98 CLASSIC BOAT APRIL 2016
S
olo sailor Roy Hart trimmed and lit the wicks of
his oil lamps after the boat’s electrics failed. The
wind dropped as night fell and fog rolled in over
the sheen of flat ocean. The only sound now was the
dew drops pattering on the coach roof as they dripped
off the boom. Somewhere ahead was Labrador, but not
close enough to make landfall for at least three days.
Roy dozed on the starboard bunk, at one with the
stillness of the ocean, then he heard a strangulated
moan. He sat up and became aware of a putrid smell.
He sniffed the air, it was fishy. “I sat there transfixed. It
was a humpback whale calling,” he said.
Once upon a tide Roy’s visitor would have been
hunted to provide the very oil burning in his cabin
lamps, but limits on commercial whaling over recent
decades have helped these leviathans proliferate once
more. And yet before 2016 was more than two months
old, 29 whales had beached themselves and died along
the North Sea coasts of the UK, the Netherlands and
Germany. Over just two weeks, six sperm whales were
stranded on desolate beaches in Norfolk and
Lincolnshire, collapsing under their own bulk as the tide
ran off, or decomposing until they exploded.
I witnessed a seventh, a minke whale, being dragged
unceremoniously across the Maplin Sands by tracked
personnel carriers from the army’s firing range at
Shoeburyness at the mouth of the River Thames. It had
washed up dead and was battering at the piles of the
old submarine defence boom which yachtsmen skirt
round en route to and from London.
So what’s going on?
In the recent past, military low frequency active sonar
used in the detection of submarines has been blamed.
Pressure changes made by loud sonar can cause
haemorrhaging in cetaceans. Seventeen whales died in
the Bahamas in 2000 following a US Navy sonar
exercise. The Navy agreed that the dead whales hadexperienced acoustically induced haemorrhages, a
tearing of the flesh around the ears. Scientists believe
sonar caused them to become disorientated which led
them to swim towards shoal waters instead of their
natural habitat, the great deeps. Powerful sonar has also
been blamed for causing whales to suffer decompression
sickness also known as the ‘bends’; it’s thought whales
can be panicked into surfacing too quickly.
Now a new potential threat from sonar is emerging,
as acoustic and seismic surveys are carried out by civil
engineers probing which parts of the seabed are
suitable to act as the foundations for the construction
of wind turbine farms.
One such project is the world’s biggest offshore wind
farm on the Dogger Bank, 80 miles off the coast of
Yorkshire, which has been given the green light by the
UK Government.
Danny Groves of the Whale and Dolphin
Conservation charity told me: “At this point we simply
don’t know why these whales have stranded, from
Germany across to the UK coast, and in such large
numbers. But noise from military exercises, using loud
explosions or powerful sonar, or from exploration
surveys at sea, can cause whales and dolphins to
strand on the shoreline.
“Remember, they live in a world of sound – using it to
communicate, find food, and navigate. High levels of
noise disrupt this world and threaten these creatures.
“These latest strandings could well have been caused
by navigational error. In the case of species that live in
groups with strong social or family bonds, a lead animal
in trouble may put the whole group into danger.”
The £7 billion Dogger Bank project could eventually
provide power for two million homes. What a horrible
irony it would be if we discover that man has simply
replaced the harpoon with the sonic cannon to
illuminate our world.Replacing the harpoon
Dick Durham ponders what’s behind a recent spate of North Sea whale beachings
“Before 2016
was more
than two
months old,
29 whales
had beached
themselves
and died”GRAPHICAARTIS/GETTY IMAGES)