Have a friend who is single handing at this moment to New Zealand from
Port Angeles Washington (he left in May). Anyhow, he has hit both whales
(bent the rudder) and sunken container (nice dent in bow) in his many years
in his homebuilt 32' steel hull.
Gordon
BTW this is Edwards 4th or 5th round trip. Oh, did I mention he is 79 yrs
old?
Gordon


"Terry Spragg" wrote in message
...
dudley wrote:

renewontime dot com wrote:

Are containers a real threat?

We hit something about
mid-ocean on a trip from San Diego to Hilo back in 2000, damaging our


rudder. Not sure what it was, as we never saw it. Could have been a


container.


I've never seen (nor hit) a container at sea, but I have hit a whale
near the Channel Islands (off Southern California coast). The whale
was big enough to completely stop the boat's momentum while under
sail. My guess is that we hit it with the keel, but we were very
lucky it wasn't the rudder.

dudley
.

It would have been luck only if the designer had put the rudder at
the front.

Are you sure you hit the whale, or was it the other way around?

Terry K