Unbelievable Video Shows a Humpback Whale Capsizing a Boat

Two anglers came home from a day out on the boat with a whale of a tale on Tuesday, after a humpback whale breached and landed on their vessel . The scary incident happened off the coast of New Hampshire and was captured on video by another pair of boaters who weren't that far away.

Luckily, it sounds like both the humans and the whale were unharmed during the unbelievable scene. Keep scrolling to see the video for yourself, and to learn what caused the humpback whale to capsize the boat.

A July 2024 viral video shows a humpback whale capsizing a boat.

If there wasn't any footage of the moment the humpback rose out of the water and landed on the back end of the boat, the two anglers might have had a hard time convincing anyone that it actually happened.

In the video, which was captured by Colin Yager and his brother Wyatt, according to The Guardian — the boat went nose-up after the whale made contact, flinging the people aboard into the water. Then, just as quickly as the boat went up, it came crashing back down, completely unmanned.

The Yagers then sprang into action, quickly moving in and pulling Greg Paquette and Ryland Kenney out of the water. The castaways later told ABC News affiliate WMUR-TV about the incident, admitting that they'd seen the whale in the water prior to the moment it breached.

“Everything seemed like in slow motion. It was really weird,” Kenney told reporters. “Everyone was like, ‘Oh, it was eight seconds. How’d you move so fast?’ But it was almost slow motion, like a movie.”

As for the whale's reasoning for breaching in that spot, well, it sounds like it was just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Paquette said when the whale emerged from the water , he noticed that the creature's mouth was open, indicating that the whale was in the process of feeding and likely had no idea that he wasn't alone!

How often do whales capsize boats?

You may have been hearing more and more stories about this happening, especially when it's killer whales capsizing yachts , but the truth is that these types of whale-related crashes aren't all that common.

The Yachting Monthly blog notes that there have only been 605 confirmed whale-on-boat incidents from 1820-2019. Still, when they do happen, they are big news, especially when they involve video, like the breaching off of New Hampshire, or when the victims include the uber-wealthy.

Most passengers on personal watercraft will never encounter a whale in the way that Paquette and Kenney did. On the off chance that you find yourself in this type of situation, you should try to stay as far away from the hungry whale as possible while they are feeding. While that didn't save Paquette and Kenney's ship, it may just have been enough to save their lives.