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Good to see everyone was off the board and hopefully enjoying Father's Day, so a belated happy Father's Day to you.

We lucked out here with just incredible weather, sunny, light breeze, and flat waters. The family spent the day enjoying the boat n water activities...I finally got to see the whales in the bay. I've heard about them for a couple of years, but I managed to be out when they were not or here when they were there.
A very cool sight to see wherever and whenever, to see a 20' whale feeding in 20' of water is something else.

Carl

Humpbacks or Finbacks? The Humbacks can be a problem down my way during striper season. They have flipped a couple of boats. Feeding to them is a lot like a Buck in Rut.

I think Humpbacks but only because that is what has been around. I'm not sure I'd know the difference, especially when small...small for a large whale in short waters.

Yes, I've heard about the whales coming up and hitting boats when feeding down Jersey. I kept a large distance between us and the whale, I can admire from afar. Then again I cannot control where they decided to come up.

Years ago while running offshore we ran into a huge school of whales. Scared the hell out of me, since they were coming up all around us. The water was alive with bait. I kept hoping one did not come up under us.

It is a sight to behold. Makes for a great day.

Tony Meola wrote: ↑Jun 20th, '23, 21:47 Years ago while running offshore we ran into a huge school of whales. Scared the hell out of me, since they were coming up all around us. The water was alive with bait. I kept hoping one did not come up under us.

It is a sight to behold. Makes for a great day.

Speaking with my dad last night he reminded me of a customer some years ago. Did a full running gear upgrade on his Runaway after hitting a semi-submerged container running to the canyon. We received a call on Friday afternoon saying it was all installed, running better than ever, he was heading to the Canyon that night. Monday morning he was waiting for us at the shop with bent everything...he hit a whale on his way out.

It sounds like you guys operate in some pretty treacherous waters. Bob Lico says he put race car steering in his boat in case he needs to do a 90 at full cruising speed, to dodge some flotsam or jetsam.
Worst I've ever seen is manatees, sand bars, idiots on jet ski's, idiots on boats. The first 2 you don't see off shore, the latter 2, usually aren't offshore.

I guess i can add that to the list of why i should appreciate where im at, but i never knew what you guys had to look out for where you're at.

Todd

Back in the 70's through mid 80's there use to be a lot of garbage floating out there. Cargo containers, telephone poles and other garbage. Then they banned the burning of garbage offshore so garbage barges stopped and the water cleaned up.

You still need to be careful but it's not like it was then.

With the new Federal speed limits it may not be much of a problem anymore!

Todd-

The person who hit the container, then the whale was coming out of Long Island. About 30-40 miles North of me, a touch of bad luck and running in the dark if I recall.

By me, it used to be horrendously littered with wood, timber, pilings n stuff. Garabage barge as Tony said, but I think a big part was EPA or DEC would not allow dilapidated piers to be taken down or removed. So they fell apart in bad weather making their way down the Hudson, or around the Island.
That has gotten much better, now it’s mostly trees n debris that come down the river that needs to be watched for.
The big scary we don’t see too often anymore was the “Up N Downers” think telephone pole that floated vertically just at the surface slowly bobbing Up N Down. You may see it come up a foot or a few inches, then back under for a couple seconds. Hit that n expect a nice hole, or trashed running gear. A pole sideways is bad, but even just breaking the surface, it’s long making it visible IF looking. “up N Downers” could be underwater for a time with just a second above….
We’ve had our close calls.

Aside from that, being in the shaft business we got to see more as it’s were people with problems came. Kinda like the auto adjuster gets to see n hear about lots of fender benders n crashes.

I guess it’s a reason going fast is not high on my priority list.

do you guys have to worry about molas? years ago we hit one 5 miles out of the Atlantis canyon and all seemed well until our trip home and we got a real bad vibration near the vineyard and we had to shut down 1 engine and come back on the other.

I have seen plenty of Mola's aka sunfish but have never worried about hitting one. Usually you can see their fin flipping around. I worry more about sea turtles which we took out one time in heavy seas.

We got lucky, rode right up the shell and it did hit the prop but even though the tip of the blade bent it did not create a vibration.