Watch: Amazing video of whale capsizing fishing boat on man’s first ‘real’ fishing trip
Two fishermen were catapulted from their boat when a whale breached on top of their vessel earlier this week. The stunning footage was captured by brothers who immediately went to the fishermen’s rescue. None were hurt in the incident – not even the whale (according to the US Coastguard).
Other boaters in New Hampshire say the whale had breached multiple times that morning.
“When I turned the whale’s head was already landing on the engine,” one of the fishermen, Greg Paquette, told KYVU.
“So by the time I saw that, then all of a sudden I looked down the boat’s pit, the front of the boat is pitching up, the transom is going down into the water.”
The other fisherman Ryland Kenney, told media that he’d seen the whale prior to the incident.
“He went under, he disappeared for a few minutes, and then the next thing we know, he just popped right up on our transom,” Kenney says. “Everything seemed like in slow motion. It was really weird . . . it was almost like slow motion like a movie.
“To have it be what is kind of my first real fishing trip to then have us basically almost catch ‘the big one’ you know, it is pretty mind blowing,” Kennedy, who was visiting a friend for the weekend, says. “I keep watching it over and over again and I’m blown away by what happened.”
“It’s kind of a miracle that I’m alive, I don’t know what was going through my head, just kind of survival.” Both fishermen have expressed their gratitude to their rescuers.
In a series of posts on Twitter (latterly known as X) Sector Northern New England says its watchstanders received a MAYDAY on Rescue 21. This is the audio.
USCG reports that the occupants were ejected from the vessel, as the boat capsized and a good samaritan recovered both individuals from the water. No injuries were reported. The boat crew from Station Portsmouth reported that the whale appeared not to be injured.
The fishing vessel has since been salvaged. It was towed back to Maine with the engine cover cracked and filled with whale skin.
Brothers Colin and Wyatt Yager, of Maine, told WMUR that they were fishing in the area for the first time. They saw the whale breach a couple of times, so Colin Yager pulled out his phone to try to catch it on camera.
“I had my fishing rod right here, phone in my hand and just saw it go up, and was just lucky enough to be facing the right direction,” he says.
After watching the whale breach, the boys grabbed the fishermen from the water.
“They were in shock, they were a little bit cold, they didn’t really know what to make of it,” Wyatt Yager, who was captaining the rescue boat, says. “But they were in good spirits. They were kind of laughing.”
Sara Morris, of the University of New Hampshire Shoals Marine Laboratory, told WMUR that the whale was likely lunge feeding when it came in contact with the boat. (Previously orca have been accused of being ‘bored’ when they’ve busied themselves ‘interacting’ with sailboats off the Iberian coastline.)
“I think one of the key things is that when whales are sighted to encourage boaters to keep their distance. The whales are moving around underwater and coming up, potentially in an area different from where they went down, and we want to give them as much leeway as we possibly can to avoid a situation like what you see here.”
Original footage and images courtesy of Colin Yager.
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