A pod of orcas rammed a sailboat and bit off chunks of the ship’s rudder off the coast of northwestern Spain, prompting a bungled rescue mission that resulted in the one of the boaters being seriously injured.
The incident was the latest example of orcas attacking boats around the Iberian peninsula, a phenomenon that scientists noticed a steep uptick in around 2020. Hundreds of attacks have been reported since, logged by the Atlantic Orca Working Group, which studies the Iberian orcas. It’s unclear why the orcas are attacking ships, but theories range from vengeance against humans to hunting practice for young killer whales.
The latest attack occurred Sunday near the coast of Galicia, when two Belgian nationals sailing through the Bay of Biscay were set upon by a pod of orcas. Similar to other attacks, the killer whales rammed the ship’s rudder, leaving the vessel immobilized.
The man and woman on board called the Spanish maritime rescue service for help around 4 p.m. and authorities deployed a rescue tugboat to their location, Reuters reports. During the towing manoeuvre, the woman seriously injured her hand and needed to be evacuated by helicopter to the hospital.
The couple on board spoke to Belgian news outlet HLN and provided more details about their ordeal.
Wim Vandenhende, 43, and Dana Huens, 36, said they were sailing home from Greece in their yacht, the Amidala, when a pod of orcas began pushing and shoving their rudder.
“My steering wheel suddenly started making very strange movements,” Vandenhende said. “I also felt that the boat was being pushed.”
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“When I looked to the side, I suddenly saw an orca surface next to our boat,” he added. “If I had stuck out my hand, I could have just touched it.”
Vandenhende tried to steer away from the animals to no avail. He felt about three or four more blows against the rudder and after that, the steering device was left useless.
“Without a rudder,” Vandenhende said, “the only thing we did was turn in circles.”
In an image from a video provided by The Ocean Race, an orca moves along a rudder of the Team JAJO entry in The Ocean Race on Thursday, June 22, 2023, as the boat approached the Strait of Gibraltar. A pod of killer whales bumped one of the boats in an endurance sailing race, part of a growing trend of sometimes aggressive interactions with Iberian orcas. No one was injured.
The Ocean Race via AP
The couple knew that orcas had been ramming boats in the area and had already discussed their plan of what to do in the event of an attack. They called the Spanish maritime rescue service, which immediately responded.
It took about an hour for the rescue tugboat to reach them. When they arrived, rescuers threw over a tow line to attach to the couple’s boat, but Huens’ hand got caught between the tow line and the ship. Her hand was crushed.
“A rescue helicopter was called in, which took my wife with it,” Vandenhende said. “I stayed on the sailboat, which was towed to a harbour. Due to the wind and the rough sea, the towing lines broke twice.”
The maritime rescue service told Reuters that the operation was hampered by adverse weather, with winds up to 65 km/h and waves up to three metres tall. It took about five hours to tow the damaged sailboat back to port.
The orca attack left the Amidala with extensive damage, though thankfully it didn’t take on water, Vandenhende told HLN.
“The damage is considerable,” he said. “Pieces have been bitten out of the rudder.”
The couple left the boat in Spain for repairs and don’t expect to have it back before the winter. Huens was released from the hospital shortly after she was injured. No additional details were provided about her injury or treatment.
The Atlantic Orca Working Group has recorded more than 700 interactions between orcas and boats around the Iberian peninsula since 2020, but the reason for the uptick in “disruptive” behaviour has eluded researchers.
According to the working group, orcas know what rudders are, and they aren’t confusing these steering mechanisms for prey.
“Orcas don’t confuse the rudder with anything, they know what it is, how it moves and what effect it has when touching it. The speed of the ship and the resistance of the rudder cause it to persist in action,” researchers write.
If an orca starts interacting with your boat, the researchers recommend stopping the ship and its engine and letting go of the rudder. This can cause the orcas to “drop their interest, ceasing the interaction, in most cases.”
“Orcas can be stimulated by human actions to interact with the boat, so please try to stay out of their sight and do not shout, try to hit them, touch them or throw things at them,” researchers write. In cases where boaters fight back, or try to swat the orcas with their rudder, damage to the boat tends to be greater.
As of now, there’s no evidence that the Iberian orcas are displaying “aggressive intent” in their behaviour. After all, they are simply “living in their own environment, where we are the intruders.”
While most of these orca incidents have occurred around Spain and Portugal, a number of rammings have also taken place in northern waters, off the coast of the U.K. and Ireland.
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