Not sure if this was an accident, but whales have been known to occasionally become aggressive towards boats… in fact, we had a 12 meter boat sunk by whales off the coast of Mexico in October of 2009. An emergency beacon (EPIRB) and liferaft were instrumental in the safe rescue of the crew. I would never recommend venturing offshore without these two items! And a hearty thank you to all the Coast Guard members who come to the aid of sailors in distress!

A boat was recently sunk by whales in Australia, and back a couple of years ago another off Hawaii (when it accidentally got between a mother and her calf). Whale incidents (whether boats colliding with whales or the inverse) seem to be on the increase, so we all need to maintain an increased lookout for our friends aquatic!

By the way, there is a great firsthand account of our incident written by the skipper on our blog… very compelling read with great lessons learned (go to Nov. of 2009):

Sailing Blog

Wayne Zittel
San Francisco Sailing School