Navegando con orcas

[Juan de Nova]

Re: Navegando con orcas

Alguna vez he leído relatos de navegantes cuyo velero fue embestido por orcas, no recuerdo en que libro, pero en cualquier caso si lo pudieron contar, no debió ser tan devastador el ataque

Uno de los casos más conocidos fue el de Dougal Robertson a principios de los '70s. Cerca de las Galápagos, tres orcas atacaron y hundieron su goleta de madera de 43 pies. La suerte quiso que éstas se retirasen y que tanto él, veterano marino, como su mujer, enfermera, y sus 4 hijos pudiesen subirse a un pequeño bote con algunos pertrechos, siendo rescatados por un mercante, cerca ya de Panamá, 37 días después. Cansados, quemados por el sol, sedientos y hambrientos pero con vida.

Si no recuerdo mal por haber sido comentado en esta misma taberna, tanto Dougal como uno de sus hijos escribieron sendos libros, narrando su experiencia.

[jrcs]

Re: Navegando con orcas

Uno de los casos más conocidos fue el de Dougal Robertson a principios de los '70s. Cerca de las Galápagos, tres orcas atacaron y hundieron su goleta de madera de 43 pies. La suerte quiso que éstas se retirasen y que tanto él, veterano marino, como su mujer, enfermera, y sus 4 hijos pudiesen subirse a un pequeño bote con algunos pertrechos, siendo rescatados por un mercante, cerca ya de Panamá, 37 días después. Cansados, quemados por el sol, sedientos y hambrientos pero con vida.

Si no recuerdo mal por haber sido comentado en esta misma taberna, tanto Dougal como uno de sus hijos escribieron sendos libros, narrando su experiencia.

He encontrado un artículo que lo cuenta, es muy entretenido de leer:

Thirty-seven years ago this summer, some fishermen spotted a small dinghy adrift in the Pacific ocean. She was called the Ednamair and measured just 9ft from bow to stern. The fishermen watched the dinghy pitching and rolling in the vast emptiness of the Pacific and assumed that the occupants were long gone. They were nearly 300 miles from land. But they were wrong. A family of five, plus a friend, were on board. Packed like sardines into every nook, and with the flimsiest of protection, they had spent nearly six weeks stranded in the middle of the ocean with little food and water. Their dream of sailing round the world had gone horribly wrong.
On 27 January, 1971, Dougal Robertson, his wife, Lyn, and their children, Douglas (then 17), Anne, (16) and twins Sandy and Neil (nine), climbed into their yacht Lucette at Falmouth harbour, Cornwall. Eighteen months later – and by now joined by Robin, a hitchhiker, but minus Anne, who had left the boat in the Bahamas – they were 200 miles from the Galápagos islands when catastrophe struck. The Lucette was attacked by killer whales. "There was a bang! Bang! Bang! And we were lifted off our feet," recalls Douglas. "There was a huge splashing noise behind me and I turned round and saw three whales." It took only minutes for the Lucette to sink.
Bemused, shocked and unprepared – Lyn was still in her nightdress – they scrambled aboard a leaky raft, and then, when that deflated 17 days later, the dinghy. The odds of survival were against them: there was only enough water for 10 days, the only food on board consisted of a bag of onions, a tin of biscuits, 10 oranges, six lemons, and half a pound of glucose sweets. Nobody knew they were missing. They weren't on a shipping route, so their chances of being sighted and rescued were remote. Sinking was a constant worry due to the weight on board and to compound their problems, sharks were circling in the water.
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Yet, amazingly, they did survive, and their remarkable story is legendary, inspiring a bestselling book – Survive the Savage Sea by Dougal Robertson – an exhibition and a feature film starring Robert Urich and Ali MacGraw (1992).
But according to Douglas, the real story of the Lucette is still a secret. He says his father's book only covers the days after the shipwreck, and is dry and academic, drawn from the voyage log. The film was only loosely based on what happened – "They sailed from Australia, not England!" – and while he wrote a book himself, The Last Voyage of the Lucette, in 2005, revealing the whole story, not many people heard about it because its publication was eclipsed by a personal tragedy. Douglas's son, Joshua, 16, had a near fatal motorbike accident in Australia. When Douglas should have been promoting his book, he was by his son's side in intensive care.
I meet Douglas, now 55, at a college in south London, where he works as an accountant. Except he doesn't look like an accountant; he looks like a biker, with black leathers and cowboy boots and a red biker scarf tied around his neck. He says this contradiction is a legacy from the wreck. "One part of you craves normality but the boundaries have been moved so far you can't really do that." He is stocky and strong-looking – even as a youth he was the "muscles on the boat", rowing, splintering wood, and blowing up the leaky raft until his mouth was cut and sore. "My dad was the brains. He couldn't have done that stuff without me." This is one of the beefs he has with his father's book. "We all contributed to the survival in the raft and nobody else was recognised for it."
His own book charts the family's transition from farmers to sailors and the 18 months at sea before the wreck – they were, it transpires, almost killed within hours of leaving Falmouth when they sailed into a Bay of Biscay storm. The book adds an intriguing emotional dimension to the story – eagerness and joy, but also a son's frustration and fear.
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"Dad was a bit of a tyrant and we lived under his command," Douglas explains. "He gave us a good thrashing every time we stepped out of line, and he had hands like spades." The Last Voyage of the Lucette is a catalogue of his violent explosions. Douglas is punched in the face when the crockery smashes after not being stowed away properly, and he is pummelled into submission. But Douglas gets his own back. En route to Jamaica, his father is almost washed overboard after being hit on the head by the boom. Douglas rescues him by grabbing his legs, but as his father hangs perilously over the side of the boat, Douglas extracts a vow: "Promise you'll never hit me again, ever, or so help me I'll dump you over the side right now."
Then there is Albert, a male nurse they met in Miami. "Albert was a very nice man, a very friendly man," Douglas recalls, "but he had a motive – me." He says he still feels let down that his father didn't protect him. The book alludes to "inappropriate sexual connotations" but is hazy about specifics. Did Albert make a pass at him. "Yeah, he did." Did he succeed? "Somewhat, yeah," he says, quietly.
He says he tried to tell his father, but "he didn't want to listen. Neither did my mother. I started to tell my mother about it many years later and she said, 'Douglas, don't give me a burden to take to my grave.' So how can you tell parents like that what is happening?"
Yet he reveres his father, too, and aspires to be adventurous like him – although his brother, Neil, confirms that Douglas is a much gentler character. "I haven't undermined my dad – I've championed him for what he did for us. Dad was a very courageous man. He would never have got us home otherwise. But I've shown that he is a human being and he made mistakes." Dougal Robertson died in 1991 but Douglas insists that he had his blessing to write the book.
The youngest of eight children, Dougal Robertson had been a master mariner in east Asia, but gave it up after meeting his wife, Lyn, in Hong Kong in 1952 to become a farmer. To understand how the Robertsons survived their ordeal, you only need look at their previous life at Meadows Farm, in Staffordshire. It was a lesson in deprivation. No running water or electricity until Douglas was 10. No TV, set, only paraffin lamps and candles. No money for children's shoes. "Dad's life was terrifically hard," says Douglas. "He was very frustrated – he saw his brothers and sisters sending their children off to university and private school, the sorts of things he was no longer able to provide." Douglas is still critical of this decision. "He was a professional man and he became a farmer. I wish he'd stayed a professional man."
Douglas believes, most fervently, that this frustration was behind his father's violent outbursts. It certainly made him disposed to want to begin again. So when Neil, then nine, asked why they couldn't sail around the world like the yachtsman Robin Knox-Johnston, Dougal leapt at the idea. As did Douglas. "I wanted to go to university and be a geologist, but sailing around the world seemed a much better option," he recalls. The only person with reservations was his mother. "She was aware of the dangers. She considered the risk. For Dad it was an escape, so he didn't consider the risk. They argued about it. Mum probably hoped it would be a passing phase, but then we sold the farm."
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One of the great surprises is that they set off from Falmouth astonishingly unprepared. Dougal was an experienced sailor and Anne had learned the basics, but the children had no experience whatsoever. "I still can't believe that!" cries Douglas. "Why didn't we learn to sail in those quiet waters at Falmouth? We went straight into a force 10 gale and it was horrific. I had no idea what to do."
But then no amount of experience would have prevented the whale attack. "I'm sure they thought we were a big whale. Maybe it was the shape of the hull or the speed we were moving at," he says. His most terrifying moment was yet to come – swimming in the water to the raft, after the Lucette went down. "I'd seen the whales in the water. I thought, 'This is how I'm going to die. I'm going to be eaten alive.'"
Once on the raft, he and his father came up with the plan that saved their lives: rather than aiming for land, they decided to aim for water – which meant sailing 400 miles north to the Doldrums.
Life on the raft was grim. "It got holed when we launched it and that hole got worse. We were sitting with the water up to our chest. We had salt-water sores all over us and the heat would be taken out of your body – it was horrible. We used to take it in turns to sit on the thwart [seat] because it was dry, and my mum, God bless her, would say, 'Doug, you take my turn.' And she'd sit in the water for another hour." Sleep was impossible, because as soon as they nodded off, their heads would hit the water and they'd jump awake. Lyn was terrified that the twins would drown in their sleep.
The Ednamair, by contrast, was dry but flimsy. "We were always in danger of being swamped by a wave, and on the 23rd day it rained so heavily we thought we'd lost it. I think Dad was ready to give up. But Mum looked at Dad and held his eyes. Then Dad said, 'Bale for your lives and bale twice as quick as you're doing now.' And we did."
What kept them going was grit, determination and turtle blood. "You have to knock it back quickly, otherwise it sets into blancmange," Douglas explains. Plus it's got an "aftertaste that makes you want to wretch". Their mother rubbed turtle oil on the salt-water boils, and tried to keep them all hydrated with makeshift enema tubes made from the rungs of a ladder. "It was her nursing background. She knew the water at the bottom of the dinghy was poisonous if taken orally because it was a mixture of rain water, blood and turtle offal. But if you take it rectally, the poison doesn't go through the digestive system."
By the time the Toku Maru, a Japanese fishing boat, rescued them after spotting a distress flare, they were so dehydrated that they hadn't peed for 20 days and had tongues so swollen with thirst that they could hardly speak. "It was like having our lives given back to us, a pinnacle of contentment never reached again," says Douglas. When they got to Panama, he celebrated with three rancher's breakfasts of steak, eggs and chips.
After they got back - another voyage on board the MV Port Auckland – the family lived in a caravan on an aunt's farm in the Midlands for six weeks. When Dougal got an advance from his publisher, they moved to a rented cottage. But Douglas says that family life was changed for ever. "Mum and Dad divorced. They couldn't be together after that." He says they had terrible arguments on the dinghy.
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"My mother's fault I'm afraid," says Douglas. "She'd argue about not having electricity at the farm and not having proper running water or shoes for the kids, and Dad didn't need that."
Dougal bought another yacht and went to live in the Mediterranean. Lyn went back to farming, on a farm bought for £20,000 by Dougal from sales of Survive the Savage Sea.
Douglas believes his parents never stopped loving each other. Dougal died from cancer, aged 67, and for the last three years of his life, Lyn nursed him at their daughter's house. She died aged 75, also from cancer. Douglas went on to join the navy, and then became an accountant. He has five children from two relationships.
"Dad always felt guilty," concludes Douglas. "He always said, 'I don't know why I did it. I could have taken you to the Mediterranean – that would have done. I didn't have to take you around the world.' But we would say, 'Dad, we survived! You helped us! We did it!'"

[jrcs]

Re: Navegando con orcas

Ayer encontré el libro en una tienda de libros de segundamano, ya tengo lectura para este verano en mi rato favorito: a última hora de la tarde ya fondeado en alguna cala.

[mazatlan]

Re: Navegando con orcas

Desde mi profunda ignorancia sobre las características de esos y otros peces, me pregunto como consiguen mantener tanto rato similar velocidad sin agotarse y cual es su mecanismo de impulsión.
Teniendo en cuenta que su cuerpo está exento de otras protuberancias que no sean las aletas dorsales que no prácticamente no mueven, cabe entender que se impulsan doblando tronco y cola a uno y otro lado, pero en tal caso uno se imaginaría el cuerpo del pez vibrando violentamente y no tan quieto como aparentan....
Saludos

[LOBA]

Re: Navegando con orcas

Desde mi profunda ignorancia sobre las características de esos y otros peces, me pregunto como consiguen mantener tanto rato similar velocidad sin agotarse y cual es su mecanismo de impulsión.
Teniendo en cuenta que su cuerpo está exento de otras protuberancias que no sean las aletas dorsales que no prácticamente no mueven, cabe entender que se impulsan doblando tronco y cola a uno y otro lado, pero en tal caso uno se imaginaría el cuerpo del pez vibrando violentamente y no tan quieto como aparentan....
Saludos

NO es un pez, es un MAMÍFERO carnívoro , igual que nosotros, es decir igual que un MONO pero adaptado a vivir en el agua. Igual que un perro, me explico .... un mamífero. Que tiene mamas , que se alimentan de leche, que respiran con PULMONES , como nosotros.
No respiran como los PECES, por branquias.

Son de la familia de los delfines.

Y nadan MUY rápido. Los veleros que suelo alquilar, miden entre 10 y 15 metros de eslora y un macho de ORCA puede medir 10 metros y nada 4 veces más rápido que mi velero.

No tengo ni idea sobre el comportamiento de estos "PRIMOS " del mar PERO tampoco les tengo miedo, o por lo menos mas miedo que otros animales terrestres o acuáticos.

NO FORMAMOS PARTE DE SU CADENA ALIMENTICIA, y menos un barco.
No lo consideran una presa de la que alimentarse ni humanos, ni una cosa que flota, como un barco.

PERO ...... asusta , visto el video. Eso sin duda.

[Alocen]

Re: Navegando con orcas

En algún sitio leí que la leyenda y mala fama de las orcas viene de un error lingüístico en las diversas traducciones de su denominación. Según contaban, su nombre original con el que se conocían era "asesinos de de ballenas " y no "ballenas asesinas", denominación con las que se conoce frecuentemente a esta especie.

Yo, como aquel y ante mi supina ignorancia, ni quito ni pongo rey. Cuento lo que leí.

Independientemente de todo esto, el video ac******na pero que un montón. Impresionantes imágenes.



Agustín

[Parazoa]

Re: Navegando con orcas

Hola


Las orcas son delfines. Los de mayor tamaño, de hecho. Su cerebro también es el de mayor tamaño y son inteligentes (mucho). Se organizan socialmente, se comunican con un complejo lenguaje...


No comen gente, como los humanos no comemos orcas. Aunque hay (poca) gente que come delfines y hay (muy pocos) ataques registrados de orcas a humanos, a sus barcos en realidad, no a nadadores.

Se puede pensar que tienen la capacidad de atacarnos pero no lo hacen porque no les interesamos como alimento, y cuando lo han hecho, probablemente es porque se sintieran atacados por el barco en algún modo (que no alcanzo a comprender).


Son mamíferos marinos con dientes que respiran aire con los pulmones y comen peces (grandes) y otros mamíferos marinos (delfines más pequeños, ballenas, leones marinos...)


Los delfines nadan moviendo la columna vertebral arriba y abajo.
Los peces la mueven horizontalmente.


Las orcas pueden nadar a más de 35 nudos cuando cazan o juegan, y pueden mantener cruceros altos durante mucho tiempo, cazando ballenas (para agotarlas), por ejemplo, pero su velocidad "de paseo" en manada está alrededor de los 8 nudos.


Saludos y

[Alphanui]

Re: Navegando con orcas

Saludos cófrades ¡¡¡

Desgraciadamente, las orcas, son víctimas de tradiciones, mitos y falsas presunciones que nos impiden acercarnos a ellas como lo que realmente son.
Son la especie de mayor tamaño de la familia delphinidae (delfines), del suborden de los odontoceti (odontocetos), es decir con dientes, del orden de los cetáceos. Son mamíferos y por lo tanto, tienen las mismas características que todos ellos: paren crías vivas a las que amamantan, corazón con cuatro cavidades, tienen pelo (en este caso vestigial y durante el desarrollo embrionario y que después pierden), respiran aire...
Son animales altamente evolucionados y de forma de vida compleja, y con patrimonio cultural. Por ello, juzgar un comportamiento es difícil y generalizar se complica.
Existen numerosos artículos que hablan de las orcas con objetividad y que pueden acercarnos a sus vidas. Las orcas del estrecho, tienen una tesis doctoral dedicada, realizada por la Dra Esteban, que fácilmente se puede consultar.
Seamos sensatos y no compliquemos la supervivencia de estos animales con superticiones baratas...
Y para acabar... mi último encuentro con ellas...
Un saludo

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5j1zdw_orcas-barbate-13-04-2017_animals

[Peon]

Re: Navegando con orcas

Otro relato de naufragio en este caso con calderones, que embistieron y hundieron su velero.
Willian Butler y su mujer pasaron 66 días en una balsa salvavidas.
Presentaban su libro emocionandose en varios clubs de renombre de toda la península.
http://www.wbutler.com/daysadrift.html

[Lepanto]

Re: Navegando con orcas

Se alimentan de atunes rojos.

[ManuMAD]

Re: Navegando con orcas

¡Que bueno! Me ha encantado el video.

Saludos cófrades ¡¡¡

Desgraciadamente, las orcas, son víctimas de tradiciones, mitos y falsas presunciones que nos impiden acercarnos a ellas como lo que realmente son.
Son la especie de mayor tamaño de la familia delphinidae (delfines), del suborden de los odontoceti (odontocetos), es decir con dientes, del orden de los cetáceos. Son mamíferos y por lo tanto, tienen las mismas características que todos ellos: paren crías vivas a las que amamantan, corazón con cuatro cavidades, tienen pelo (en este caso vestigial y durante el desarrollo embrionario y que después pierden), respiran aire...
Son animales altamente evolucionados y de forma de vida compleja, y con patrimonio cultural. Por ello, juzgar un comportamiento es difícil y generalizar se complica.
Existen numerosos artículos que hablan de las orcas con objetividad y que pueden acercarnos a sus vidas. Las orcas del estrecho, tienen una tesis doctoral dedicada, realizada por la Dra Esteban, que fácilmente se puede consultar.
Seamos sensatos y no compliquemos la supervivencia de estos animales con superticiones baratas...
Y para acabar... mi último encuentro con ellas...
Un saludo


http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5j...4-2017_animals

[J.R.]

Re: Navegando con orcas

Pues yo propongo... ¡Navegando con orcos!

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/labibliotecadelviejomundo/images/3/34/Nave_Barco_Orcos_y_Goblins_por_Michael_Phillippi_Warhammer_Online.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20141028205439&path-prefix=es

[jolly-roger]

Re: Navegando con orcas

Buenos días egun on;


Aqui en el cantabrico comentabaan los pescadores viejos que cuando estaban pescando arremetian con la pesca....por eso echaban las velas para espantarlas.


Saludos