A sailor is presently stranded on the island of Gibraltar after a pod of 5 orcas attacked his yacht, disabling each rudders and treating the disabled boat like a plaything within the water. The assault is the latest in a string of incidents with no clear trigger.
British sailor Iain Hamilton advised BBC 4 concerning the assault 20 miles west off the coast of the British territory. He mentioned a pod of 5 animals started ramming into the boat. From Insider:
“There was a really massive whale pushing alongside the again of the boat, attempting to chew the rudder,” he advised BBC Radio 4, including that the massive orca, together with 4 smaller killer whales, repeatedly bumped towards the yacht.
“Then considered one of them managed to take off the rudder,” he mentioned.
Hamilton mentioned it was “fairly regarding” to be left with just one rudder, however the state of affairs turned from unhealthy to worse when the second rudder was torn off.
“We had no mechanism for steering the boat,” he mentioned. Hamilton added that the orcas “pushed us round like a rag doll.”
The sailor advised Radio 4 that he felt as if the orcas have been being “nearly playful” somewhat than aggressive, including that they’d have had the power to destroy his yacht rapidly in the event that they wished to.
Specialists will not be certain what’s inflicting orcas to assault yachts, nevertheless its theorized that an older orca, dubbed White Gladis by researchers, was traumatized by unlawful fishing vessels and is now educating youthful orcas to assault the ships across the Iberian Peninsula. Some ships have been merely disabled, however the orcas have managed to sink just a few. There have been no less than 200 interactions on yachts within the waters surrounding Spain, Portugal and Morocco since 2020. Although these interactions aren’t essentially assaults, they do converse to an rising curiosity of orcas round crusing vessels.