Humpback whale sinks family’s sailboat in Alaska: ‘Heard a giant thud’

An Alaska family found themselves treading water after a massive humpback whale rammed into their boat and sank it last month.

Tania Lewis said she and her family had fallen asleep after a day of sailing in Glacier Bay on July 29 when the leviathan rocked the boat around 11:30 p.m. 

“[We] heard a giant thud,” Tania Lewis told Alaska’s News Source, “and then the boat just sank.”

Lewis’ son Lou was awake reading and was able to alert her and her husband that the ship was going down. 

But even with the early warning from their son, the seafaring family had no time to grab an emergency bag of supplies stored in the ship’s cabin. 

To make matters worse, an emergency dinghy attached to the ship had been flipped over. 

“[I]t was full of water, and it took us a little while to navigate that and finally accidentally flip the dinghy, in which case then we could turn it back over,” according to Lewis. 

“That’s how my husband and I got to shore,” she said, adding that her son ended up swimming to land by using a backpack as a flotation device. 

Even after traversing 130 yards of water to reach solid ground, the Lewis family’s problems were far from over.

“Normally, if we had time — and just even like a couple more minutes — we could have been really comfortable on the beach there. But as it was, we had very limited extra clothes and enough emergency equipment to make a fire,” Lewis said.

The clan had to brave the chilly temperatures and waited until 6:30 a.m. the following day until rescue crews could come to their aid. 

Crews were able to locate the wrecked ship, and found the giant hole the whale had made in its keel.

Lewis said she spoke to a park biologist later on, who suggested that the whale had rammed the boat while chasing fish in the water.

But in spite of the wreck, Lewis said she and her family were still able to make the best of their time in the wilderness. 

“We had a really magical night with the moon, full moon, eventually rose, and when else do you get to sit around the fire with your family all night?” Lewis said.