A Saturday Sail With a Whale

On a calm September afternoon, while sailing close-hauled toward Drake’s Bay, Larry Hall and the crew aboard his 1999 Beneteau Oceanis 461 Francesca shared more than half an hour in company with a humpback whale.

“It happened on Saturday, Sept. 20, at 2:00 p.m.” Larry explains. “We had spent the previous night on the hook at Aquatic Park and got an early start to head out the Gate toward Drake’s Bay/Point Reyes. Our path took us out toward the Farallones, and we were bearing northeast toward Drake’s Bay when the whale approached us. This was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that everyone onboard appreciated.

“It was also so long that after about 20 minutes one of my crew was starting to panic. I had to reinforce that this was a moment when we really needed to trust the whale, which we nicknamed Bridgette. The whale was large enough to take Francesca down, I am guessing 35–40 ft.”

Francesca was under sail when the whale approached the boat. “I made a decision to hold our course. If we were to take in the sails, I think the bobbing and rolling of the boat would have been more distracting to her.”

Bridgette came up behind the boat then skirted alongside. She would pass under the boat, drop behind, play in Francesca’s wake, and come alongside again. “At one point she came right up to the transom and gave a little love tap.”

Erring on the side of caution, Larry went below to get his personal locator beacon and knife “in the chance she decided to initiate contact.” Below deck Bridgette could be heard rubbing gently against the hull.

“This really was an exercise in trust that she would do us no harm,” Larry says.

Larry later learned that this type of behavior is called “a whale mugging” and says, “I do feel we were taken hostage for the 30 or so minutes this went on.” [While not common, there are reports of this type of behavior among “sub-adult whales” during migrations.] But he adds, “I would not call it a mugging because she did not threaten us.”

Bridgette finally peeled away and offered her audience one last dive with a display of her tail flukes.

Larry is a member of the Farallon Patrol, and after the encounter he checked in with program leader and scientist Pete Warzybok. “He said I did everything correctly. If under power he reinforced that the engines should be turned off.”

Below is some footage of Larry’s whale encounter.

“If you make it through all 12 minutes, triple it, as that is how long we were together.”