LOG NEWS SERVICE — A whale provided two people aboard a sailboat off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa with a photo op they won’t soon forget.
 | | | Photo by: Courtesy of Cape Town Sailing Academy/James Dagmore and Paloma Werner | | Before -- A whale-watching couple off Cape Town, South Africa got a surprise when the whale they were watching suddenly leaped out of the water next to their 32-foot sailboat, and later struck the boat deck as it re-entered the sea. | | |  | | | Photo by: Courtesy of Cape Town Sailing Academy/James Dagmore and Paloma Werner | | After -- The 32-foot steel-hull sailboat sustained damage when the whale hit the deck and swam away, but the boat did not sink. The two people aboard were not injured -- and neither was the whale. | | |
|
The couple’s sail off the country’s picturesque southwestern coast ended July 18 when the young southern right whale they had stopped to photograph breached near their boat and crash-landed on the deck, snapping the mast in two before the whale slid back into the water.
Paloma Werner, an administrator from Cape Town Sailing Academy; and her companion, sailing instructor Ralph Mothes, said neither one of them was hurt. Werner said that she saw the whale swimming around minutes after the collision and it, too, appeared to be uninjured.
The couple’s 32-foot yacht was built of steel and did not suffer any structural damage. Werner said she feels lucky that the mast took the brunt of the blow when the whale landed on the deck. The couple managed to turn on their engine and make it back to their marina without assistance.
The seas around Cape Town are teeming with southern right whales that can reach up to 50 feet in length and can weigh up to 60 tons -- along with great white sharks during the winter months, which fall in the middle of the year.
-- A report from the Associated Press was used in this story.
This article first appeared in the July 2010 issue of The Log Newspaper. All or parts of the information contained in this article might be outdated. |
