Wanted…

Ok, in all fairness, I suppose it could go either way… I’m sure our friend (sistership pictured above) isn’t too thrilled either. It was an unfortunate surprise for all parties concerned when our J/120 happened upon a couple of whales while on a leisurely cruise a couple of days ago. The startled skipper turned hard, and the startled whale dove quickly… but as the tail gave a mighty shove for the inky-deep, the flukes lightly grazed the port bow. And when one of these beauties weighing lord-knows-how-many-tons (and that’s a precise measurement, metric of course) grazes something, they leave a path of destruction. The bow pulpit was tweaked off to starboard bending a stanchion as it went, the headfoil was snapped clean in two, and the harken furling drum was bent. The crew reported that there was plenty of whale skin along the side of the boat…

And that was a glancing blow?! We can only can imagine what the force of a direct hit would do!

The upside is that there are more whales around the Bay than we think we have ever seen. And they really are spectacular. Being in quiet sailboats means that we don’t scare them away, but also that we have to be on the perpetual lookout…