WOW! these people were fortunate to escape with their lives!
this right whale slammed into their boat, you can see the damage. an unusual occurance, but this happens in the Essex book
(reviewed here: http://mockforums.net/showthread.php?tid=3939 ). maybe the whales are getting even.
this incident was off South African coast. certainly an amazing photo.
from UK Daily Mail.
i guess it will come out whether it's a true story/photo.
The couple, Ralph Mothes and Paloma Werner, posted pictures of the incident on a Facebook page associated with their company, Cape Town Sailing Academy.
The couple detailed the incident in a post on the social networking site:
"While taking some pictures we decided to had back when a southern right whale, between 11 and 14 m long, breach about 100 meters away from us and then suddenly breach about 10 meters from us and then on us. We where sailing had no engine of so we could not even take any action. Scary!"
Mothes said his 32-foot steel boat had held up well, sustaining no no structural damage despite the massive bulk of the right whale.
Reports suggest that the couple's harassing behavior may have incited the whale, however, leading the local Department of Environmental Affairs to launch an investigation. Several people came forward to say a boater had broken the law by approaching the whale, reported one local news agency.
marine mammal laws are strictly enforced. you could not approach a manatee or a whale or dolphin on your surfboard in florida. FOX.
First a whale jumps on and crushes your boat. Then you face the prospect of two years in jail or more than $40 grand in fines. Could it get any worse?
Photographs and later a video surfaced last week showing a 33-foot southern right whale soaring out of the water off Cape Town, South Africa, and landing on a couple's boat, nearly destroying it.
But the incident was more than just a freak accident. On Friday a spokesman for the local environmental agency confirmed that his group is investigating reports that the boat owner was harassing the whale -- and he could face harsh fines and even jail time if found guilty.
"The Department is conducting an investigation following a complaint from the public that the vessel was harassing the whale," Zolile Nqayi, the director of communications for South Africa's Department of Environmental Affairs, told FoxNews.com.
"The complaint is that the vessel came closer than the regulated 300 meters to any whale," Nqayi clarified. Any person convicted of interfering with whales or dolphins without authority can be fined up to 300,000 rand [$41,140 dollars] or face up to two years imprisonment, according to local laws.
A 33-foot southern right whale soared out of the water off Cape Town, South Africa, and landed on a couple's boat, snapping the mast, according to reports.
"We asked the skipper of the vessel to provide us with an incident report and we received one on Monday, 26 July." The agency refused to supply a copy of the incident report.
The public was taken with the images of the incident, especially the most-seen picture of a seemingly calm captain about to be crushed by the looming whale overhead. although many were skeptical of the veracity of the photographs, the environmental group doesn't share those doubts.
"Neither the skipper nor the complainant has questioned the credibility of the picture," "and we therefore have no reason to doubt it."
