TRANSCRIPT:
On the last day of September, John Klapsis had just returned from an all-night fishing trip with his son when he found a police operation underway in Sydney's Botany Bay.
"I was just next to that police boat. There was probably three or four police people on the boat. One was very frantically giving CPR to someone on board, yeah. My son actually said to me early in the morning, hey dad can whales hit boats? We found now that they're obviously they can. Yes. And it can be quite dangerous."
Peter Zabrocki was also out fishing that morning - and says he had an encounter with a whale.
"I had the experience with the whale as well and was a little bit scared because I was busy putting the bite. And the next second about maybe 20 metres from my boat, the whale come up, you know and breached and then he disappeared. He went under and never seen me again."
Siobhan [[sha-von]]Munro is the New South Wales Police Marine Area Commander Acting Superintendent.
She says another two men were not so lucky - with a 61 year old unable to be revived, and another in his 50s now in hospital after apparently being flung from their boat in Botany Bay by a breaching whale.
A forensic examination of the boat is now underway, and the Foreshore Road Boat Ramp at Botany is currently closed as police investigate the incident.
The acting superintendent says police initially responded to reports of an abandoned vessel off Cape Banks at La Perouse.
"A witness vessel was travelling out through the headlands and noticed the vessel doing laps without anybody on board. And that's when they identified there were two people in the water and called emergency services."
The man's death has come on the first day of National Safe Boating Week.
The Royal Life Saving Society says on average, 49 people drown in Australia every year while using boats and watercrafts.
New South Wales Maritime Executive Director Mark Hutchings says being out on the water can be risky - so safety standards have to be followed.
"We know it's been winter, people haven't had their boats out. So we want them to check their licences, make sure their boats are registered. So what we would ask, the one takeaway potentially is please wear your lifejacket at all times. There's an incredible amount of whales around this year migrating south. If you are on the water you need to be 100 metres away from an adult whale, and 300 if that whale has a calf. The whales aren't there to harm anyone but those interactions can happen."
Whales migrate back towards the Southern Ocean from September to November every year.
Siobhan Munro says this can be a particularly dangerous time - and boaters are advised to stay at least a hundred metres away from whales.
"Right now there are lots of whales out there. It is not unheard of these stories of whales breaching next to boats is obviously captured quite often. It is a tragic accident but it is not one that is unexpected."
Yasmin Catley is the New South Wales Police Minister.
She says it's clearly a terrible accident, and her thoughts are with the family of the man who died.
"It's terribly tragic, terribly tragic. And we just, as I say, feel for those family and friends. This morning, two guys would have got up to go out and enjoy themselves fishing - something that I and you know, most people in New South Wales love to do, and they've ended up in a tragic set of circumstances."
