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"Thomas Wentworth" wrote in
news:%1Xhg.10187$nV4.9594@trndny03:

I don't know why the whales are coming in so close to shore, probably
food. But a 40 tom whale and a 6 ton boat ?????????

I was headed north, about 90 miles off the Georgia Coast with another
sailor in a 35' Endeavour sloop. My bud, Lloyd, had gone to bed when I
relieved him at midnight in a nice beam reach, around 20 knots and
steady, which the Endeavour just loves.

Alone in the cockpit, mesmerized by the color radar display and unable to
see into the pitch dark beyond the bow light, I was half asleep around
3AM when, suddenly and without warning, "something" surfaced out in the
dark quite closely off the starboard beam. It was quite loud, made an
impressive splash I could only hear, just like you see in the Pacific
Life TV commercials, then all was quiet, again, as I sat there in the
dark, all alone, adrenalin pouring through my veins making every
extermity just tingle.

4AM came and and went, my watch over, but I was now WIDE awake pouring
over the displays and helm as if I'd just come on watch after sleeping 12
hours, instead of the two I'd had before the mid watch. Lloyd slept on,
unaware, until about 6:30AM when he scrambled into the cockpit, thinking
I'd fallen overboard and the autopilot had gone on without me. He said
my face was still looking a bit shocked after I related my early morning
brush with "something out there in the dark"....(c;

The way Lloyd snores, he never heard a thing....

Amazing how a close encounter of the cetacean kind can revitalize
a boring watch!

I was sailing single-handed near Keyport in Puget Sound. It
was about 8AM and about 25 yards visibility in a patch of
fog when a pilot whale (or possible an orca) decided it
had to breathe about 5 yards off my port quarter. I was
EXTREMELY happy when the visibility improved and it next
surfaced about 80 yards ahead of me.

As events in BC over the last few years have shown, an
orca or small pilot whale can do serious damage to
a small craft if it gets too curious.

google "luna orca bc" to see the stories.

Back to storage:

I keep anchors and chain in the bow and/or stern lockers
despite the pitching moment issues. Common sense
prevails in coastal cruising. Were I 150 miles offshore,
the anchors might go below, to be replaced by overboard
bags at the ends. (If there's a fire in the cockpit,
it might be handy to have an overboard bag up front).

For family cruising in protected waters, it might actually
be nice to increase the pitching moment. It can reduce
the amount of heaving over the downwind cockpit coaming. ;-)
Sailing efficiency might go down, but crew efficiency
could increase enough to balance that.

Mark Borgerson

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