Jan 10, 2007 The man rescued after colliding with a whale off the coast of Port Waikato on Tuesday believes their was nothing deliberate in the whale's action and has vowed to keep on sailing.
Lindsay Wright, 52, of New Plymouth, believes it may have been sleeping and his trimaran accidentally ran over it while he was in bed.
The yachtie says he heard a crack and noticed water on board and was then face to face with the 10 metre long mammal.
After the initial shock he says he got a good feeling from the whale, as if it was trying to apologise for unintentionally wrecking his boat.
"A big male humpback whale, a big bull, just nosed up to the boat, and we stood there and looked at each other for about 30 seconds, and then he just sunk and swam under the boat," Wright said.
"At that stage I thought he's come in for the coup de grace. I had the impression if he could've, he would've said 'I'm sorry mate I didn't mean to do that'.
"He made a hole about a metre square in the bow of the boat. There were six of them, they all just played around the boat for about 10 minutes."
Wright says the whale and five others then swam away, while he waited to be rescued.
The solo yachtsman was picked up five hours later by the Northland Electricity Rescue Helicopter from his sinking yacht on Tuesday night, about 80 kilometres off the coast of Raglan.
He was relieved he had been plucked to safety but he watched in disbelief below as his new $38,000 trimaran, Loose Goose, was engulfed with water after the encounter with the pod of playful whales.
Rescuer Donna Austin of St John Ambulance said the yacht took on a lot of water and lost radio contact almost immediately after it was holed as the water taken on board affected the equipment.
Fortunately for Wright he had a rescue beacon on board that he activated, she said.
Wright is an experienced sailor but had only owned the trimaran for six months. It was his first major trip, taking it from Auckland home to Taranaki.
He had been having a nap, just short of the halfway point, when he was woken by a loud cracking noise.
"He was quite shell-shocked I guess but able to obey commands - which I get a little bit bossy about," said Austin.
The encounter was not the first time Wright has struck trouble at sea.
Thirty years ago he was shipwrecked and only the quick thinking of a cruise ship captain doing a life boat drill saw him rescued.
"The skipper in charge of the lifeboat found a piece of wreckage, saw that there was no marine life on it, deduced there'd been a recent wreck, so plotted a course up tide and came and looked for us and saved our lives."
Now Wright's plans to sail the Loose Goose for the solo Tasman race which starts in April are on hold, but his second lucky escape is unlikely to put the veteran yachtie off for too long.
"I think a cold beer is a definite priority," he said.
But he will be hoping someone will shout him that because while he was insured, he left his cellphone and wallet on board when he escaped.