A couple out on a quiet boating trip off the coast of South Africa got the shock of their lives when they were suddenly joined on deck by a 40-ton southern right whale.

Yacht skipper Ralph Mothes is seen in this amazing photograph dwarfed by the whale as it breaches right next to his yacht Intrepid.  A split-second after the picture was taken the 30ft-long whale slammed into the deck, snapping the steel mast like a twig and crushing the coach roof and side rigging. A tourist from Botswana who was aboard a nearby sightseeing boat captured the before and after shot.

Southern rights, an endangered species, can grow up to 50ft long and weigh 60 tons, so this one was probably a youngster.

A 30ft southern right whale towers over Ralph Mothes a split second before slamming into the deck of the Intrepid training yacht. This amazing shot was captured from a nearby sightseeing vessel in at Hermanus, 80 miles east of Cape Town, South Africa

 

Mr Mothes and Paloma Werner took cover as the whale thrashed about on deck before slipping back into the water.  Today the pair were thankful that they were aboard a steel-hulled training yacht, which didn't suffer any structural damage. A fibreglass vessel would have been destroyed.

 

We'd spotted the whale about 100 metres away and thought that was the end of it. Then suddenly it was right up beside us.  I assumed it would go underneath the boat but instead it sprang out of the sea. We were very lucky to get through it, as the sheer weight of the thing was huge."

'There were bits of skin and blubber left behind, and the mast was wrecked. It brought down the rigging too.

After thrashing about on deck, the whale slipped back into the water and left the scene of the collision. Mr Mothes and Paloma Werner were left with a broken mast and trashed yacht. They managed to make it back to the marina

 

There were reports that the whale had been harassed by pleasure craft before it leapt onto the Intrepid. An inflatable craft had been seen driving close to the animal moments before the incident.  But experts say the young whale was more likely inexperienced with human contact and didn't know the yacht, which had its engine turned off, was there.  Meredith Thornton, scientist and manager of the Cape Town Mammal Research Institute at the University of Pretoria, said: 'Whales don't see much by way of their eyes but by sound in the water.'

Whales are a common sight in the Atlantic Ocean off the Western Cape coast at this time of year as they come near the shore to breed.  Thousands of tourists flock to the region's seaside resorts every year to spot the mammals during the South African winter from June to November.

Miss Werner said she first saw the whale when it was about 100m away. It breached once and, before they knew it, the whale was a mere 10m from their yacht.  'There was hardly any wind, so we couldn't get out of the way,' she said. 'We didn't have time to take any evasive action.'

But Ms Thorton said the whale was probably 'lob-tailing' in order to communicate with other whales.  She added: 'If a whale wanted to be aggressive it would side-swipe the boat with its tail.'

After the incident, Mothes and Werner surveyed the damage to their yacht.  'The first thing we did was make sure there was no water downstairs. We didn't know if the whale was coming back.'  They managed to turn the engine on and made it back to the marina without assistance.

Edited from Daily Mail 21st July 2010