The media carry-on about the thwarted yacht race (surely the most boring spectacle in all of sport) ignores a simple reality.
That is the cold hard fact that dolphins are playful and love nothing more than surging and diving alongside moving vessels’ bows.
The Black Sea is full of them. I’ve criss-crossed it on ships and it’s the loveliest spectacle watching them leading the way, moreso when in the centre of that vast sea, twice the area of New Zealand, when out of sight of land.
6 Comments
The dolphins were probably looking for a boat to do that with, and wondering why all the boats were there but nobody was doing anything all day. The organisers should have just sent a couple of boats to play with them and draw them away from the course. But imagine the outcry.
I was a watch Officer on the Spirit of Adventure in the 70’s and the dolphins played around the bow all the time and the kids could hear their squeaking in their accommodation and loved it.
At sea they ride the pressure wave off the bow and stay there for hours and hours.
It was offensive to the wonderful intelligence of dolphins to think they would allow themselves to be struck by one of the Sail GP boats. As you say, dolphins love playing with boats, but there is no record of any boat having hit one. With half a century of sailing experience I can attest to that fact. I have hit sharks (sleeping on the surface in the sun) and whales (too slow to get out of the way of my speeding craft) but never a dolphin who simply satisfy themselves with playing on my bow to my delight.
Sorry Sir Bob!!! Definitly NOT boring.
I love it and LOVE what it does for NZ! Even non sailors out supporting it!
I’m all for the dolphins…BUT feel NZ more important at the mo!
Just seems UNBELIEVABLE the whole thing was stopped for a dolphin. We’ve become pathetic?
Jacque Holbrook
Hope that you saw the headline in Stuff last night, Bob. Huge Thai earthquake kills many….
I checked, and no earthquakes in Thailand.
What a beautiful site that must have been.
Dolphins are not only playful, they also show empathy, grief, joy, problem solving, teaching abilities and self awareness.
Simply amazing creatures with a brain to body mass ratio similar to humans.
Sadly there are numerous reports of dead dolphins washing up on the shores of the Black Sea, presumably as a result of the current Russia/Ukraine conflict.