Whale Tales by Alan Lucas
Illustrated from a lithograph of an unnamed whaler launching her harpoon boats, by printmaker Nathaniel Currier, the whale ship Essex was probably similar in most detail. She was the first recorded ship to be attacked by a whale.  Humpback whale numbers along our east coast are said to be increasing at 15 per cent annually and we already know that their migratory habits have become a reliable and lucrative tourist attraction. We also know that Japan wanted to add humpbacks to their annual slaughtering of 1,000 Minke whales for ‘scientific research’.
  Japanese hypocrisy aside, it’s good news that the world’s largest animal, threatened with extinction a few decades ago, not only survives but is actually increasing in numbers despite a body mass demanding an enormous amount of fuel. Maybe our oceans are healthier than we think.
  Love them as we do, whales can nevertheless be worrying to small-boat sailors, especially at night when they are occasionally heard but not seen. Only recently, while night sailing down the NSW coast, I heard what I thought was a breaching whale but could see nothing despite a brilliant moon in a clear sky. Then, close beneath my vessel, an adult humpback crossed my course like a submarine diving. It was at once a terrifying and beautiful sight, but it was also a reminder that collisions happen when least expected and the possibility of deliberate attack is hard to excise from the mind.
Hunted down by the Cheynes Beach Whaling Co during the year Australia stopped whaling (1978), this sperm whale measured 37-feet long and is on display in the museum at Frenchmans Bay, Albany, WA.  The best-documented attack happened during the early 19th century when American whale ships roamed the world. It was an era of unmitigated slaughter, tempered only by a technology limited to open harpoon boats rowed into action from a mother ship. Little wonder that hunters often found themselves swimming with injured whales amongst the debris of their shattered boats, but in the following case a whale actually sought revenge on the source of the problem – the mother ship!
  The whale ship Essex departed Nantucket in August 1819, from where she battled her way into the Pacific around Cape Horn to hunt whales along South America’s west coast, taking 800 barrels of oil en route. After loading a few hundred live tortoises for fresh tucker at the Galapagos Islands, she encountered a pod of sperm whales just south of the equator and over a thousand miles west of Ecuador.
  Three boats were launched and the hunt began, one whale being harpooned after a short chase that quickly ended in the boat being damaged by a flick of its tail. The crew stuffed the leak with their jackets and made it back to Essex where First Mate, Owen Chase, examined the damage and decided that it could be repaired with canvass nailed over the hole and sent back to work. But scarcely had it been hauled aboard when, to quote Chase’s own record of events, “I observed a very large spermaceti whale, as well as I could judge about eighty-five feet in length … off our weather bow.”
  The whale lay quietly looking at Essex then dived to reappear within a boat-length from where it accelerated and rammed the ship so violently that she shook as if striking a rock. Passing under the ship, bumping the keel as it went, the whale then positioned itself off the leeward side from where it launched a second attack on the foundering ship.
  Over-worked pumps couldn’t cope as Essex filled then rolled onto her side giving her hapless crew of twenty time to salvage a few supplies before they abandoned the wreck and escaped in the three ship’s boats.
  What followed was a tale of survival that inspired Herman Melville’s classic novel, Moby Dick. Only Owen Chase and two others lived through the ordeal, being found by the brig Indian three months later by which time they were reduced to eating the remains of a shipmate. The incident shook the whaling community to its core despite a history littered with smashed boats and dead and injured crews.
The skull of the sperm whale shown on previous page.  In the century of whaling up to the loss of Essex, there had been no provable case of deliberate whale attack, but thirty years later a New Bedford ship, Anne Alexander, was also deliberately rammed and sunk by a whale, her crew surviving thanks to being picked up just two days after the event.
  In modern times there is no better-documented case of unprovoked attack than that of the 43-foot schooner Lucette in the Pacific Ocean on 15th June 1972. She was chillingly close to where Essex was rammed 152 years earlier, with the difference that her attackers were Killer whales. Lucette sank in just four minutes during which time her owners Dougal and Lynn Robertson, their three children and one crew, frantically threw survival gear into a small inflatable and a rigid dinghy. After 38 days drifting and living off the sea, a Japanese tunny boat rescued them. Their book Survive the Savage Sea should be in every vessel’s panic kit.
  There was also an incident in the Caribbean during the Drake Expedition of the late 1970s. From the mother ship Eye of the Wind, a camera team took the tender over to a group of Humpbacks, but became alarmed by their behaviour and quickly retreated as one seemed intent on chasing them.
  These events occurred towards the end of legal whaling when it might be argued that whales had every reason to attack small boats. Since 1978, when hunting at last ended (in Australia anyway), there do not appear to be any cases of premeditated attacks, although a decade ago a ninemetre yacht was crushed and a fishing boat overturned near Bundaberg, possibly from accidental contacts.
  With Japan determined to kill these extraordinary animals, belligerent whale behaviour may return or, conversely, whales may learn to avoid us altogether. In the meantime, there are plenty of accidental collisions and near misses between small boats and whales to keep us on our toes.
  When sailing offshore I try not to think of people like Jerry Tibbs who was fishing with friends off the Californian coast in his 22-foot boat when a humpback (or grey) whale breached alongside and landed across his boat, killing Jerry instantly.
  Forty tons of whale bursting out of the sea a few metres away from your fragile little ship is an impressive and intimidating sight that leaves no doubt as to who would come off second-best in a collision. And even whales lolling on the surface could cause an awful lot of damage with a flick of their tail if you get too close. Happily though, many cases suggest this is not an inevitable reaction.
Humpback whales migrate annually from Antarctica to the tropics to calve then return south in spring. A fully developed adult tips the scales at over 48 tonnes. / The largest of the toothed whales, the Sperm whale was especially valued for the huge reservoir of oily spermaceti in its head, which made the best clear-burning candles. Weighing up to 54 tonnes, it could dive to over 3000 metres  The late Tom Corkhill, during his third circumnavigation on his catamaran Nine Tails, was in mid-Atlantic running at eight knots before a brisk trade wind. Tom was down below reading when his vessel suddenly slowed down to around two knots – as if running aground on soft mud. By the time Tom had gained the cockpit, Nine Tails was regaining speed, leaving behind an adult humpback with a deep cut many metres long across its back. One of the catamaran’s plate metal rudders had sliced the poor beast open, leaving him in a sea of his own blood. Tom believed he was killed instantly because there was no reaction whatsoever during, or immediately after, the collision.
  When chartering my boat in the Whitsunday islands 45 years ago, my guests had an experience beyond the norm. Close off South Molle Island, a humpback surfaced and vented right alongside, nudging the bilge as he did so. The collision was surprisingly mild thanks, no doubt, to tons of muscle not reacting in panic. Considering that this event took place when bay whaling was still practised in Australia, it’s nice to think that one whale, at least, held no grudges.
Frank McClintock, from his motor cruiser Tekin, shot this humpback near Keppel Islands. Suddenly surrounded by a pod, Frank cut his engine and waited until they cleared off. Accidental collision is rare, but it can happen.  It has been suggested that the whale watching industry may be unwittingly desensitising these warm-blooded animals to the dangers of being hunted, which may translate into more accidental collisions as well as making them easier targets for those countries still hunting. No one really knows one way or the other, but an incident some years ago had me thinking that maybe whales know best and will respond more to ancient instincts than human expectations.
  It happened a year after a Bryde’s whale trapped himself in the Manning River, inspiring expert opinion that he would starve to death if not freed. After a great communal effort, the lonely little whale was coaxed over the shallow Harrington Bar and sent on his way. It was an event that did human compassion proud, but are we absolutely certain intervention was necessary?  I pose this question because just one year later, sailing south off the Manning River mouth, I saw a smallish whale approaching the coast from the southeast. He surfaced so regularly that I was able to take compass bearings to avert any chance of collision. His course seemed to be unerringly straight and true, as if he knew exactly where he was going. Passing across my bow, close enough to identify him as a Bryde’s whale, I watched until he disappeared towards the land. Later, by extending his track on my chart, his course led straight into the Manning River!
  The event proves nothing, of course, but Bryde’s whales are known to frequent shallow water, so could it be that the Manning River was a sort of servo-stop? Is it possible that, far from assisting that whale all those years ago, we actually interrupted something that was important to him? Probably not – but who can be certain?