Cape Town - A Sunday morning fishing trip nearly ended tragically when a boat carrying five people collided with a whale outside Hout Bay.
Alan Young, of Observatory, said he, his son Joshua, a friend, Franco Ungerer, and his son Johan, and Kyle Hayward left Hout Bay at about 7am in their boat Wild Child.
Three hours later and 10 nautical miles out to sea, two whales suddenly appeared in front of the left side of their boat, said skipper Alan Young.
“We tried to avoid them, but then a third one came from the right-hand side and its tail hit the side of the pontoons, splitting them.
“The damage was from port to starboard. We don’t know what happened to the whale. It dived under the water. I assessed the damage and decided to head back to Hout Bay harbour,” said Young.
One of the three pontoons of the double-engine boat was damaged in the incident.
“Our lives were not in danger and nobody panicked. I decided not to alert the NSRI.
“It didn’t warrant them coming out, but if the situation had to get worse, I would have called them out,” said Young.
Johan Ungerer, who competed in his first Cape to Rio Race in 1985 and the Cape to St Helena Island Race in 2006, said: “We were in the wrong place at the wrong time, because obviously the sea belongs to the fish.
“We were lucky only the front part of the boat got punctured. We didn’t take in water.”
The youngest crew member on the boat was Joshua, 14, who previously took part in the World Mirror Championship at the Waterkloof Dam near Villiersdorp, he said.
Cape Times