Alright, this is my first post and I've been a member for a few months so give me some crazy feedback:

(This is to go with that Mariana Trench thread)
So I was on a sailboat, of decent size with my family, cruising through the Poor Knights Islands about 30 or so miles from the North East coast of New Zealands North Island. We're going about 6 or 7 knots with a blustery breeze blowing into the sails and the engine is running. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, the boat grinds to a halt, not like running ashore or there would have been noise (belive me I've run ashore before), everything goes silent and the sails are billowing because there is adequate wind (we had not altered course).

The boat was seriously stopped out of nowhere, motor running and sails fully puffed out. We should have been moving but the jerk to a stop was so sudden that it caused plates to shift and crash in their compartments. We were held in this position for about two seconds until we were set free again, automatically set back to 6 or 7 knots.

Geographical information:
The Poor Knights are volcanic islands that rise abruptly from the sea floor. Drop offs surround the islands and there is little or no shore to speak of.

Possibilities:
Kelp? there is no visible or apparent sea plain surrounding the islands, and depths around the islands far exceed the range that these oceanic plants can rise from (90-100+ meters).

Engine troubles and/or lack of wind? RPM's remained the same (make sense?) and sails did d not fluctuate in their appearance which means propulsions was not drastically altered. Keep in mind that the boat came to an ABRUPT stop and did not slowly lose speed.

Some sort of creature? Hydro-accoustic readings have been taken from between the East coast of New Zealand and Chile, South America unearthing some sounds unheard by man in recent years. Sperm Whale populations thrive in southern New Zealand waters (Primary food source: squid), and the bottom of our boat was painted a maroon red and without adequate lighting would look quite dark.

I know this seems kind of biased but this IS a conspiracy website prone to ideas that are not usually of the status quo, please enlighten me as to your ideas of my boats sudden de-celleration. Everything I have written about the experience is the absolute truth.

*EDIT: took out some of the boats structural information so as to avoid the societal implications and categorizing that humans are prone to from time to time.

[Edited on 16-11-2003 by insite]

probably in this case the simplist solution is the most probable... you've hit a whale.....

YEAH! thanks for replying. Possibly, my dad has hit whales before when crossing the pacific. and ive seen fin wales (the second biggest) in that area before.

Maybe you hit the truth and could not recognize it?

was this at nite? my dads a saller 22 catalenea but i never been on the ocean before, sounds like somthing hit your (whats it called) the balencing thing at the buttem of sale boats?

The keel? yeah. Now that NEO mentions it, it probably was the truth. I was about 10 years old so he might be right on this one.

Thanks for the story aztec, as it has been mentioned on numerous other threads, the ocean is an expansive body. Who knows what's down there.

*EDIT: DM, this happened at dusk as the sun was going down.

[Edited on 17-11-2003 by insite]

ya the keel,

it sounds like you hit a huge plant or a net

The Poor Knights is a marine sanctuary and fishing of any kind is strictly forbidden by the local authorities who have a station on one of the islands. I dont think it was a net. A plant? possibly.

I noticed you said you were going 6 to 7 knots. Did the boat show any hull damage or any indications of hitting an animal? Could you possibly have ran into some man made object that wanted to remain undetected (i. e., a sub). However even if you ran into a whale, shouldn't there had been some hull damage? I once knew a diver who claimed that a friend of his had recorded the passage of two submarines on his boat sonar. The diver said that his friend was fishing in 300 meters using a the old strip chart type sonars (the kind that use thermal paper rather than LCD's). Apparently his friend recorded two blips where the bottom went from 300 meters to 200 meters for a second or two.

Submarines are rare in New Zealand waters. American nuclear subs are forbidden from entering its territory and Australian diesel powered subs are restricted to training grounds that are clearly marked on charts and nowhere near these islands. The depth sounder did not register any changes, its placed on the bow right in front of the keel so it should have shown a fluctuation in depth of something was bumped into from the front.

The boat only draws about seven feet of water below water line so i doubt it was a submarine but thats an interesting story! The boat remains in the water for long periods of time so no structural damage could be observed at the time however there were scratches on the keel and on the bulb of the keel when it was dyed out for cleaning last time, which I find interesting.

No idea what this was which is why I need some ATS theories. The experience was bizarre and obviously not easily explainable.

Insite
You don't suppose that maybe you encountered a giant squid who grabed the boat thinking it might be something good to eat????

[Edited on 18-11-2003 by jagdflieger]

Yeah, I love thinking about it too...




Maybe it was one of these bad boys:








[Edited on 11-19-2003 by insite]

Aztec stop weirding me out with your creepy stories from that creepy site. As for the boat thing, my vote goes to wale or something inanimate, perhaps something as simple as a large piece of debris floating by. Although the imagination would like to believe it was something much grander then these possibilities I would say they are the two most likely solutions.

I grew up there and my parents and I were fisherman. Everyone sets their lines as close as allowed and yes they are strict and well policed, but lines move. What about a sand bar? My mother in that area was rescued by dolphins once. Anyway, did you figure it out? Did you have a depth sounder going?
I'll e-mail my Mom.

another theory may be the sea itself underwater currents have been known to stop boats and in some cases change a boats direction very quickly

Your keel could have been temporarily caught on a submerged net, rope, or even a discarded sea anchor. There is a lot of garbage floating out there, maybe it was just under the surface and you didn't see it.