New Study: Collisions between Sailing vessels and Cetaceans
Online survey on vessel whale collisions
Berlin, Juli/August 2008
MEER has been investigating the impact of sailing vessel and regattas on cetaceans (=whales and dolphins). For this purpose, we are collecting reports of collisions and near miss events between sailing vessels and marine mammals.
This study also relates to the work of the Ship Strike Working Group (SSWG) of the International Whaling 
Commission (IWC). The SSWG is currently developing a global data base, where collision cases with all types of vessels are collated. Any information on collisions of sailing vessels with cetacean shall finally – with the permission of the reporters – be entered into this data base.
In cooperation with the reknown sailor’s web page Noonsite we elaborated a questionnaire which was online from 2007 until 2010.
Share your experience!
(C) Roland Gockel
In general it has to be said that collisions of ships with cetaceans are globally a growing problem. Several whale population are under massive threat due to a high collision risk in some areas (e.g. the east coast of the US, the Mediterranean Sea and the Canary Islands). Still, after several years of investigations, information is still scarce. This is especially true for collision between sailing vessels and marine life.
With this, we would like to invite you to provide information, if you have had a collision with a whale or dolphin during your sailing career. We would be grateful if you could answer some questions given in a prepared online query and/or use a questionnaire, which is available for download.
We would like to stress that the interest of this inquiry is purely scientific and that all gathered information will be used to
a) understand reasons, causes, etc. of ship strikes and
b) to contribute to the mitigation of collision risk, both in the sense of humans and cetaceans.
Want to participate? This way, please…
We have elaborated a questionnnaire, which can be downloaded here:
Of course, your information will be dealt with confidentially, if you wish so.