Sea Boa.
On the Sonrisa Net this morning, the SSB ham radio channel we listen to for weather each morning, it was announced that a boat named Sea Boa (spelling?) was “hit by a whale” and quickly sunk. 27 miles SW of Guaymas at five in the morning. The singlehander, Allan Tweten (56), was able to get his dinghy launched and get off with his liferaft on board. He set off an EPIRB and was rescued. His boat sunk.
Wow.
We think about the whales we could hear but not see in the dawn sailing up from Santa Rosalia, though we did not have our engines running, and we were making about 2 knots. Too slow if we’d hit one then, certainly, to sink the boat. Probably too slow to surprise one. On the other hand, we were moving fast sailing south of Isla Tiburon when we startled a whale off our bow, that splashed big getting out of our way.
Like lightning, not much you can do to avoid the remote possibility of a collision with a whale. It was wise of him to launch his dinghy, since then he’s not simply drifting, but only because he is close to shore.
What’s the order of priority?
Grab the ditch bag. Liferaft ready to launch.
Determine if the water is coming too fast to pump? Would a collision mat solve the problem?
Launch the dinghy. Get the outboard on if possible. Liferaft/Ditch bag in Dinghy. Grab anything else there is time to grab. Passports. Computers. Wallets/Purses.
Whales. Certainly they don’t hit boats intentionally. There have been boats breached upon, but that, too, seems accidental. You can imagine them hitting boats inadvertently when startled. It’s easiest to imagine a boat, moving at 6 to 8 knots colliding with a sleeping whale that did not see it.