4 ms·

> hauling it a few miles offshore 1. Where are you going to put the crane? It's a beach. 2. Where are you going to put the ship or tugboat? It's a beach. I d

• evan_ 6y ago
  You wouldn't need a crane. Lay out nylon straps on the beach, push or roll it onto the straps with an end loader, secure the straps around it and push it the rest of the way into the water. Once it's in the water and floating you can pull it from a boat 50 meters away if you need to.
  • crygin 6y ago
    Not all whale carcasses float -- some sink like a stone (and some sink, only to later rise again).
  • pinot 6y ago
    There's a bit of a trick to pushing a 20t rotting chunk of soft flesh into straps wide enough to then not slice through the beast when under tow.
• pugworthy 6y ago
  Marine salvage operations can do it. In fact about 21 years ago, a 650 foot ship (the New Carissa) grounded on the beach about 50 miles south of the whale location. It broke apart, but the salvors were able to float and tow a 440 foot section back out to sea to sink it. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Carissa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Carissa
  • justin66 6y ago
    All things are possible with sufficiently large heavy machinery, but that's an interesting comparison because what they had to work with when salvaging that ship was not actively decomposing. There actually are trash dumpsters large enough to hold this whale. I'm not sure it'd be necessary to tow it out to sea, but maybe that's not as hard as it seems to someone like me who doesn't know the process.