We lost a sailfish to a whale in July, fast running sail and sudden appearance of a whale between us and the fish. Snapped it off at the leader, but above the hook, must have dragged the sail into the whale before it broke. Another boat lost two complete sets of bottom rigs in one day to whales passing underneath while lines were down. I have great video, posting shortly, of a full grown humpback which came in a for a look at us out in 300m. Seemed very careful, came right up to us, boat length away, slowly submerged his body so you can see it all outlined down in the water, then turned 90 degrees and surfaced again alongside us.
Mate totally disagree with you, there is no such thing as over thinking a whale hitting your anchor rope? Clambering to the front of a cabin boat to go up the the anchor hatch when the boat is lurching forward at a rate of knots in near impossible and any one that has had this happen to them will say the. Pause sorry not going any further with comments it's a waiste of time
Whales and quick release anchor systems
=
Knife
Hey Mick. Your thread got my interest and somewhere in it I saw the post from my old mate Watto referencing when I got hooked up to a solid blubber in the bay and went for a very scary ride in a 6 meter Victory, while by myself. You are right in thinking it is good to have a breakaway system and mine saved my ass. what happens to you is entirely dependant on what the whale does. without a breakaway if it dives deep and gently you are screwed..buy buy, in a small boat without much buoyancy you are probably screwed anyway, there are a whole lot of reasons why, but just think about rope tension and angle when you are hanging on the pick. You are even more screwed if it does a body role and your rope does a wrap around it, your rope just got about 10 meters shorter in under 1 second, now think about your rope angle now, how close you are to it, and what will happen if it dives. so all this is happening in a couple of seconds extremely jerky, extremely stressful. now what if it does an aerial like mine did. well you might be forming a mind picture. very brown underpants stuff! Sure have a knife up front but my guess is you won't get to use it unless it is a gentle surface pull. In fact if it is anything like my experience you will be lucky to stay standing up, dare I say it have the composure to steer your boat (essential), and make your way to the front to cut a rope.
Think about load and breaking strain caus that is what will save you, a small length of light sacrificial rope between your main line and your chain. the smaller your boat the lighter the sacrificial line needs to be. these big critters exert a tremendous amount of force and pressure and the buoyancy and weight of your boat does also. It needs to be such that the sacrificial will break before you get pulled under, or if shock loaded. under normal anchoring conditions this poses no problem with anchor pulling, (even with a ball).
So, my 2 cents on this is: big heavy and buoyant boat = small length sacrificial rope. small light boat = make the whole rope, anchor setup sacrificial with a point of fail at the bow that will fail, (EG a riveted cleat) use a separate firm solid cleat at the stern for pulling your anchor. you should never pull from the front anyway. I don't recommend loops of zip tied rope caus there is a good chance you may get tangled in it and end up somewhere between the whale and your boat...NASTY!
This is all just my opinion, Oh and take a spare pair of jocks. G'Day Watty, been a long time mate!
At the end of the day it's your boat, do things your way but I do recommend doing some research on pulling anchors from a stern cleat. I've had an anchor not come away. Being tied off to the bow it caused us to spin around which was scary enough. Had it of been tied to the stern we would have had a big elastic band trying to pull us down and nowhere else for the energy stored in the rope to relieve.Originally Posted by Glen Morgan
yeah you are right mate, it totally depends on type of boat and the technique used to pull, pulling from rear use anchor ball and circle, the trawler pull down from the rear is a real issue if you just drive straight off with a stuck pick and a stern cleat. good pick up!
It's a bit of concern, I can hit the freefall button on my anchor winch but....
Would I have time to hit it if I'm down the back fishing or up front asleep.
It takes about 2 seconds for the freefall to take effect, probably taking water by then.
Once freefall is activated how do I cut a rapidly unravelling rode.
It's a bit of concern, I can hit the freefall button
Oops duplicate post
How much boyancy is in a 5-5.5m boat i would guess 2 tons with under the floor foam and air pockets under the gunnels and bow would hold some air too do u really think a whale can sink a boat realistically?
Off botany bay where the whales are its 125 meters deep i think maybe foot? If your anchor can touch the sea bed how on earth is a whale going to sink your boat what that same amount of rope?
Im imagining the rope would just slide to the anchor as anchor ropes are bloody slippery
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Humpbacks can weigh as much as 40 tonnes. I think you might want to recalculate now. Also reread previous posts on this issue, most are eye witness accounts, I can tell you that a big humpy having a look at you from the back of a big cat is bloody huge, you don't want to ever hit one or have one catch on your anchor rope.
Not enough.
This thread is the first time i've ever heard of whales tangling in anchor rope so its quiet new to me
Wouldnt the rope just slide off the whales tale? The only thing i can see stopping this from happening is barnicles on the tail gripping the rope but even than wouldnt they just tear off? Trying to remove barnicle from my boat took a little effort but a whales tale is soft flesh
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Found the video below, but if u think about it a whole boat to the gunnels is bouyancy in volume of air 5m boat has to have around 7 cubic meters of boyancy
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They have a nodule on their pectoral close to their body that will catch the rope and anchor as the rope slides through - assuming the anchor isn't stuck which could create a whole new drama. While a boat may have plenty of buoyancy all up, most of it isn't in the bow and a 30 - 40 tonne fish isn't going to struggle to pull the bow under should the wrong circumstances occur
Not to mention all of those barnacles that will catch hold, as most of these are embedded in flesh and not a hard surface they don't fall off that easily.
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