NOT NECESSARILY THE AMERICA’S CUP : Boat Traffic Getting Caught Up in Nature’s Way

Pedro Campos speaks good English. The skipper for Spain’s tub in the America’s Cup Challenge sat behind a microphone like his fellow foreign captains recently and each and every word he spoke was easily understood.

When the formal press briefing ended, an English-speaking scribe approached Campos and asked about a reported collision involving his white boat and a gray whale.

Campos replied in Spanish. Probably good Spanish.

Although the English-speaking scribe has spent the past few years interpreting the remarks of football coaches, this was too difficult to decipher. Best guess: He wasn’t saying, “Call me Ishmael.”

Fernando Castaneira, the Spanish Challenge’s press officer, stepped in quickly to avert an international incident. “Boat and whale bump. It was no importance at all on them.”

“On the whale? Or, on the boat?”

Campos shrugged his shoulders and tossed a “no comprendo” glance at the scribe, although it was obvious he knew enough English to follow the exit signs from the room.

Castaneira exchanged Spanish words with another official-looking Spanish boat person, and then he said, “Actually the whale just hit us.”

After pronouncing the whale guilty, the other official-looking Spanish boat person said, “Very, very lightly touched.”

Castaneira nodded. “It was nothing.”

The gray whale could not be reached for comment, but an official-speaking whale person said, “Let’s just talk generally here.

“The animals have a migration path along the coast,” said Rick VanSchoik, the director of research for Southwest Research Associates. “Historically they have been more or less harassed while migrating. There’s pollution, noise--of which there are any number of sources--and shipping traffic.

“Adding to ship traffic with a major event like the America’s Cup, especially during the peak of their migration, presents an obstacle.”

Who wants the T-shirt concession? “Save the whales; beach the America’s Cup.”

“We’ve been working with the gray whales for almost two years,” said Tom Mitchell, an ACOC vice president in charge of media operations. “We’re distributing 20,000 copies of a boating and spectator guide that has a page describing what you can and can’t do with the whales. We’re producing a public service announcement that will go on television that will do the same thing.”

Will there be a Spanish version?

“We cannot obviously steer the boat for anybody,” Mitchell said. “We’ve briefed all the syndicates. . . . The Coast Guard met with the Spanish syndicate and determined there was no problem. It was just another thing where there are whales out there and there are boats.

“In almost every race we’ve had there are whales out there one way or another. They are monitored every day. The Coast Guard goes up in helicopters, and we have other groups that go up that monitor it for us. In addition, the National Marine Fisheries has three enforcement teams here, and they have guns and they don’t play around.”

The Spanish skipper and crew are advised to wear bullet-proof life preservers for the remainder of the America’s Cup.

Coast Guard Lt. Les Koehn was asked about the whales. He replied without hesitation: “They are big and they have bad breath.”

He’d feel right at home in the Charger locker room.

“We were extremely nervous at the outset of the races about the whales and boats, but after a couple of days on the race course everything has gone just fine,” Koehn said. “We fly surveillance helos every morning looking for anything 10 miles north and below that’s headed in that direction. We know what’s coming through at race time in that direction.

“One day 14 whales crossed the course during racing. On another occasion we called it many whales--20 or more--but they kind of skirted around the area.”

If given the choice between whale-watching and viewing the America’s Cup, “Well,” said Koehn, “there was this one whale that just stopped and began nursing its calf. It’s pretty exciting stuff.”

The Marine Mammal Protection Act makes it illegal to harass California gray whales. Dennis Conner, therefore, isn’t supposed to come within 100 yards of a whale, which coincidentally is the same tack he’s taken in three races with America 3’s Buddy Melges.

“One thing you can’t control is the whales,” Mitchell said. He made no mention of Conner.

“There is no stop sign out there,” Mitchell said. “But one thing I can tell you, whales are probably a lot smarter than we are. They stay away from large groups.

“The biggest concern--a gray whale with its sonar is like a submarine, it doesn’t have anything behind it. If you’re coming up behind a whale, it doesn’t know you are there.”

According to some observers, this should not present a problem.

“Shoot, the whales are moving faster than these boats,” said Tom Ceterski, a TV technician, who spent this weekend reviewing videotape of the races. “Look how calm the water is; they aren’t even moving.”

That would lead one to believe that the gray whale became impatient and was attempting to pass the Spanish boat when they bumped “very very lightly.”

“We knew there was going to be some interaction between a boat and a whale during the season,” said VanSchoik, who, along with Dr. Ivan Show, has spent the past four years researching gray whales. “It had to be; we were not surprised.

“Whales typically travel in groups. If you and I were walking down the street and something was moving, maybe it would be easy for most of us to avoid. But our aim is to get to the end of the street and socialize, and we may be more aware of each other than some obstacle. I’m sorry to use such a crummy analogy.”

Apology accepted. But if whale hits boat or boat hits whale, who will really be sorry?

“You would hope they would be able to tow the boat in,” Mitchell said.

The gray whales in the area are on the average 30 feet long and weigh approximately 30 tons--give or take a meal.

“They said the Spanish boat had only cosmetic damage,” VanSchoik said. “Ha! I don’t know what that means. It could just mean scraping of whatever stuff they put on the boat to make it go fast. I can’t imagine it was a head-on hit because the animals are smarter than that.”

There was no indication at press time on whether the Spanish syndicate was also considered smarter than that.

“If boat hit whale, it would probably be stressful, but not traumatic on the animal,” VanSchoik said. “They can avoid trouble. It’s their environment; they’ve been there a lot longer than we have and they are smart enough to take care of themselves.”

A gray whale approached the New Zealand and French challengers recently, and took a dive below both of the boats. New Zealand reportedly considered lodging a protest alleging a spying attempt to find out what sort of keel it was employing.

“I think the chances of a collision are there,” Mitchell said. “But we’re not so worried about the racing craft. We’re more concerned about the spectator fleet.

“The spectator fleet has been small so far and I would expect it to be relatively small for the next two or three months. If it gets to the point where the challengers are being competitive, or if Dennis Conner gets competitive with Buddy Melges, then there’s that chance of a problem.”

. . . If Dennis Conner gets competitive with Buddy Melges? Now there’s a whale of an idea.

The American Cetacean Society, a whale protective group, objected initially to the running of the America’s Cup in San Diego. “Let’s just say we were voted down,” said Bob Wisner, president of the San Diego Cetacean Society. “We just hope nothing serious happens.

“The danger is minimal for the big races in May that something will happen because the migration season will be over. For now, we’re keeping our fingers crossed. I know how fragile these boats are and I wouldn’t want to be on board if one of these boats smacks a whale broadside while going 15 knots.

“But OK, if they want to race, they race. That’s a chance they’re going to have to take.”

The gray whales head south each year at this time to find true love and protect their young from colder climates before heading north again to feed in a few months.

When the whales make their turnaround, they do so further offshore and are not expected to pose a significant problem on their trip back north. More good news for America’s Cup boats wishing to remain afloat: The peak migration period for the trek south has just about passed.

“Whales have a mission in life and that’s to either mate or feed,” VanSchoik said. “For the sailors, their mission in life is to race. They have been authorized to race and they’re going to race. They’re not going to intentionally run into a whale.

“But I would question how much they are going to change their course to avoid one. If it’s right in front of them they probably will; they don’t want to damage their boat.”

Might a lollygagging whale, however, bump off a challenger and determine the outcome of an America’s Cup race? What happens if a pair of boats go flying for a mark only to discover that a spout has laid claim to the turn?

“We’re concerned about doing what’s right and making the public aware of what’s right and wrong on the water,” Mitchell said. “When you tell the syndicates that it’s confiscation of your boat and a $50,000 fine if you purposely harass a whale, that gets their attention.”

Spanish translation: “No bote y tres millones de pesetas.”