Whale bitch-slaps yacht

[Colin1]

When you take your yacht out for a gentle pootle along the coast, the last thing you expect is for a 40-ton whale to thrash it to bits. But that is exactly what happened to this South African couple, when they sailed off the coast of Cape Town on their 32ft yacht, Intrepid.

Ralph Mothes, 59 and Paloma Werner, 50, were enjoying calm seas when the Southern Right Whale announced its presence by pounding its tail on the surface of the water. Miss Werner said "It really was quite incredible but very scary. The whale was the same size as the boat. We'd spotted it about 100 metres away and thought that was the end of it but then suddenly it was right up beside us. I assumed it would go underneath but instead it sprang out of the sea."

The whale landed on the boat, snapping the steel mast in two. "There were bits of skin and blubber left behind and the mast was wrecked. It brought down the rigging too." Miss Werner said. "Thank goodness the hull was made of steel and not fibreglass or we could have been ruined."

Below: Before and after

 

[Erich]

pretty fricking territorial I would say .............. wonder if the kids were about ?

 

[Matt308]

Surely it dumped the skipper in the drink. It's a wonder it didn't swamp the boat.

 

[Colin1]

Surely it dumped the skipper in the drink. It's a wonder it didn't swamp the boat.

...and coastal S Africa is no place to get swamped - plenty of Great Whites around to clean up

 

[Matt308]

What a nightmare. But then again, you know dang well that they were shadowing the whale to get their thrill. I have no sympathy. There's a reason they say to keep 100yds away at all times.

 

[Gnomey]

You can't help it the whale comes to you and you can't get out of the way.

That being said they are lucky to be in one piece as the say. Don't want to go swimming of the Cape...

 

[vikingBerserker]

For some reason, the game "Marco Polo" just popped into my mind.

 

[Matt308]

Whales don't usually come to you. Usually it's some overzealous camera person who thinks all things wild are anthropomorphic and can be logically reasoned with. I love it when that happens. Like the guys living with the grizzly bears in Alaska. Fed 'em and fed 'em for months and suddenly, one of them decided some man flesh would go with that crappy dog food they were feeding them. I recall the video, one guy is playing a guitar and the other guy starts screaming like something was taking his head off... Oh yeah that's right... it was taking his head off!

 

[vikingBerserker]

LMAO

"And the stupid shall be punished"

 

[RabidAlien]

Ouch...I'd love to hear that phone call to Lloyds of London! "Yeah, I'm calling in about my policy....does it cover whales? Specifically....am I covered for being covered by a whale?"


ETA: Maybe we should start recruiting the whales to putter around off the coast of Somalia...

 

[Catch22]

ETA: Maybe we should start recruiting the whales to putter around off the coast of Somalia...

And have some Great Whites there to clean up, just like Colin said...

 

[GrauGeist]

Or a few weeks ago while on vacation on the coast, we came across a small group of young Roosevelt Elk grazing alongside the highway. Two guys and a gal get out and run up to the bigger of the 5 bulls (yes, ran) and started taking pics with thier cellphones. I was stopped on the other side of the highway (at a safe distance), and I called out to them to back off, and the one guy laughed and said "shut the f*** up, we know what we're doing" just as his pal turned his back on the closest bull and snapped a pic with his cell (at a distance just shy of 20 feet).

That bull started to snort and waved his rack against a bush (HUGE warning of an imminent ass-kicking, by the way), and I told my girlfriend that we better get going before that bull splashes a little chlorine in the gene pool. As tempting as it was to see those idiots get nailed, I was on vacation and wasn't going to have that memory hanging in the back of my mind...so we left.

As far as the whale goes, I'm going to agree with Matt...those two were going for the "warm and fuzzy" nature experience and the whale wasn't going for it.

 

[gumbyk]

Whales don't usually come to you.

Umm, yes they do, quite often, in fact, especially once they get used to boats being around.

There was a similar incident down here a few years ago, where a dolphin mis-judged a jump, and landed on a boat, and seriously injured a woman on the bow.

I guess whales, like humans, are fallible.

 

[B-17engineer]

Ouch...I'd love to hear that phone call to Lloyds of London! "Yeah, I'm calling in about my policy....does it cover whales? Specifically....am I covered for being covered by a whale?"


ETA: Maybe we should start recruiting the whales to putter around off the coast of Somalia...

Thats an awesome idea!!! Especially against those garbage cans with motors.

 

[Njaco]

I can only say that idiots like those previously mentioned are nothing but job security for me!

 

[bobbysocks]

NJACO...that is an awesome sig! i keep looking at that and it just blows me away. that could be a real pic from the BoB...and probably was

 

[beaupower32]

I guess this gives new meaning to whale wars huh........

 

[Colin1]

More cuddly animal huggers
whoever threw that stick should be slapped silly though

Woman attacked by bison: 'I thought I was going to die' - CNN.com

 

[GrauGeist]

Man, she was sure lucky...

 

[RabidAlien]

Holy crap....it never ceases to amaze me how people think that just because something is big and bulky like that buffalo, that it must be about as awkward and clumsy as a frikkin boulder. And why someone would think that getting up close to one is safe...just because you're in a national park means nothing! You're in their frikkin HOME, for cryin out loud!

Yep, there's a stick tossed at the buffalo. More like a mid-sized branch, looks like. Bounces off the poor guy just before he goes nuts. That buffalo probably sees more idiot tourists in a day than most park rangers do...some moron blundering through the underbrush wouldn't have bothered it, unless it felt its young were in danger. In this one, its the stick that set the thing off, and these two were the first ones it set eyes on. Will agree, though...she's frikkin lucky. Buffalo just wanted to make a point, I guess.