Giant Squid

[LittleShip]

Just read this in the YBW E magazine..............

"Meanwhile Mike Golding, the leading Brit in the race, was also in a good mood this morning despite an incident with a giant squid, which has covered his hull and the lower part of his sails in ink. Mike Golding commented: "The decks and even the foot of the head sail were covered in what looks like squid ink and there's an awful lot of it. It looks like it was shot from ahead. Whatever it was, it was pretty big, but I'm not worried - I'm bigger!"

So is it just me that wants to know just how big it could have been!

I think I would be worried.
Tom /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

 

[Phoenix of Hamble]

ahem..... worried!...? Did you see Planet Earth last night..... usual spectacular BBC stuff.... but the guys in the little flimsy wooden hut, with a hungry Polar Bear looking through the window....!!!!!!!!

 

[Sybarite]

Is he sure it's not oil?

John

 

[Becky]

Talking to a guy in the boatyard on Saturday who described taking a 60 foot yacht across Biscay a few years ago. They were becalmed and while drifting slowly along found the wheel almost impossible to move. Checking over the side to see if anything was stuck round it, they saw a tentacle about the size of a mans arm and very long.

The skipper banned anyone from going near the sides. Down below they could hear isomething crunching on muscles; the boat had been in Dartmouth for a long time and was badly fouled. They couldn't afford a lift before setting out. But the guy who told me the story said he had dived and cleared some of the encrustation.

Starting the engine finally sent it away.

They were 150 miles west of Ushant, where the continental shelf drops away.

So Mike Golding could well have had a similar encounter.

And I am SURE he knows the difference between ink and oil /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

 

[LittleShip]

Jeeze Becky

Lake sailing seems to be the safer option!

Tom

 

[oldharry]

[ QUOTE ]
Jeeze Becky

Lake sailing seems to be the safer option!

[/ QUOTE ]

... on Loch Ness? /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

 

[Bergman]

Well

I guess you need a good story for the sponsors in case things don't go to plan.

Giant squid indeed!

 

[DinghyMan]

I saw that bit, fantastic bit of film.
I think I would have been a bit worried as well

 

[bobnewbury]

The biggest whole specimen of Archeteuthus Dux that has been found intact (albeit having rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible) was 58 feet, inluding tentacles. So it would have a body length of about 25 feet.

The ratio between overall length and sucker diameter seems to be fairly constant, and extrapolating from the sucker marks on sperm whales, who eat giant squid, suggests it may grow to an overall length of about 70 feet.

There is a belief in some scientific circles that it may suffer barotrauma if it gets too near the surface, so flinging its tentacles round a boat & squirting it with ink may just be squid for "Bloody hell, my head hurts".

 

[Bald_Dad]

It was fantastic, but the sight of the polar bear lying down to die, and the implication that climate change is having such an effect sent me to bed utterly depressed about what we're doing to this planet. And I don't know the answer. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

 

[jh001ace]

The answer lies with controlling the developing world, India, China and the USA, yes the USA!

 

[Phoenix of Hamble]

Yes... quite sobering really wasn't it....

 

[SoulFireMage]

The answer lies in part in being sure that we have any real influence on global warming in reality-something scientists don't all agree on. Whilst doing that, either way developing clean technology for the long term. Even so I don't believe anything man can do will or would ever have influenced global warming in a useful way-unless we learned to control the entire climate-sadly.