[C38] Whale of a story

[Joseph Launie]

Steve,
     Several years ago we were racing from Marina del Rey around Santa 
Barbara Island in our Islander 33 which had a full keel and no bottom 
paint. A whale surfaced just to weather so close to the cockpit its 
spray landed in the boat. It dove and my late wife Trudie who was on the 
tiller said, "the whale is hitting the boat." I replied, "so the whale 
is hitting the boat, what do you want me to do about it?" I decided we 
wanted a happy whale so I was not going to frighten it by starting the 
engine. The whale set up a pattern, surface just to weather, blow and 
cause the cockpit crew to gag, then disappear, rub its back on our keel, 
and surface to leeward.  The whale was around 40 feet long. The crew 
conversed in hushed voices. We did not want to frighten the whale who 
seemed quite happy with its back scratcher. Trudie maintained course and 
speed on the helm. Periodically Trudie flipped her wrist at the whale 
and softly said, "shoo." The wind was light, the boat and the whale 
continued our course toward Santa Barbara Island at about 3 knots. 
Finally, after over two hours of back scratching, the whale 
disappeared.  I guess Southern California whales are more mellow than 
those up north. Joe Launie/Macavity

On 5/15/2011 10:56 PM, Steve Smolinske 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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