Orcas keep attacking sailboats, sometimes sinking them. Scientists are looking for answers.
Why are orcas attacking boats? More than 200 interactions between killer whales and boats have been recorded along the Iberian Peninsula since 2020.
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- Orcas keep attacking sailboats off the coasts of Portugal, Spain, and Morocco.
- One sailor shared his encounter with killer whales, after a pod of orcas sank a boat last year.
- Scientists aren't sure why so many attacks are happening in the area.
Orcas are targeting sailboats near the Iberian Peninsula, and nobody knows why.
Greg Blackburn thought his boat was hitting rough waves when the thumps began on May 2, as he sailed through the Strait of Gibraltar near Tangier, Morocco, according to 9News.
But as the jolts continued, and the rudder seemed to resist his steering, Blackburn looked down and saw a giant black animal in the water, with the characteristic white oval and underbelly. Two orcas were repeatedly ramming his boat, and soon two more whales joined in.
"There's not a lot you can do at that point," Blackburn, a sailor from the UK, told 9News. "After reading reports and knowing what has been going on, just thought we were in for a ride now."
A collaboration of researchers have recorded more than 200 reports of "interactions," where orcas approach or touch a vessel, along Portugal and Spain's Iberian Peninsula since 2020.
Insider previously reported in 2020 about a series of aggressive actions by orcas along the Spanish and Portuguese coasts. At the time, scientists had different theories: The killer whales could be acting out of curiosity, mischief, or territoriality.
Orca attacks can be dangerous and sink boats
A pair of notable killer whale attacks occured last July, when a pod of orcas attacked a sailboat off the coast of Portugal and, just hours later, targeted another vessel in the same area, according to reports.
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The first incident, which local media described as "very much worse than usual," saw orcas ram a small sailboat carrying five people approximately seven miles off the coast of Sines, Portugal.
Orca attacks have sometimes immobilized sailboats, but local media said that, in this instance, it caused so much damage that the vessel started to sink.
The five crew members, who were on vacation, per The Sun, made it onto life rafts and radioed for help. A nearby fishing vessel was able to rescue them, according to a statement by the Portuguese Navy.
Unusually, another orca attack took place nearby just a few hours later.
Newsweek reported that the second orca attack involved a small sailboat with two passengers aboard.
The passengers, who were sleeping at the time of the attack, were traveling from Lisbon to the Algarve, per the local media outlet Portugal Resident.
The orcas, which can grow up to 26 feet long, struck the boat and bit the rudder, immobilizing it, the Portugal Resident said. The boat was towed to the dry dock.
Correction: May 9, 2023 — An earlier version of this story misstated the nature of the 200 orca incidents reported since 2020, as well as the origin of that statistic. Those reports were of interactions between orcas and boats, not necessarily attacks. And that number comes from a collaboration of scientists collecting reports, not from local media outlets.
This post has been updated with new information. It was originally published on August 13, 2022.