A sperm whale cracked the hull of the 52-foot Tai Tam in the remote South Pacific, forcing four sailors into an emergency struggle for survival before they were rescued alive about 18 hours later. The yacht later sank after the collision, ending a night of bailing, radio calls and decisions made on a boat that could no longer be steered.
Jemma Cooper said the impact hit like a loud thud and shoved the whole boat sideways. She said she was thrown from the steering wheel by the force of the blow, and when the crew looked to port they saw a pod of six to eight whales nearby, making clear what had struck them. That moment is why sailors rescued after whale collision is now the question people are asking: how a routine passage in open water turned into a fight to keep the vessel afloat.
The boat was 250 nautical miles north of Norfolk Island when the whales appeared. Jeremy Cooper said the blow woke him below deck and left the steering gear smashed on the starboard side, with water pouring in. Martin Jaffre later said the collision left several gashes in the hull, cracked the fiberglass structure and broke the steering. Once that happened, he said, the crew could no longer steer the boat, and a boat without steering quickly becomes a problem.
At 1 p.m. New Zealand time on Saturday, about 30 minutes after the collision, the sailors activated an emergency beacon and declared a full mayday. The Royal New Zealand Air Force sent a P-8A Poseidon patrol plane to the area to establish radio communications and coordinate the rescue, while the sailors spent the next few hours bailing as much water as they could and trying to keep the engine from clogging.
The part that does not fit neatly into the neat version of the story is the timing. One account puts the sailors stranded for 17 hours, while the rescue came about 18 hours after the collision. That difference is small, but at sea it is the difference between a rough estimate and the kind of clock that matters to four people watching a damaged hull fill with water.
Late at night, the crew finally left the yacht for a life raft in calm seas under a full moon. In the early hours of Sunday morning, they cut the tether to the Tai Tam because they feared the sinking boat might drag them down, and soon after that the yacht slipped beneath the waves. The rescue left one question hanging over the wreck: exactly how the four were recovered after they abandoned the boat, beyond the coordination already underway in radio contact, is not spelled out — only that they made it out alive.
