Killer whales have struck yet again off the coast of Spain and Portugal, terrifying a Dutch family with a ‘violent’ attack in the dead of night
A yacht has limped back to shore in Portugal after the latest in a string of mysterious ramming raids by psycho orcas, which some scientists blame on the personal vendetta of a whale they call ‘White Gladis’.
The Dutch family on board came under attack in the dark. One of the crew told Portuguese news outlet Correio de Manha: “We were sailing at night. Suddenly, we felt our boat moving violently.”
Their yacht was rocked back and forth at around 5am before they realised that orcas were battering the boat. The vessel began taking on water and the family scrambled to get back to land. Despite the predators swarming around them, the family reached shore before their yacht keeled over on the sand.
The family were unharmed and the authorities have taken away their wrecked yacht for inspection. But the terrifying attack off the coast of Nazare, as the family sailed from Lisbon to Porto, is just the latest in over 500 horrifying incidents since 2020.
A French family of five, including three kids, had to be rescued after a group of killer whales sunk their yacht off Peniche in Portugal in October. The orcas smashed the hull and water poured into the cabin, leaving the rudder severely damaged.
Another crew survived a terrifying encounter with killer whales on September 13. Three 20-year-old Norwegians and their captain watched in shock as their 57ft yacht was slammed by orcas.
Elise Wurschmidt told the Daily Mail that the orcas pushed against the autopilot until the steering mechanism snapped.
“We turned on the engine and some minutes later the wheel just starts to spin uncontrolled, so we figured something might be wrong,” she said. “And then on the side of the boat we could just see a huge orca.”
Having sustained heavy hits to the rudder, “we quickly lost control”, fellow crew-member Lisa Festervoll told Seilmagasinet. The whole boat shook, ‘hit hard and quickly’. They were “in disbelief” as a six-metre long killer whale passed by the side of the vessel, Lisa said.
The same pod of whales targeted another boat on the same day.
Boffins are unsure why orcas have started wrecking yachts off Portugal and Spain. A study in Marine Mammal Science found the attacks have a pattern. Orcas target the stern, disable the boat by hitting the rudder, and then lose interest.
Killer whales may be teaching each other how to target boats. But the behaviour makes no sense and even puts the animals in danger.
Dr Luke Rendell, at the University of St Andrews, has suggested the attacks are a “short-lived fad”. Orcas also carry dead salmon on their heads, he said, just to be sociable.
But some blame the attacks on White Gladis, an orca with a grudge against boats or people. Alfredo Lopez, a researcher at the Atlantic Orca Working Group, told livescience.com that a “traumatised orca” might have started the wrecking campaign.
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