A boat owner and passengers narrowly escaped serious injury when a juvenile humpback whale breached, landing across the bow of their 19-foot boat. The event happened several hundred yards off the coast of White Horse Beach (Manomet Point, Plymouth, MA). No injuries were reported, and the damage to the boat was minimal. Thankfully no one was sitting on the bow when the breach occurred.
Passengers on the boat were preparing sandwiches when the mammal broke the water’s surface and landed on the craft. Video captured by other boaters in the area shows the impact of the whale pushing the bow first down and then back. Passengers had time to brace themselves before impact. A passenger told a reporter:” We all got bumped around but went on to live another day.” One person on the boat wrote online, “We’re all are lucky, very lucky,” “No injuries, minor damage to the boat, and we powered back to the marina on our own.”
The boat was part of a group of fishermen from Cape Cod who were in the area fishing for striped bass who’ve been drawn to the area by schools of Atlantic menhaden, also known as pogies. According to the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, these fish gather in large schools, creating an easy opportunity for predators to grab a meal. Humpback whales and striped bass are two of these predators. The release also states that three juvenile humpback whales (which can weigh up to 60,000 lbs.) in the area have exhibited “physically active feeding behavior that is very unpredictable.”
Humpback whales employ an eating method referred to as lunge feeding, the behavior during which a whale consumes a large quantity of prey and water after a high-speed horizontal or vertical propulsion. The fact that the whale landed on the boat was an unintended consequence of lunge feeding. Videos show a large school of pogies flying out of the water as the whale breaches.
This is the third whale encounter in this area in the last seven days. A paddleboarder shot a video of a whale breaching 25 feet from the board, while another paddleboarder filmed a whale nudging a boat. The Plymouth Harbormaster recommends keeping a distance of at least 100 yards to minimize potential interactions with the creature.
