All the news from South Africa has been the FIFA World Cup of late, but big stories sometimes come by sea. For yachtsman Ralph Mothes, whale watching during the season promised incomparable natural majesty, but a close encounter with a 40 ton sea mammal was a little too close as it turned out.
Mothes and his partner and girlfriend Paloma were attracted by the sounds of the whales slapping their tails on the water. The Southern Right Whales carry on this ritual each year as they migrate from Antarctica to the Cape of Good Hope for feeding and breeding. A beautiful spectacle it is, something everyone should experience at least once. Getting too close can have life threatening results though, as the Mothes’ discovered. The couple are principals in the Cape Town Sailing Academy, according to reports.
One of the whales, in its poetic dance above the waves, actually crashed into the Mothes’ 32 foot steel sailing yacht, landing just inches away from the two seafarers – “snapping the mast like a match stick” – as one onlooker commented. Naturally, fearing for their lives first, then fearing their boat would sink, the couple set about assessing the damage. As for what had just happened, they wondered if they were trapped in a movie like “Orca,” not knowing if the whale had attacked or simply miscalculated.
All their fears turned out to be unfounded, as their little ship “Intrepid” was still sound, and the whale distanced itself from the boat. A close call for the Mothes’ is now an indelible memory, not only of those angels of the deep, but their own adventures in maritime bliss. As for the mast and the boat? Images reveal the kind of power people speak of when describing such monarchs of the sea. Match stick indeed.
Aftermath and Intrepid's tangles mast
About Phil Butler
