Two fishermen were still reeling Wednesday, a day after being thrown overboard when a breaching humpback whale capsized their boat, which was all caught on video.
Greg Paquette and Ryland Kenney were placidly fishing about 2 miles off the New Hampshire coast near Odiorne Point State Park in Rye, when they noticed the whale and were trying to keep their distance.
Then out of nowhere, there it was.
“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 told WMUR-TV.
Ryland was at the back of the boat, busy hooking a fish, Paquette told TMZ on Wednesday. Paquette was near the front.
“I just hear him yell from the back of the boat, ‘Whoah,’ or something like that,” Paquette said. “I look back and the whale’s head is crashing down on top of the engine.”
The dramatic video caught by someone on a neighboring boat catches the whale rearing up out of the water, then smashing down on the back of the boat, upending it. The two men had seconds to react.
“Next thing you know I see the back of the boat sinking, it’s taking on water,” Paquette said. “I’m like, ‘Oh no. We are going down. We’re not getting out of this.’ ”
Paquette leaped from the boat. Kenney, about 3 feet from the whale’s head, said he saw the whale’s maw open, then close, as it hit the engine. For a surreal second, he said, “I was just like wow, is this really happening?”
In an instant, he ditched his rod and leaped off the boat, barely missing being hit by it as it capsized.
“A good Samaritan recovered both individuals from the water,” the U.S. Coast Guard said after receiving a mayday call, adding that another person had towed the boat to shore. “No injuries were reported.”
Those witnesses were Colin and Wyatt Yager, brothers from Maine who were fishing nearby. After the whale breached a couple of times, Colin Yager began filming it on his phone. Just then, the massive marine mammal reared out of the water and into the other boat.
The whale was probably feeding when it hit the boat, Sara Morris of the University of New Hampshire Shoals Marine Laboratory told WMUR. The massive marine animals can grow as long as 60 feet and weigh up to 40 tons.
The whale did not appear to be injured, the Coast Guard said.
With News Wire Services
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