10-01-2009, 09:34 AM
Viking 60 Attacked By Breaching Whale! - [blue]09/30/2009[/blue]
[center][left]Imagine cruising along in the same waters that you’ve visited a hundred times before. You’re in a high-end tournament fishing rig cruising at 30+ knots. Only this time, swimming somewhere below in the deep blue is a whale about to breach, and you’re on a collision course. Or, could it be that what lurks below was sick and tired of you stealing his finny friends and decided to attack, just as a famous white whale had done in the Pacific nearly 200 years before? In any case, forty tons of whale heading straight for forty tons of Viking 60 at a 90 degree angle.
![[Image: viking_breach.jpg]](http://www.boattest.com/images-gallery/News/viking_breach.jpg)
The Viking 60 convertible “Bad Company” a.k.a. “Badger” during better times.
The Boat...
“Badger” is a Viking Yacht custom made for Team Bad Company for tournament fishing in the Pacific. She’s capable of 40 knots and her Furuno electronics package alone is worth $250,000. These are amoung the first Viking sport fishing boats built specifically for the west coast– completely set up for Pacific Ocean big game fishing.
Was it a “Collision”... or, an “Attack”?
Typically, when a boat hits a whale it rides up on the back, much as a boat going up on a sandbar, roll down the side and do strut, prop and rudder damage. That’s it -- but not this time. This whale was breaching; it was heading up towards the surface. There was no chance the Viking 60 for up and over -- it was a direct hit at a 90 degree angle. Blue whales can swim as fast as 30 mph. According to Team Bad Company’s Captain, Steve Lassley, “All of the damage was sustained forward, at a hard angle to the chine. I can't begin to explain the violence of the collision. If I had to guess I would say the whale was going to jump quartering towards us, almost straight up.”
The Result…
![[Image: viking_breach2.jpg]](http://www.boattest.com/images-gallery/News/viking_breach2.jpg)
You can see the point of impact in the pix. After careful examination of the damage, the only conclusion is the whale was just about to breach. Local experts could not agree if it was an attack or just an accidental collision while the whale is was in breaching mode. It struck with such force that one of the team was thrown several feet in the salon into the aft bulkhead. If the Captain had not been with his back against the helm chair he would have been thrown from the bridge, it was reported.
Damage to the Forefoot...
The force of impact knocked the thruster tube loose and punched a hole in the opposite side.( Note the fiberglass strands sticking out.) Fiberglass was then peeled back from the 30 knot hydraulic force of the water.
![[Image: viking_breach3.jpg]](http://www.boattest.com/images-gallery/News/viking_breach3.jpg)
The reinforcing of the bow thruster tube may have saved the boat from having a hole punched completely thru it. Just abaft the tube is where the main impact was. It hit so hard that it broke the hull on the port side. The stem, from 2 feet forward of the tube to 2 feet aft of the tube, was crushed. On impact the bow was thrust a minimum of 6 feet straight up in the air, according to the captain. The prop only gave the whale a glancing blow. There didn’t appear to be any damage to props, struts or rudders.
Damage Control...
The boat immediately started taking on water. At first it was coming in at a faster rate than the pumps could keep up, said the captain. The crew hooked the raw water intake from the generator to a hose in the bilge and began pumping water overboard. Then the crew had a condenser pump for A/C pumping water as well. That got them home and to the repair yard.
This graphically illustrates why BoatTEST.com regularly recommends that all inboard-powered boats going offshore have intake diverter valves on the seacocks to their primary engines – so water can be sucked from the bilge instead of the sea to dewater in an emergency situation.
There’s no word on the condition of the whale.
[url "http://www.boattest.com/Resources/view_news.aspx?NewsID=3766"]http://www.boattest.com/...ews.aspx?NewsID=3766[/url]
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[center][left]Imagine cruising along in the same waters that you’ve visited a hundred times before. You’re in a high-end tournament fishing rig cruising at 30+ knots. Only this time, swimming somewhere below in the deep blue is a whale about to breach, and you’re on a collision course. Or, could it be that what lurks below was sick and tired of you stealing his finny friends and decided to attack, just as a famous white whale had done in the Pacific nearly 200 years before? In any case, forty tons of whale heading straight for forty tons of Viking 60 at a 90 degree angle.
The Viking 60 convertible “Bad Company” a.k.a. “Badger” during better times.
The Boat...
“Badger” is a Viking Yacht custom made for Team Bad Company for tournament fishing in the Pacific. She’s capable of 40 knots and her Furuno electronics package alone is worth $250,000. These are amoung the first Viking sport fishing boats built specifically for the west coast– completely set up for Pacific Ocean big game fishing.
Was it a “Collision”... or, an “Attack”?
Typically, when a boat hits a whale it rides up on the back, much as a boat going up on a sandbar, roll down the side and do strut, prop and rudder damage. That’s it -- but not this time. This whale was breaching; it was heading up towards the surface. There was no chance the Viking 60 for up and over -- it was a direct hit at a 90 degree angle. Blue whales can swim as fast as 30 mph. According to Team Bad Company’s Captain, Steve Lassley, “All of the damage was sustained forward, at a hard angle to the chine. I can't begin to explain the violence of the collision. If I had to guess I would say the whale was going to jump quartering towards us, almost straight up.”
The Result…
You can see the point of impact in the pix. After careful examination of the damage, the only conclusion is the whale was just about to breach. Local experts could not agree if it was an attack or just an accidental collision while the whale is was in breaching mode. It struck with such force that one of the team was thrown several feet in the salon into the aft bulkhead. If the Captain had not been with his back against the helm chair he would have been thrown from the bridge, it was reported.
Damage to the Forefoot...
The force of impact knocked the thruster tube loose and punched a hole in the opposite side.( Note the fiberglass strands sticking out.) Fiberglass was then peeled back from the 30 knot hydraulic force of the water.
The reinforcing of the bow thruster tube may have saved the boat from having a hole punched completely thru it. Just abaft the tube is where the main impact was. It hit so hard that it broke the hull on the port side. The stem, from 2 feet forward of the tube to 2 feet aft of the tube, was crushed. On impact the bow was thrust a minimum of 6 feet straight up in the air, according to the captain. The prop only gave the whale a glancing blow. There didn’t appear to be any damage to props, struts or rudders.
Damage Control...
The boat immediately started taking on water. At first it was coming in at a faster rate than the pumps could keep up, said the captain. The crew hooked the raw water intake from the generator to a hose in the bilge and began pumping water overboard. Then the crew had a condenser pump for A/C pumping water as well. That got them home and to the repair yard.
This graphically illustrates why BoatTEST.com regularly recommends that all inboard-powered boats going offshore have intake diverter valves on the seacocks to their primary engines – so water can be sucked from the bilge instead of the sea to dewater in an emergency situation.
There’s no word on the condition of the whale.
[url "http://www.boattest.com/Resources/view_news.aspx?NewsID=3766"]http://www.boattest.com/...ews.aspx?NewsID=3766[/url]
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