Richard Collins: Yachts have a new opponent — the killer whale
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On May 26, 1941, the German battleship Bismarck was attacked in the Atlantic by aircraft from the British carrier Ark Royal.
A torpedo struck its steering gear, jamming the rudders in a turning position. Unable to manoeuvre, the great ship was pounded the next day by four warships and scuttled. Only 110 of her 2,300-strong crew survived.
Damage to rudders during marine conflict is in the news again; off the Iberian Peninsula, yachting enthusiasts are facing a new enemy, the killer whale.
An 11m-long yacht, sailing from A Caruña to Gibraltar in July 2020, had its wheel wrenched from the helmsman’s hands.
Something had struck the rudder and was pounding the bottom of the boat. The vessel had to be towed ashore.
When raised from the water, killer whale bite-marks were found on the hull.
The Spanish navy’s yacht, Mirfak, was another early victim. This time, the offending whales were captured on video; one had part of the boat’s rudder in its mouth.
Helen Fretter, writing in , says that about 40 similar incidents were recorded during the following six months.
Between June and July 2021, 53 such cases were reported, most occurring between Lisbon and Morocco. Why are killer whales misbehaving?
Each autumn, around 60 of them hunt tuna off Spain and Portugal.
Dr Ruth Esteban, of Madeira Whale Museum, has identified rogue individuals; the culprits belong to two pods, one consisting of juveniles only, the other with juveniles and adults.
Killer whales mob sperm whales when competing with them for food. Do juvenile killers mistake yachts for sperm whales?
Dolphins love playing with boats, and killer whales are very large dolphins.
Some reports indicate that they approach yachts upside down, belly up, suggesting that they are just playing.
Are attacks, therefore, instances of boisterous mischief, or is the behaviour more ominous?
There is a single, Nordic, record of a killer whale attacking a boat, but the crew were towing a dead seal at the time.
Many Islandic folk tales feature ‘evil whales’ attacking fishermen; Inuit kayakers, it’s said, fear killer whales and retreat on seeing them.
A working elephant, docile and cooperative for years, may suddenly go berserk and run amok, wreaking death and destruction.
Having long endured the privations of slavery, it ‘loses its cool’ in a forlorn bid for freedom. Are killer whales, likewise, being driven mad by the noise of ships?
Is their hearing being damaged by anti-submarine sonar?
The fish stocks they depend on are being over-exploited, pollutants and plastic choke their stomachs, and discarded fishing gear entangles their fins. Attacks may be symptoms of stress.
Is it even possible that these highly intelligent creatures have put ‘two and two’ together, blaming boats, and venting their rage on pleasure yachts because trawlers are too big to attack? Anthropomorphic nonsense, no doubt, on my part.
A nautical friend of mine will sail his yacht to the Mediterranean, this summer. He will give the Iberian coast a wide berth, by sailing beyond the continental shelf, where there are unlikely to be killer whales.
If other yachtsmen and women do likewise, killer whales will have established a partial no-go area.
- Helen Fretter. Orca attacks: Rudder Losses and Damage as Orca Attacks Escalate . Sept 2021