[C38] Whale of a story

Steve Smolinske SSmolinske at rainierrubber.com
Tue May 17 16:30:28 EDT 2011


Now that's amazing!! My wife would never have gotten back on the boat. 

Steve Smolinske

Sent from my iPhone

On May 17, 2011, at 12:58 PM, "Joseph Launie" <jlaunie at cox.net> wrote:

> 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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