Noisier than a washing machine, the cat with the loudest purr in the world: Merlin breaks record with 67.8db growl
 IT starts with a warble, a little like a creature calling out in the jungle. Then it turns to a rumble, like a train approaching from afar, or the sound of someone revving a single-cylinder motorbike in the distance. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Er… no. It’s Merlin, the world’s loudest moggy. With a growl that can drown out the noise of a dishwasher, he has just secured a Guinness World Record for the domestic cat with the highest decibel-rated purr. It officially peaked at an impressive 67.8dB – about the same as the sound of a shower or two people holding a conversation. But no-one ever talked quite like this. ‘Sometimes on the telephone I do get people asking me what that noise is in the background,’ said Merlin’s owner Tracy Westwood. ‘I tell them it’s the cat – but I don’t know if they believe me.’ His formidable purr emerged soon after Mrs Westwood brought Merlin home from a rescue centre near her home in Torquay, Devon, 13 years ago. Even as a kitten, he could make more of a racket than a full-grown cat. The only living soul in the mother-of-two’s house that couldn’t hear Merlin was her oldest dog. (It was deaf). Two years ago Mrs Westwood read about Smokey, a cat that held the loudest-purr record since 2011 with a 67.68dB rating. She instinctively knew Merlin could out-purr him. IT starts with a warble, a little like a creature calling out in the jungle. Then it turns to a rumble, like a train approaching from afar, or the sound of someone revving a single-cylinder motorbike in the distance. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Er… no. It’s Merlin, the world’s loudest moggy. With a growl that can drown out the noise of a dishwasher, he has just secured a Guinness World Record for the domestic cat with the highest decibel-rated purr. It officially peaked at an impressive 67.8dB – about the same as the sound of a shower or two people holding a conversation. But no-one ever talked quite like this. ‘Sometimes on the telephone I do get people asking me what that noise is in the background,’ said Merlin’s owner Tracy Westwood. ‘I tell them it’s the cat – but I don’t know if they believe me.’ His formidable purr emerged soon after Mrs Westwood brought Merlin home from a rescue centre near her home in Torquay, Devon, 13 years ago. Even as a kitten, he could make more of a racket than a full-grown cat. The only living soul in the mother-of-two’s house that couldn’t hear Merlin was her oldest dog. (It was deaf). Two years ago Mrs Westwood read about Smokey, a cat that held the loudest-purr record since 2011 with a 67.68dB rating. She instinctively knew Merlin could out-purr him. ‘Occasionally when he’s really loud I have to repeat myself,’ said Mrs Westwood. ‘When you’re watching films you have to turn the telly up or put him out of the room. I can hear him when I’m drying my hair.’ Recordings taken with a smartphone app clocked the black and white cat at peaks of between 98dB and 100dB, which, if accurate, would have ranked him alongside Maria Sharapova, one of tennis’s champion grunters; and only 10dB below the noise of a pneumatic drill. So it was time to call in the experts. A sound engineer and an adjudicator from Guinness World Records duly arrived at the Channel 5 studio in which Merlin was making a bid for stardom as part of a TV show called Cats Make You Laugh Out Loud 2, being screened tonight (weds). |
