Two sailors were rescued in Spain by the Spanish coast guard on Monday after a pod of orcas repeatedly rammed into their yacht.
The incident took place at 2 p.m. local time, two nautical miles from the Basque coastal town of Deba in northern Spain.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the coast guard rescued the two sailors after they sent out a mayday distress call. They were both taken “safe and sound” to the port of Getaria. The pair were said to be “shocked, but unharmed.”
Rescuers noted that such incidents are “uncommon” so far north in the Atlantic and said they had not been called to assist on an orca attack in the Basque Country before.
Orcas are more active farther south in the Strait of Gibraltar, which is also referred to as “orca alley.”
Last August, 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 one of the boaters being seriously injured.
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The attack occurred near the coast of Galicia, when two Belgian nationals sailing through the Bay of Biscay were approached by the orca pod. 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 and authorities deployed a rescue tugboat to their location, Reuters reported. During the towing manoeuvre, the woman seriously injured her hand and needed to be evacuated by helicopter to the hospital.
A few months prior to that incident, another pod of orcas rammed a yacht sailing through the Strait of Gibraltar until it began taking on water and sank.
The incident occurred in Moroccan waters in the Strait of Gibraltar, Spain’s maritime rescue service told Reuters, where an unknown number of orcas began ramming a small, 15-metre sailing yacht.
Two people were on board the vessel, called the Alboran Cognac, and they radioed for help. The unnamed boaters reported feeling sudden blows to the hull and rudder of the ship before their vessel started taking on water.
A nearby oil tanker redirected to their location, picked up the two boaters and transported them to Gibraltar. The Alboran Cognac was left adrift and eventually sank, Reuters reports.
Since 2020, the Atlantic Orca Working Group has documented more than 700 interactions between orcas and boats around the Iberian Peninsula. Despite the surge in “disruptive” behaviour, its underlying cause remains a mystery to researchers.
According to the working group, orcas aren’t mistaking rudders 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.”
— With files from Global News
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