A Fin Whale is around 75 feet long. The normal reckoning is a whale weighs in at a ton per foot. Fin Whales can swim fast too. They’re not called the greyhounds of the sea for nothing. So when I saw six of these creatures swimming directly for our 40 ton boat off the coast of Grand Manan in Canada last month the total mass coming right at us was around 450 tons … at 30mph … I could feel my heart pounding. At the last second the whales slipped under our keel and surfaced behind us leaving us with open mouths and the stench of whale breath.
Letter From Norfolk 