The infamous KATU Exploding Whale video has remastered! To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the infamous beached whale incident that took place in Florence,...
A real classic! What wasn’t featured in the original news story was a passerby who had demolitions experience in the army in Vietnam. He approached the guy in charge of the job and explained that this would never work because when you detonate explosives in sand like they were going to, instead of blowing the whale entirely out to sea laterally, the blast would create a cone of explosive force straight upward and shear off massive chucks of whale hundreds of feet into the air, while leaving half the carcass basically untouched. Here’s a 25 year anniversary retrospective with some extra bits of fun info.
I don’t understand why they didn’t come at high tide and tow it miles out to sea using a couple tugboats. No dismemberment necessary, just a big strap around the tail-fin. Once miles from shore, the whale could be lanced to release the decomposition gasses and allow it to sink naturally where it could benefit the sea floor for decades. If they’d gone maybe 50ish miles offshore, that would have been proper deep sea abyssal zone and perfect for a whalefall.
A real classic! What wasn’t featured in the original news story was a passerby who had demolitions experience in the army in Vietnam. He approached the guy in charge of the job and explained that this would never work because when you detonate explosives in sand like they were going to, instead of blowing the whale entirely out to sea laterally, the blast would create a cone of explosive force straight upward and shear off massive chucks of whale hundreds of feet into the air, while leaving half the carcass basically untouched. Here’s a 25 year anniversary retrospective with some extra bits of fun info.
I don’t understand why they didn’t come at high tide and tow it miles out to sea using a couple tugboats. No dismemberment necessary, just a big strap around the tail-fin. Once miles from shore, the whale could be lanced to release the decomposition gasses and allow it to sink naturally where it could benefit the sea floor for decades. If they’d gone maybe 50ish miles offshore, that would have been proper deep sea abyssal zone and perfect for a whalefall.
Cuz we want big boom
When all you’ve got is a
hammercrate of dynamite everything starts to look like anailwhaleI guess it depends on how far gone the whale is. If you are only strapping the tail, it may slough off and leave the bulk of the whale behind.