Seeing a whale up close during a fishing trip can be an exciting experience. But recently it rapidly turned into a tricky situation for two people at sea. They were thrown into the ocean after a humpback whale capsized their boat off the coast of New Hampshire. Luckily, they were quickly rescued by other boaters and had no serious injuries. The nerve-wracking moment in which the whale breaches and lands on the boat was caught on video.
“We didn’t see him for a couple of minutes, and then the next thing we knew, he popped up and landed right on the transom of the boat,” Gregg Paquette, who was on the boat, told WCVB. “I just looked up and just kind of saw the boat tipping, and I said, ‘The only way to avoid this is to just kind of jump horizontally away,’” adds Ryland Kenney, the other man who was propelled into the ocean.
The clip was taken by 16-year-old Colin Yager, who was on a different boat with his brother Wyatt. After noticing the whale, he began to record, never expecting what he would capture. “I saw it go up so I was just lucky enough to be facing the right direction,” Yager says. “I saw it come up, and I was just like, ‘Oh, it’s going to hit the boat,’ and then it kind of started to flip.”
For Paquette and Kenney, everything happened in slow motion. “When I turned, the whale’s head was already landing on the engine,” Paquette recalls. “So when I saw that, then all of a sudden, I look down, the boat is pitching up, the transom is going down into the water.”
Luckily, they were quickly pulled out of the water by the Yager brothers, who also got a great shot of the moment. “Truly grateful to them,” says Paquette. “They were making the video, dropped everything, zoomed right over and plucked us out.”
The Coast Guard crew from Station Portsmouth later reported that the whale appeared to be uninjured and the vessel had also been salvaged. Despite the happy ending, this is something none of the involved will soon forget. “It’s kind of a miracle that I’m alive,” says Kenney. “I don’t know what was going through my head. Just, kind of, survival.”
Two people were thrown into the ocean after a humpback whale capsized their boat off the coast of New Hampshire, but were quickly rescued by other boaters and had no serious injuries.
#Info on the whale that capsized a vessel earlier today:
USCG Sector Northern New England watchstanders received a MAYDAY on Rescue 21 stating a 23FT Center Console boat capsized due to a whale breach underneath the vessel approx. ½ NM east of Odiorne Point State Park.
— USCGNortheast (@USCGNortheast) July 23, 2024
“When I turned, the whale’s head was already landing on the engine,” says Gregg Paquette, who was on the boat. “So when I saw that, then all of a sudden, I look down, the boat is pitching up, the transom is going down into the water.”
The occupants were ejected from the vessel as the boat capsized. Sector issued an urgent marine information broadcast (UMIB); they directed Coast Guard Station Portsmouth Harbor to launch.
A good samaritan recovered both individuals from the water. No injuries were reported.
— USCGNortheast (@USCGNortheast) July 23, 2024
The Coast Guard crew from Station Portsmouth later reported that the whale appeared to be uninjured and the vessel had also been salvaged.
We are grateful to the good samaritans for taking such quick action to rescue these two individuals. Bravo Zulu!
— USCGNortheast (@USCGNortheast) July 23, 2024
h/t: [NBC News]
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