A humpback whale that appeared to be lunge feeding breached the water and landed on a recreational boat near Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on Tuesday, capsizing the vessel and tossing two occupants into the water, the United States Coast Guard said.
The New York Times reports that the Northern New England sector of the Coast Guard received a mayday call for a 23-foot boat that had capsized when a whale shot up from underneath the boat and flopped onto it, about half a mile east of Odiorne Point State Park.
The dramatic flip was caught on video by Colin Yager, 16, who was out fishing on another boat nearby, according to WHDH in Boston. He sped over to rescue the two boaters in the water, neither of whom were injured. The whale also appeared to be uninjured, the Coast Guard said.
“It was a harrowing experience,” Gregg Paquette, one of the two passengers knocked over by the whale, told WHDH. He continued, “We were lucky; we were really lucky.”
Whale capsizes boat fishing in Portsmouth Harbor off the New Hampshire coast
Thanks to Alaric Bond for contributing to this post.
Like taking a bone from a dog
I suspect the sunken recreational boat may have interrupted the humpback whales feeding by running through the whale’s buffet of small crustaceans (mostly krill) and small fish.