On Tuesday, a whale struck and swamped a fishing boat off the coast of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, sending two fishermen into the water.
The whale breached the surface just feet from the boat's stern, and it landed with its head on the port-side outboard engine and the boat's transom. The fiberglass boat - far lighter than the whale - immediately flipped to port and dumped the two occupants into the water.
Two teenagers, Colin and Wyatt Yager, were right next to the casualty and quickly responded. They pulled the two men from the water and transferred them to another boat so that they could head back to shore. Miraculously, the survivors were unharmed.
A video recorded by another bystander has gone viral, and has attracted more than five million views on Twitter (below):
There is a pissed off whale patrolling the waters of Portsmouth NH today. Head on swivel if you’re out there pic.twitter.com/xQPIHs8ZjN
— Ryan Whitney (@ryanwhitney6) July 23, 2024
The whale - identified as a humpback - had been spotted earlier in the day, at close enough distance to record it on a cell phone. It is believed to be unharmed, and the boat was later recovered. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which administers U.S. marine mammal protection laws, has been notified of the incident.
Sara Morris, director of the Shoals Marine Laboratory, told local radio station WMUR that the whale appears to have been engaged in a hunting behavior called lunge feeding, a method of chasing bait fish. In video from the scene, small silver fish can be seen escaping from the whale's mouth as it rises from the surface.
"I think one of the key things is that when whales are sighted to encourage boaters to keep their distance," Morris told WMUR. "The whales are moving around underwater and coming up, potentially in an area different from where they went down."
