Kudos to the crew of HMCS St. John's. Crewmen took to the waters off Newfoundland in a small inflatable to come to the aid of a 10-metre long humpback whale snared in fishing gear.
The frigate was on a routine fisheries patrol when it got the rescue call. The whale was thrashing about putting the sailors at risk of getting hit if they got too close. The whale was caught up in lines attached to 20-crab pots resting on the bottom 50-metres below.
"We were quite confident once we decided to let [the sailors] into the water that the whale was gonna stay very still at that point. It had been still for quite a few minutes and was exhausted," St. John's CO, Brian Santarpia said.
Eventually the navy divers closed with the animal and managed to cut the whale free of the lines allowing it to swim away to safety.
"It really is kind of a neat experience," Santarpia said. "I guess it just goes to show that we have 220 highly trained sailors in a modern warship. It doesn't matter whether everything that we have to do is something they've seen before, the crew really showed a lot of initiative in finding ways to get this done."
The frigate was on a routine fisheries patrol when it got the rescue call. The whale was thrashing about putting the sailors at risk of getting hit if they got too close. The whale was caught up in lines attached to 20-crab pots resting on the bottom 50-metres below.
"We were quite confident once we decided to let [the sailors] into the water that the whale was gonna stay very still at that point. It had been still for quite a few minutes and was exhausted," St. John's CO, Brian Santarpia said.
Eventually the navy divers closed with the animal and managed to cut the whale free of the lines allowing it to swim away to safety.
"It really is kind of a neat experience," Santarpia said. "I guess it just goes to show that we have 220 highly trained sailors in a modern warship. It doesn't matter whether everything that we have to do is something they've seen before, the crew really showed a lot of initiative in finding ways to get this done."
1 comment:
That is a great story isn't it?
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