Open 60 sailboat hits whale in artemis transat. WHALE DAMAGE

[sailingaway]

Michel Desjoyeaux single-handing on Foncia in the artemis transat just hit a whale! Dammaged his daggerboard (photo here: Artemis Transat Breaking News - Foncia Hits Whale! | YachtPals.com).

Anyone else ever hit a whale? Did it damage your boat?

[jzk]

I wonder if he really hit a whale. It sounds like he doesn't know what he hit, and the daggerboard is remarkably undamaged for having hit a whale.

[sailingaway]

Good question. I gues its his word against the whales

Overall, there were supposedly 2 whales and 1 shark hit in the Artemis Transat!

Interview with Loick Peyron (winner of this years Transat) where he talks about the U.F.O.'s (unidentified floating objects), and the whales.

At least he didn't hit any.

[redbreast]

I can quite believe the story as we came within 5 feet of hitting a Pilot Whale off the coast of Scotland when we circumnaviagted England in a Hobie 16, they are big beasts, beautiful but big.

[Weyalan]

Originally Posted by redbreast

I can quite believe the story as we came within 5 feet of hitting a Pilot Whale off the coast of Scotland when we circumnaviagted England in a Hobie 16, they are big beasts, beautiful but big.

Circumnavigating England... now that I'd like to see . I'm gonna go out on a limb and take a punt that you circumnavigated the British Isles? Us folk from Scotland & Wales get fed up of being referred to as "England"... Im gessing people from the USA would feel the same if they were constantly called either Mexicans or Canadians.

[Aussiesuede]

When you hit then they have a tendency to dive and their tail flipper usually does the damage. That sounds/looks like what happened here. He hit the beast with his nose and likely got a whack from the tail fin in the daggerboard....

Here is some minor hull damage from a whales tail fin:


And Prop Damage from the same incident:

[skkeith]

I just had a humpback hit me. I was mooching with sails down, drifting < 1 knot and a humpback surfaced under me bending my rudder shaft and nearly stranding me. I would be interested if anyone else had similar issues, I am kinda freaked out since there would have been no way to avoid the collision even if I was paying attention at the time.

[sogin]

Originally Posted by skkeith

I just had a humpback hit me. I was mooching with sails down, drifting < 1 knot and a humpback surfaced under me bending my rudder shaft and nearly stranding me. I would be interested if anyone else had similar issues, I am kinda freaked out since there would have been no way to avoid the collision even if I was paying attention at the time.

15 years ago we were 60 miles off Cape Ann MA and although we did not see the animal, we believe we were hit by a whale. At the time we were under power (<5 knots of wind) and suddenly the cockpit was flooded and the boat pivoted 90 degrees. All of us were knocked off our feet or off cockpit seats. My first thought was a to check below for damage and indeed the bilge was filling with water. But it turned out to be fresh water - the starboard water tank was ruptured and the fiber glass box frame and hull liner had detached. It led to an early end of season haul out at a marina in Maine that over the ensuing winter put the boat back together again.

[Snowpetrel]

Hit one once on a yacht doing 15 knots under kite in a rough sea. Luckily a glancing blow and no damage to the keel or rudder. Gave as a nasty fright and stopped the boat. There was lots of brown blood in water behind us and one crew throught he saw a young whale. A few other large sperm whales where nearby.

[JPA Cate]

We had a close one the other day south of Pt. Cartwright. One adult size, one smaller, humpbacks, and repeatedly broaching to re-enter with a resounding chin whap! Had to alter course, and still they came closer than comfortable. As they drew away, the gap between the whap and the sound reaching us lengthened. Odd for the sound to arrive so long after the event.

That said, it is while migration season here, now, and we see many each day.

Ann

[TrentePieds]

Two summers ago on passage under power from West Vancouver to Porlier Pass we had one blow a boat length on our Stbd beam. Just curious, I'm sure. He held a parallel course for a minute or two while he gave us the once over and then sounded. First time MyBeloved had ever seen one, let alone just 30 feet away. She's still raving about it :-)!

TP

[Paul Elliott]

We had a glancing blow with a humpback, and captured some video of the encounter. No damage to whale or boat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYJt1ka7HHM

[a64pilot]

Maybe a silly question, but no one I have ever heard of has hit a Dolphin, why is it a whale apparently can’t or won’t avoid a collision?

[Training Wheels]

We have! Actually, they sort of hit us. Ghosting along at 3-4 knots we had dolphins come up and go sideways on our bow to scratch themselves. They’d swim away with bottom paint on them. Some would do the same on our lee float, and smack the side with their tails.
We had one passage to Baja where the sea turtles were so thick, we hit 4!

[JPA Cate]

Dolphins' skull and jaw structure focuses their sonar range finding. Some research was done in FL on the subject, and they can discriminate astoundingly small differences. You could google on the subject, A64pilot.

Whales' jaws and skulls are different, particularly the baleen whales, and I think they have trouble hearing a boat when it is sailing. They do vocalize, and some of the tones are low frequency, so they should hear your engine if it's running. I don't know if they can hear the high frequencies of our depth sounders, but perhaps not. That's why we turned from the whales the other day. We have some friends who used to have a steel Roberts 38, that ran up on a sleeping whale's back at night --no damage to boat, don't know about the whale, but the boat wouldn't have been going over 6.5, I wouldn't think.

Ann