Darren Zimmerman, SA Whale Disentanglement Network (SAWDN), said: On Thursday, 17 October, at 06h01, NSRI Simonstown duty crew, including NSRI Simonstown trained SAWDN volunteers, were activated to assist at False Bay Yacht Club where a juvenile Humpback whale appeared to be entangled inside the harbour.
During the early hours of the morning NSRI Simonstown had been alerted to eyewitness reports of splashing and some commotion, described as heavy breathing, going on inside the harbour, near to, or around, a foreign Catamaran cruise vessel.
At first light, on closer inspection, a local surf skier, out for a paddle, confirmed that a whale appeared to be under the vessel, entangled, and the alarm was raised.
NSRI Simonstown duty crew, some of who are trained SAWDN volunteers, responded and SAWDN was notified.
On NSRI Simonstown SAWDN members and NSRI Simonstown crew arriving on the scene, we found a young whale entangled in the vessels mooring strops.
The French owners, of the vessel, are away abroad. Their Catamaran is secured at moorings at False Bay Yacht Club (FBYC) with pick-up strops on a FBYC swing mooring.
The pick-up strops are above the water surface, running from the mooring buoys, to the Port and Starboard bow of the vessel. The vessels French owners, being away, additional strops had been secured to the vessel.
It appears that the whale may have swum between the two hulls (of the Catamaran), most likely from the back of the vessel, under the centre tarpaulin, and it appears that the whale got caught in these mooring lines and pick-up strops towards the front of the vessel.
It appears that once the whale started to get entangled in the lines it may have turned around getting more twisted in the lines.
It was immediately clear that this was not going to be anything like a normal conventional disentanglement operation.
FBYC was alerted and the owners were notified.
The NSRI Simonstown rescue craft Jack&Irene was launched with NSRI crew, trained SAWDN volunteers, and additional NSRI crew, trained SAWDN volunteers, with NSRI Simonstown rescue crew, were dispatched to the quay side.
The NSRI rescue craft Donna Nicholas was launched to stand-by on the scene in case the Catamaran needed to be moved.
The normal SAWDN cutting equipment was not used and instead a knife, from our NSRI rescue craft Donna Nicholas, was used to begin cutting through rope entangled around the whale.
Multiple cuts were made to free the whale.
On arriving on the scene the whale was clearly distressed but as the cutting of ropes around the whale began it appeared that the whale settled down appearing to be aware that we were there to help.
Once all rope was cut free the whale moved off slowly at first but it seemed that once aware that it was free of all rope the whale swam off confidently and we applaud the success of this highly intricate and delicate disentanglement operation.
We commend our NSRI Simonstown and SAWDN team for their efforts.
Over the weekend we monitored the coastline and no reports of any nature to the whale affected is a strong sign that the whale was not harmed.
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