Whales, anyone?

Hmmm. I am checking to see if there're any whales about these days off Palos Verdes, since tomorrow, Christmas Day, I will have eight folks aboard hoping to see them. (If they can survive two hours under power from MDR without losing interest).

And so I happen upon this, from just a few months ago:

http://www.petethomasoutdoors.com/2...-a-sudden-there-was-this-great-big-crash.html

I've been around whales a lot and never believed that if one surfaces under you it could break the hull.

However, I do think my wife's comment just now was very un-holiday-like.

"Probably a Catalina."

It would be good for Ericson owners not to be too smug. Whales can not only damage but sink boats under the right circumstances: http://www.latitude38.com/lectronic/lectronicday.lasso?date=2009-10-29#.UrpTfE2A0gs The particular boat you mentioned--Catalina or otherwise--may have gotten off cheap, and I would not be too quick to assume that an Ericson would have fared any better.

I sail in the same general area as you do and I've seen many, many whales--on a few occasions within about 50' of the boat. Whenever I can I give them a wide berth, but when they surface next to you out of nowhere, there's nothing you can do about that.

Majestic creatures, to be sure!

Merry Christmas! And happy (and safe) whale watching.

This particular boat was (insurance)-totaled by a whale that breached and fell on the side deck.
http://www.dailyastorian.com/free/h...cle_8808590c-7d8c-11e0-b3b1-001cc4c002e0.html

No one was hurt, luckily. Owner and boat are/were in our yacht club, so I got a closeup look at the damage when it returned from sea.

The hull still kept out water but the hull-to-deck joint was opened up on both sides by the terrific impact -- whole hull was flexed and interior pieces were torn loose.

If such an impact could be predicted (Ha!) I would want a boat with a solid deck joint like an Ericson or my Olson. OTOH, the boat would still likely be a total loss. A Catalina with its "coffee can" joint would be my last choice.

Loren

Loren Beach said:

If such an impact could be predicted (Ha!) I would want a boat with a solid deck joint like an Ericson or my Olson. OTOH, the boat would still likely be a total loss. A Catalina with its "coffee can" joint would be my last choice.

Loren

Click to expand...

If a whale totals your boat, I doubt the superiority of your hull to deck joint will furnish you a great deal of comfort at that point. :0

By the way: while there are certain recurring and common complaints connected with some of the Catalina models during certain years of their construction, the hull to deck joints are *not* a source of problems. (At least in the 10 years when I was an active member on the C30 list I don't recall any issues related to the hull to deck joint. I can't speak for other models, however.) Now, if you want to talk about their use of wood in the keel stub (on pre-1988 boats), that's another kettle of fish....

December 25, 2013, off Pt. Vincent, Palos Verdes:

A thousand dolphins, two Gray whales, several bottles of Prosecco, a glassy sea, tropical temperatures, superb sunset, and motoring home past a coast glistening in lights as if strung for the Christmas occasion.

We had dolphins playing under our bow for an hour, and so did other boats steaming beside us. They don't always choose to join boats and put on their show so close and so long.

Maybe it was the season, the stillness, the warmth, the quality of the light....

I know all this is 'just funnin', despite what kinda boat it is....but regardless of what type, size, or whatever, if I had been sitting in calm waters and the boat suddenly went four feet in the air, it would have scared the living hell out of me. And I don't scare easy.
Can we not shoot them? There HAS to be some defense. Depth charges maybe. A drone. Marina taxes. My god, think of the children!

I give whales a wide berth.

Speaking of whales. I recently heard this second hand about a friend of mine (Jeff Rebolt) who has a E-35 that was anchored in front of the fair way at Isthmus Cove at Catalina in about 60' of water back in September, when a large group of dolphins came rushing into the cove followed by whales. He was on deck when this spectacle happened and then all of a sudden his boat was hit hard by a whale and pushed his boat over hard. As I understand it, his rudder post was severely bent as a result of this incident and he had to be towed all the way back from the island. I have been meaning to talk to Jeff about this. I will let you know more when I get the whole story.

I have read several story's where whales have hit sail boats with skeg hung rudders like the kind on many Ericson models, where the rudder gets hit and the shaft for the rudder post breaks and the boats sink rapidly. One such article was in Latitude 38 a few years back about a boat off of Baja with two women and several children onboard was sunk this way. They had only minutes to abandon ship.

Although whale sightings are very exciting, I give whales a wide berth. :0

I keep a couple of hundred feet away when observing them, because I read somewhere that's the advised limit for the whale's benefit. But I don't know how to avoid them. One surfaced right next to me on a night watch in the Atlantic, a hugely loud and shocking exhalation of (really) bad whale breath. I guess if they're going to hit you it's gonna happen.

http://www.msc.ucla.edu/oceanglobe/pdf/marine_mammal_guide.pdf

This is a really good pamphlet to print out and keep on board. Especially "whale spout identification".

Our Gray whales get to 40 feet, and Blue whales to 90 feet--"The largest carnivore ever to have lived on the earth."

Yikes!

Christian Williams said:

I keep a couple of hundred feet away when observing them, because I read somewhere that's the advised limit for the whale's benefit. But I don't know how to avoid them. One surfaced right next to me on a night watch in the Atlantic, a hugely loud and shocking exhalation of (really) bad whale breath. I guess if they're going to hit you it's gonna happen.

http://www.msc.ucla.edu/oceanglobe/pdf/marine_mammal_guide.pdf

This is a really good pamphlet to print out and keep on board. Especially "whale spout identification".

Our Gray whales get to 40 feet, and Blue whales to 90 feet--"The largest carnivore ever to have lived on the earth."

Yikes!

Click to expand...

I have see two Blue Whales coming back from Catalina from the comfort aboard the 455' SS Lane Victory. Spectacular! But I have also been on my own boat and was a little closer than I wanted to be to a group of Fin Whales off Pt. Fermin. They varied in size, but there was one big boy in the group. Fin Whales, or Fin Backs as some call them are second largest. Thanks for the Marina Mammal guide Christian!

Whales?

We gets lots of dolphin, large sea turtles. I even saw an armadillo swimming across the bay.


Although we had some humpback whales off Destin, I have yet to see one from the boat.


After reading about boats being sunk by whales, Dougal Roberton's in "Survive the Savage Sea" or even Steven Callahan's account, I think I would stay F A R away from any whales...lol:0

Whales, whales...and more whales!

So I have been out in my new (to me) E29 twice in the last week. In addition to dolphins, seals, sea lions galore; both times we have been lucky enough to see whales. Today one surfaced coming right at us, and didn't go under until it was 20 feet from our boat. I actually said 'It's gonna hit us!", but then it went right under us. It looked to be twice the size of my boat, but was probably 40ish feet long . Last week we saw them from a few hundred feet away. Today we saw them from 15 feet away. Next time I'm aiming for somewhere in between. Both times, we saw them about a mile off of PV, straight out of Redondo. We left Marina del Rey around 1pm, and both times we saw the whales around 3pm. I have researched quite a bit this week, and learned that the 10 year average for this time of year is 80 sightings. Last year was 150. This year is almost 500!! So if you are in So Cal, get out there and see some whales!!

I tried just now to find some actual regulations for whale watching, but "rules" apparently are not yet codified. Various entities recommend staying several hundred yards away, using no-wake speed, following behind them rather than trying to cut them off, and especially not positioning yourself in front of them.

The whale-watching head boats seem to exercise restraint, and the captain of one I was on off Monterrey a few years ago railed against kids on motorboats racing around them and throwing potato chips. The sailboats I've been among have been pretty discreet--but then we can't exactly "race around". I did see one boatload of bozos off Pt. Vincent who seemed to be trying to touch a gray whale, with a lot of hooting and hollering.

I wouldn't mind a whale placard on board,like the ones for fish regs or dumping. One of my own guests was disappointed that I declined to get aggresively close and a placard would at least give me a cop-out.

Found this, on Wikipedia, I think it was: hey, it all started here!

Whale watching is the practice of observing whales and other cetaceans in their natural habitat. Whales are watched most commonly for recreation, but the activity can also be for scientific or educational reasons. Whale watching as an organized activity dates back to 1950 when the Cabrillo National Monument in San Diego was declared a public spot for the observation of Gray Whales. In 1955 the first water-based whale watching commenced in the same area, charging customers $1 per trip to view the whales at closer quarters. The spectacle proved popular, attracting 10,000 visitors in its first year and many more in subsequent years. California whale watching was the birthplace for whale watching throughout the globe.

I have been pretty disgusted to see truly ludicrous flotillas of boats - like 50 or more, trailing along behind orca pods. Including some-liveried as belonging to "whale research institutes" which just appears to be a tax dodge for running high-speed whale-watching tour boats. It's one thing to have an incidental encounter, but chasing them down just seems so obviously wrong, it's hard to believe that people would do this.

BTW: I think there's some blanket prohibition on "harassment" in the Marine Mammal Protection Act, but it sounds like one of those clauses that mean "anything the officer wants it to mean."

Regulations on Whale (Orca) watching

The State of Washington has passed regulations concerning the endangered Orca populations in Salish Sea. If you are chartering in the Salish Sea, you should be aware of them. Here is an excerpt from the regs:

"In an effort to improve boater behavior around the southern residents, the Washington Legislature passed a law (RCW 77.15.740) in 2008 placing legal restrictions on the activities of vessels near the whales. This law was updated in 2012 to correspond with current federal regulations. It is now unlawful to:

• Approach within 200 yards of a southern resident whale;
• Position a vessel to be in the path of a southern resident whale at any point located within 400 yards of the whale. This includes intercepting a southern resident whale by positioning a vessel so that the prevailing wind or water current carries the vessel into the path of the whale at any point located within 400 yards of the whale. Vessels are defined as including aircraft, canoes, fishing vessels, kayaks, personal watercraft, rafts, recreational vessels, tour boats, whale watching boats, vessels engaged in whale watching activities, or other small craft including power boats and sailboats;
• Fail to disengage the transmission of a vessel that is within 200 yards of a southern resident whale; or
• Feed a southern resident whale.

Exemptions from the law exist as follow:

• Persons operating a federal government vessel in the course of his or her official duties, or operating a state, tribal, or local government vessel when engaged in official duties involving law enforcement, search and rescue, or public safety;
• Persons operating a vessel in conjunction with a vessel traffic service established under 33 C.F.R. and following a traffic separation scheme, or complying with a vessel traffic service measure of direction. This also includes support vessels escorting ships in the traffic lanes, such as tug boats;
• Engaging in an activity, including scientific research, pursuant to a permit or other authorization from the National Marine Fisheries Service and WDFW;
• Persons lawfully engaging in a treaty Indian or commercial fishery that is actively setting, retrieving, or closely tending fishing gear;
• Persons conducting vessel operations necessary to avoid an imminent and serious threat to a person, vessel, or the environment, including when necessary for overall safety of navigation and to comply with state and federal navigation requirements; or
• Persons engaging in rescue or clean-up efforts of a beached southern resident whale overseen, coordinated, or authorized by a volunteer stranding network.

Marine enforcement officers from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife have enforced the law since its inception. Between July 2008 and May 2012, they issued 10 citations and dozens of warnings to recreational boaters. Violation of the law is a civil infraction that carries penalties of up to $1,025. "

These rule probably are good guidelines to use around any whales. Thanks. Dave

Hassling whales...

Thank you. Great information and even better advice.

Please understand that the first time we saw them, we did approach a flotilla of boats...assuming they saw something, and were able to observe the whales from a couple hundred feet away. It was our first time sailing our boat, and our first time seeing whales, so we were definitely excited but remained cautious and respectful. The last time that I saw them right next to the boat was a complete surprise. We were sailing in the complete opposite direction from PV and there was very little wind so we were barely moving. That's when they popped up on our port side about a hundred yards out, and we just held position. The next time they surfaced they were right under us almost. It freaked us out they were so close. We just sat in place until they were gone.

I do understand what some of you are saying though, and I will take it to heart. Especially after today. Today when we went sailing, we happened to see a spout from a couple hundred yards or so away. Right at that moment, a good sized power boat went speeding towards them. Right as he slowed down, they surfaced almost right under his boat....but instead of killing the motor, he continued to try to drive and circle almost right on top of the whales! Literally it looked like he drove over one. I almost started yelling at him but they couldn't have heard. The large commercial whale watching boat was honking it's horn, obviously telling this guy to knock it off, but he was oblivious. We actually just turned and left at that point because we didn't want to be any part of the whole fiasco. It was honestly depressing how people could actively try to ruin such a beautiful thing by not just showing some basic level of common sense and respect. I was wondering if this type of thing was worth reporting, as we clearly saw the name of the offending boat.

Anyways, we have our fill of whales. Now we just want more wind!!!

Prominent Marine Biologist/Whale Watch Tour Boat Operator--now there's one of those California careers.

Monster? Scholar? Nitwit? Friend of Mammals Everywhere?

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/...whales-20140114,0,5625272.story#axzz2qOfUx91o

Maybe someone could direct a few of those whales to come up into the East Santa Barbara Channel. I used to see them all the time 5 years ago; now, not hardly at all. But I keep hearing on the news that there are tons of whales being sighted now...

Christmas Day Whales

I had 5 on my boat Christmas day out of King Harbor. Not much wind and an unseasonably warm day - shorts and T-shirts. But we did see a couple of grays, one that blew about 100 yards off the port side of the boat. We were on a starboard tack making about a knot and a half in a 2 knot breeze, so fortunately it was downwind - I hear whale blow is pretty bad if you're directly downwind of the whale. Had a great time with family and friends.

Man, I would not want to be messing about with a boat anywhere near whales. Steven Callahan's superb book "Adrift" relates in harrowing detail his 76 days at sea in a rubber liferaft after his boat collided with one in the Atlantic. I read it as a kid and it has stayed with me more than perhaps any other book.

Hi NedPatton,

Yes I can confirm whales can have bad breath . Also welcome to the forum.