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NotQuiteLost · 07-11-2010, 14:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by GordMay

“... The sailors - Ralph Mothes and his partner, Paloma Werner - were uninjured, and the sailboat's steel hull remained intact, allowing the couple to motor back to Cape Town Harbour...”

➥ Whale vs. sailboat

Score another one for steel. I was looking at that thing for a few minutes thinking "There's no way a fiberglass boat survives a friggin' whale landing on the deck. It's probably sinking in this picture."

Yeah, now I feel a little bad for the whale. That must've hut.

banyandah · 07-11-2010, 15:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by GordMay

and the sailboat's steel hull remained intact,

Once upon a terrible time, my crew and I fell off the deck of big ship, while sitting on the deck a 45' steel yacht! Most of us ended up in hospital, and the steel yacht, outside of loosing her masts, and no doors would ever close again, came up and floated!

**hummingway** · 07-11-2010, 15:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by GordMay

“... The sailors - Ralph Mothes and his partner, Paloma Werner - were uninjured, and the sailboat's steel hull remained intact, allowing the couple to motor back to Cape Town Harbour...”

➥ Whale vs. sailboat

The article talks about them being accused of harrassing the whale. What I had original read was that others had been out there harassing it. I doubt the sailor was harrassing the whale but obviously they were to close. They even say they had been watching it and suddenly it breached. I have heard that most incidents with whales come from people getting too close to them. Want to be safe? Watch from a distance with binoculars.

MarkJ · 08-11-2010, 01:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by hummingway

most incidents with whales come from people getting too close to them. Want to be safe? Watch from a distance with binoculars.

In Tonga near Neafu they have lots of birthing cows and bubbies and lots of tourist boats watching them. The law there has a clear stipulation that only 1 boat at a time can approach and then to 300 meter minimum.

So we are drifting through the area one day and want to have a bit of a look.... We know we will have to wait out turn and give the tourist boats priority.
From 8 am there was a high speed boat right next to this monther and calf within meters of it, often with another torusit boat waiting its turn... we never got a chance to be anywhere and in the end just felt so sorry for the whales. We left at midday. So that mother and new born were harassed within meters for at least 4 hours solid.

I'd breach too!

The photo below is blurry etc but shows you how close they were all the time. Note the mother and calf clearly visable. Also note the size of the cameras on the motor boat: they didnt have to be that close!

**hpeer** · 09-11-2010, 03:24

Sailing in Newfoundland you often see whales. They tend to come into the bays following the caplin, a small sardine like fish that swim in schools and lay eggs on the beach. Mostly humpbacks and minkes.

We had a small beluga spend many months in harbor a couple of years ago. The last things we saw when leaving to come back to 'civilization' was a pilotless boat being pulled by the whale, his 'tug' toy.

While I will never know for sure, I think I saw a blue whale one summer. I was on the south coast and only saw one whale all trip. But that guy was huge and of a gray color. I heard it blow and looked up to see it slowly breeching, and breeching, and breeching, and there is a small dorsal, and breeching, .........................just huge.

Several times we have seen humpbacks doing full aerobatic jumps. Clean out of the water. They must be down deep when the start to get that kind of momentum up. I seriously doubt that they can see the surface when that urge hits them.

No that's sailing in Newfoundland: ice, rocks, and whales. That's why we have steel.

**GordMay** · 23-10-2021, 05:16

Record 21 humpback calves spotted in Salish Sea over feeding season as whale numbers rebound” ~ by Yvette Brend · CBC News

There were no humpbacks off southwest B.C. 25 years ago, but now as many as 500 have been identified.

More ➥ https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...-sea-1.6221049

And, 2021 Sets Record for Number of Humpback Whale Calves in Salish Sea
➥ https://www.pacificwhalewatchassocia...-in-salish-sea

Joh.Ghurt · 23-10-2021, 06:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by GordMay

There were no humpbacks off southwest B.C. 25 years ago, but now as many as 500 have been identified.

Seems we humans are also doing things right and aren't just burning down the world while traumatising disturbed girls with loony parents.

**GordMay** · 23-10-2021, 06:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joh.Ghurt

Seems we humans are also sometimes doing some things right...

Indeed.
Maybe, I should have posted this in the 'A Little Good News' thread.

**GordMay** · 24-10-2021, 03:26

With more humpback whales in B.C. waters, entanglements are on the rise, too
“... In the last five years, we've seen an uptick from three to 10 confirmed entanglements to ...10 to 25 animals a year entangled," he* said.
Part of the reason, he* says, is because there are a lot more humpback whales in inshore waters. For example, the humpback whale population off northeastern Vancouver Island reached 86 in 2018, up from just seven in 2004. ...”
* Paul Cottrell, with marine mammal rescue at DFO
More ➥ https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...scue-1.6217506

rotrax · 24-10-2021, 05:52

Meanwhile, off Atlantic Portugal and Spain and now in the Western Med, Orca's are regularly attacking and damaging small boats.

rotrax · 24-10-2021, 06:58

OOPS - double post..................

Joh.Ghurt · 24-10-2021, 08:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by rotrax

Meanwhile, off Atlantic Portugal and Spain and now in the Western Med, Orca's are regularly attacking and damaging small boats.

Yes, this is known, that's why there was an exclusion zone in Spain. Seems this is a case of too many unsupervised juvenile males in a pod where there aren't many bulls left to keep them inline. It's a kind of single mother household problem.

Better be careful when you encounter the orcas with the reversed baseball caps, gold teeth and too may gold chains. Rumours of Gangsta-Rap-Whale songs haven't been confirmed.

dannc · 24-10-2021, 08:35

We were sailing off of South Carolina and North Carolina last week and the Coast Guard had multiple radio calls regarding right whales along the coast. Alas, we did not see them.

Did see dolphins but we always see dolphins.

Later,
Dan

rotrax · 24-10-2021, 13:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joh.Ghurt

Yes, this is known, that's why there was an exclusion zone in Spain. Seems this is a case of too many unsupervised juvenile males in a pod where there aren't many bulls left to keep them inline. It's a kind of single mother household problem.

Better be careful when you encounter the orcas with the reversed baseball caps, gold teeth and too may gold chains. Rumours of Gangsta-Rap-Whale songs haven't been confirmed.

Not sure that that is true. Ongoing 'sticky' thread on the YBW Scuttlebutt Forum, not seen that mentioned as anything other than a possibility.

Video's are available showing actual attacks. One is by a full grown male Orca.

So far the only thing that has worked to get the Orca's to desist is going astern.