Boat sinks after collision with whale near Guaymas

[zeehag]

Originally Posted by autumnbreeze27

I'd like to know the make/model of the boat, and also if they had a sounder on. Our sounder is always on, maybe that's why we rarely see whales?

Another cruiser told us they took a trip to see the whales in one of the lagoons on the pacific side. There were a few whales that liked to be petted. Supposedly they would surface right under the panga and you could feel it rise and fall with their breath, with their baby along side.

A few years ago off the coast of california a poor guy was cruising along in a small powerboat at 20 kts and a whale breached and landed on the boat, killing him.

jason it was a hunte bene..not sure exactly which. not a catalina and not like yours.
please watch 24 hours for whales... yeah they hard to see in darkness.
but it is migration and calving season.
abreojos
see ye next year in a different locale... smooth sailing, whale free.
ohyeah pix n reports please.

yes he had all the bells and whistles, even epirb and life raft.

[socaldmax]

Originally Posted by luciarose

This is correct. Certainly not a 'flimsy Hunter' as quoted above "after an hour of extensive reaseach". The blowhards on this forum who speculate and postulate with no real knowledge are discrgraceful.

Allan is my brother and we're just glad that he's safe. At 5:00am in the dark a sleeping whale doesn't show up too clearly. There was a very large tear in the hull and his pumps couldn't keep up. Sea Boa was a well built boat and Allan is an extremely handy person who has helped many, many fellow cruisers with boat repairs and knowledge. If anyone could have kept that boat from going down, it was Al.

Our thanks to Mexico SAR who were quick to the scene and brought Al back to shore safe and sound where he is now on his way back home.

Originally Posted by zeehag

jason it was a hunte bene..not sure exactly which. not a catalina and not like yours.
please watch 24 hours for whales... yeah they hard to see in darkness.
but it is migration and calving season.
abreojos
see ye next year in a different locale... smooth sailing, whale free.
ohyeah pix n reports please.

yes he had all the bells and whistles, even epirb and life raft.

I take it someone hasn't seen the first post quoted above.

[SniperSailor]

Was his name Ahab?

[zeehag]

who said flimsy hunter??
the man leaving here was driving a production boat, i believe it was a beneteau or hunter, and was headed to guaymas for haulout. marque beneteau was confirmed at french baker delivery time, when our wifi quit connections.
anyone saying flimsy anything is daft, as these boats cruise longer then the fail words spewed about them by desk jockeys..
it is always sad to know a boat has been lost.
sailing over a sleeping whale is difficult for any boat to survive.

by the way, socaldmex--these are folks who spend time in same anchorages in wintertimes.
if and when you come cruising, mebbe you will be able to observe the boats coming and going ahead and behind and beside you on a regular basis.
i did take note of the fact the writer of the post you bash me for posting said NOTHING about marque.

nor did i say anything about the boat being flimsy. i believe a desk jock spewed that forth, as you spew your diss upon me.

we here, who recently said smooth sailing to the man, have been trying without any input until the above posting to learn which sea boa it was . there are more than one sea boa in sea of cortez and mexico. but you donot know that, as you are not here.

luciarose--read MY words again and then apologize to me for your having misread my words. i NEVER said flimsy. some desk jock spewed that filth.

apologies from BOTH of you who cannot read correctly, are accepted. thankyou.

luciarose i am saddened and have been by the loss of sea boa. alan is a good soul and makes for good dock neighbors. i hope his recovery from this loss is not too long or hard.
please re read my postings and see i did not speak of flimsiness in the face of whale hit. nothing survives those. i merely bespoke whale migration and a boat named sea boa was lost and which one was it.
thankyou for letting us know about the details. many are travelling to guaymas for their summer rituals.
i hope they keep a good watch and avoid sleeping whales.

[S/V Alchemy]

Originally Posted by Ann T. Cate

Kinda hard to avoid on an overnighter, unless they let you know they're around.

Anyone on here know if whales can hear our engine? or our wake?

Too bad the vessel was sunk, but good on surviving.

Ann

The only time I've seen a live whale at sea was on an offshore delivery about 200 NM north of the USVIs in a Bristol 45.5. The day was calm (well, comparatively) and we were under sail at around 6 to 6.4 knots. A young (we estimated) sperm whale (easy to I.D. becaue of the "forehead") surfaced aft of us that was easily the size of the boat at a distance of about two boats lengths and at right angles to our course. We wondered if we looked like another whale or perhaps the biggest seal ever from his perspective. Had we hit such a beast on the surface, even the strongly built Bristol might have sustained critical damage, and I'm sure 15 tonnes at 6 knots might have crippled the whale, too.

If one is transiting a known whale "nursery", I would seriously consider heaving to at night, or investing in forward-looking sonar. It's their ocean, after all; we are just passing through, and if we can't keep a proper watch, and we sail between mama and baby, I would expect to get rammed just as if I blundered into the bushes and stomped on a goose's nest.

[socaldmax]

Originally Posted by zeehag

who said flimsy hunter??
the man leaving here was driving a production boat, i believe it was a beneteau or hunter, and was headed to guaymas for haulout. marque beneteau was confirmed at french baker delivery time, when our wifi quit connections.
anyone saying flimsy anything is daft, as these boats cruise longer then the fail words spewed about them by desk jockeys..
it is always sad to know a boat has been lost.
sailing over a sleeping whale is difficult for any boat to survive.

by the way, socaldmex--these are folks who spend time in same anchorages in wintertimes.
if and when you come cruising, mebbe you will be able to observe the boats coming and going ahead and behind and beside you on a regular basis.
i did take note of the fact the writer of the post you bash me for posting said NOTHING about marque.

nor did i say anything about the boat being flimsy. i believe a desk jock spewed that forth, as you spew your diss upon me.

we here, who recently said smooth sailing to the man, have been trying without any input until the above posting to learn which sea boa it was . there are more than one sea boa in sea of cortez and mexico. but you donot know that, as you are not here.

luciarose--read MY words again and then apologize to me for your having misread my words. i NEVER said flimsy. some desk jock spewed that filth.

apologies from BOTH of you who cannot read correctly, are accepted. thankyou.

Apologize? To whom? Just because you demand one?


For what? Making the simple observation that perhaps you (and others) had not seen that post?

There's nothing to apologize for, I said nothing the least bit derogatory about you, or to you. I certainly did not do any speculating as to who it was.

If you're feeling attacked, look elsewhere, it certainly wasn't from me. Maybe it was your use of the phrase "huntebene" to describe his boat that struck a nerve.

[zeehag]

alchemy, i have seen many pods of whales as i sailed south on west coast and along mexicoast. i have yet to see one this far south but soc and banderas bay and up the sea are popular whale watching places.
they like calving in scammons lagoon, mag bay. calm waters. no traffic. then they leave that area to teach the babies to swim and dive and be whales.
soon they will be heading north up the coast to pnw and points north of there.
seems we have many kindsa whales, so only one isnt gonna get ye. i have seen blues humpbacks, and greys, and there are more i have yet to see. cruisers cross their migratory paths more than one time in cruising west coast.
they are awesome to witness and scary big. yes they can hear us. even at night.
they reallllly donot like us coming between their calf and them. that is huge oops, and not always known by the sailor, even in broad daylight with wide open eyes, forward sonar and binox.
momma nature always wins. doesnt matter the kind of boat. marque was requested by some so as to understand mechanical engineering aspects of the loss. this is not a diss of the boat lost. this is an observable and observed fact.

¨Apologize? To whom? Just because you demand one?


For what? Making the simple observation that perhaps you (and others) had not seen that post?

There's nothing to apologize for, I said nothing the least bit derogatory about you, or to you. I certainly did not do any speculating as to who it was. ¨

ha ha h a it is nice to be able to deny that which one says. facts is facts. marque was only requested so the poster would understand the mechanics of destruction should this happen to him. it was you who said i said flimsy and came out all attacking, honey. have a great life. is a shame you donot understand objectivity and so direly need to add your own twist to the stated facts and requests for info by others also cruising same area. .
it is a shame the boat was lost. whales happen,. may no one else encounter one while at sea .

autumnbreeze--our boats break in a different manner than do the production boats. we have the thick hand laid glass that kinda shreds and shatters when whale holed. yes we go down as fast. books were written on this... interesting. fastest to sink when whale-holed is ferro. 8 seconds was timed. i donot remember the name of the book, but it kept my attention.


by the way...your saying marque is irrelevant is irrelevant, a s marque and name of boat are how we remember our cruising encounters. this posted request was appropriate in more than one way.
poster snideness has kinda befouled our ability to wish the man well and hope he has a smooth recovery from this tragic loss, has it not.
have a great day folks.

[socaldmax]

I'm sorry to hear he lost his boat, but very glad he was rescued fairly quickly. Hopefully he was insured and will get another boat soon.

[mowerandy]

Water transmits sound a whole lot better than air, so things are pretty audible underwater. Sound of a sailboat is mainly splashing tho, and if there is already a bit (or a lot) of that going on at the surface then....
If your engine is running on the other hand, then that is going to be a lot harder to miss. Had both kinds for years and never come close to striking anything alive with a powerboat, but have bumped a couple of whales and several lazy sharks while sailing.
I like a solid lay-up and a keel that wont come off a sailboat.
Glad this ended reasonably well - sounds diabolical

[BobFord]

My theory on Whale encounters- in my last boat , with fixed props , I would leave them rotating at night. In addition would leave the sounder running. The subject theory is that they need to know that I am there.
This boat has Gori props but a noisy steering motor. On the Aussie NE coast , Whales are very common . In fact hardly a night goes by without hearing them , in season that is .

So far so good , after many years of ocean work !! Another factor in general re integration with sea life, always use black antifoul. ? What about amourous Whales, you say ---???

[Cheechako]

I sometimes wonder if whales go into kind of a "meditative" state when cruising along on a journey. I was motoring in the Straight of Juan de Fuca once, nice clear sunny day with flat water. I noticed an Orca fin maybe a mile or more ahead. I figure he'd be gone by the time I got there. Went back to reading my book. All of a sudden, there was his fin right alongside the boat. (going the opposite direction) maybe 6 ft off my beam. We had been on a collision course, he just kept moving along, no reaction whatsoever, didn't roll and look my way etc.

[Lizzy Belle]

Always sad when a boat goes down ...

Do we know for sure it was a whale and not something else?
Either way - so sad the boat was lost, but happy all crew members are safely ashore.

Reminds me a little of a Dutch sailor, years ago, who was making a vid when he got this weird look on his face - a mix or horror and awe is the best way to describe it. Then the boat made some weird movements.

He was on a little steel 32' boat and a whale had decided it was just perfect for scratching his back on the hull. Skipper was in awe of seeing a whale that close -- and terrified, cos the whale was pushing the boat sideways like it was nothing.

Nothing bad happened, even the windvane steering survived. Whale was just gently swimming and rubbing up against the hull, but the boat had nothing on the whale -- and it wasn't even a big one.

As much as I hope to see whales ... I guess I have to be careful what I wish for. My little plastic tub versus a whale ... my money is on the whale.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by BobFord

Another factor in general re integration with sea life, always use black antifoul. ? What about amourous Whales, you say ---???

They may get worried seeing that fin upside down and 'turn you right way up'

[Lizzy Belle]

Originally Posted by boatman61

They may get worried seeing that fin upside down and 'turn you right way up'

Hahahahaa!

I can suddenly see whales going "wtf?!" and go into full rescue mode

[nortonscove]

Oodles of whales where we sail. Never hit one but the old guys I know always say time keep your engine running when they are around. Almost hit one in the early morning past July while leaving Fleur-de-lys harbour. It appeared to be sleeping.

As a side note for the flimsy argument PBO this month has an article about boats losing keels. It is a very rare occurrence to begin with but the highest percentage happens to steel or aluminum vessels due to failing welds. So much for the flimsy fibreglass theory.