Whale Capsizes Boat Off NH Coast, Ejecting 2 People Into Water

NEW HAMPSHIRE — The occupants of a 23-foot-long boat were thrown into the water after a whale breached underneath the vessel off the coast of Rye, New Hampshire Tuesday morning.

"He went under, he disappeared for a few minutes, and then the next thing we know, he just popped right up on our transom," one of the two fishermen on the boat, Ryland Kenney, told WMUR-TV.

A good samaritan rushed to the scene just east of Odiorne Point State Park and pulled both people from the water as the U.S. Coast Guard was alerted with a mayday.

Neither person was injured, nor was the whale, according to the U.S. Coast Guard Northeast.

The Coast Guard contacted the Center of Coastal Studies Marine Animal Hotline and NOAA to report the incident, and the boat has also been salvaged, officials said.

The rescuers turned out to be two young brothers.

"I saw it come up, and I was just like, 'Oh, it’s going to hit the boat,'" Wyatt Yager told WMUR. "It started to flip." His brother, Colin Yager, caught what happened on his phone.

"We are grateful to the good Samaritans for taking such quick action to rescue these two individuals," the Coast Guard said Tuesday.

The whale probably did not know the boat was there, said Sara Morris of the University of New Hampshire Shoals Marine Laboratory.

"If you look at the video really carefully, you can see that the whale has its mouth open," she told the station. "It looks like it's lunge feeding and actually trying to catch fish."

Officials added that they encourage anyone who spots a whale to report it to their local USCG command center using the following numbers:

Northern NE: 207-767-0320
Boston: 833-449-0539
Southeast NE: 508-457-3211

The Associated Press contributed to this report.