbgarr]

My understanding is that around Puget Sound, when you see a whale you're supposed to slow down or stop. These guys were running full-bore through an area where they'd known whales were breaching consistently.

Not hard to believe they got smacked.

Now, all I have to go on is the newspaper story up above but in the grand scheme of things it seems like they were operating irresponsibly, even if their own local rules said what they were doing was fine.

I would think that a whale would be aware of boats in its vicinity long before a skipper would know of any whale's whereabouts.

[George.]

Dogs are aware of cars, but get run over nonetheless. It's the speed. It is difficult for animals to learn to gauge the high speeds of motorized vehicles. The only way to get familiar with these unnatural phenomena is by surviving close calls.

[Yeadon]

Maybe they do, I'm not whale expert ... but at 22+ knots things can happen quickly. They're just animals with limitations, much like the rest of us. Which begs the following questions ... are some whales smarter than others? Do they daydream sometimes, and not pay attention to where they breach? Sort of like the way a fishing captain might just turn on the autopilot, roar way past hull speed and point her to shore?

I think if you're headed into an area where you know there will be whales, during a season when you know the whales will be there, then you ought to pilot your boat with a little more restraint. Unless we have too many whales. In that case, nevermind.

[Rob Stokes, N. Vancouver]

We were fishing out off Vancouver a few weeks ago and had a massive (> 50 whales) pod of Orca's materialize around us. The sounded under us in pairs both from behind us and from beside us, in 30' of water, and with the tips of their dorsal fins no more than 30' from the boat each time. They did this because we were shadow from the sun, and according to our sounder, we had a massive column of schooled salmon taking refuge under us at the time. We held our troll, and they never so much as touched one of our lines.

I've seen a lot of whales, but nothing like that. I have no doubt they knew exactly where we were, and where our lines were.

And then they were gone....

[Hal Forsen]

In this case these guys were actually fishing in a tournament when the incident occured.
Tournie types are always racing around except when they are on fish. In the area they were fishing I am almost certain it was a grey whale.

I had a mature grey whale surface about 20' from my kayak several years ago and another time a large dolphin jumped right over the bow of my yak close enough for me to touch with the paddle if I'd cared to try..........