I completely understand the logic behind this and after posting in this topic I had my first whale ship crash since they added it. had a run of 5 non ship skills in a row with the pest getting it's max damage skill 3 times in a row.... bad luck on top of bad luck. In the end it came down to one hit... If I had another 2-3k HP I would have won.

After the fact I did some upgrades and got an extra 1-2k ATK and 2-3k DEF so I don;t think i'll have that trouble again. Guess I forgot to put Equipment on some of my girls.