[C38] Whale of a story

Max Soto maxsoto at gmail.com
Mon May 16 11:05:19 EDT 2011


Impressive!!! 
There is an interview with the captain on SailingAnarchy....

Regards, max

Sent from my iPod

On May 15, 2011, at 23:56, "Steve Smolinske" <SSmolinske at rainierrubber.com> wrote:

> Don't know how many of you heard the news this last weekend from the Oregon Offshore.  L'Orca a Beneteau 35 got demasted by a breaching whale!  It breached about a foot from the bow on starboard went up the mast to the first spreader and took out the rig, lifelines, toerail and lots of cracks on the deck.  Miraculously no one was injured!  They were next to us at the start and having problems controlling their spinnaker in the 20 knots of breeze.  So we changed course to give them room as they had already rounded up a number of times.  As we settled in I heard a call from another competitor to the race committee and looked over my shoulder to where they were and saw their head sail down and thought what a bunch of wimps withdrawing already, then looked behind me to see they were headed to about four other boats and what looked liked a power boat.   Then it dawned on me that was a sailboat without a mast,   As I had my hands full with the boat I had the crew check it out and they confirmed the power boat was indeed a sailboat.   We hailed the boat that had taken the lead in coordinating the rescue and the coast guard and offered helped, they had it under control and told us to stay in the race.  We heard the next day that it was a whale attack.  Now Gerry is a friend and competitor so I can say although this is a whale of a story, it surely was no fluke and we are all thankfull that no one was injured or krilled and how ironic that a boat named L'Orca would get demasted by a whale and it all happened off of Cape Disappointment.
>  
> BTW Larry a big Thank you!!  Shannon is AWESOME!! Glad to have her on board for Transpac!
>  
> Steve
> #312 Peregrine
> Seattle
>  
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