December 19, 2013 — Most whale-boat collisions appear entirely accidental, but a few captains claim to have been deliberately targeted by a bloodthirsty cetacean. During the 19th century, the heydays of the whale-oil trade, sperm whales regularly attacked whaling ships, biting the hulls or whipping the boats with their tails.
A scuba diver off the coast of Argentina snapped a series of incredible pictures this week of a pair of southern right whales lurking menacingly close beneath a tiny boat of whale watchers. Do whale watchers ever die in collisions with whales?
It’s rare, but it has happened. Unlike recreational sailors, whale-watch captains are actively pursuing large marine mammals. They are required by law to keep 100 yards between the ship and the whale, but there are occasional accidents. In Hawaii, for example, whale-watching boats strike a few whales per year. The collisions are usually minor and involve no injury to man or beast. Ten years ago, however, the captain of a whale-watching vessel near Hawaii was fiddling with the volume on the public address system when his boat struck a humpback whale. The collision caused a 3-year-old passenger to lose his balance. He was killed when his head struck a guardrail and the deck, and the family later reached a legal settlement with the tour operator.