Watch A Killer Whale Rip The Rudder Off A Sailboat For The Glory Of All Marine Mammals
The latest update to the feel-good story of the year is an actual video of an orca making quick work of the rudder on a very fancy sailboat off the coast of Spain this past April. It’s the latest in a spate of orca attacks that have occurred over the last three years, but particularly in the last month.
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The boat in question is an intensely fancy Bali 4.8 catamaran-style sailboat run by the charter management company Catamaran Guru. Boasting six bedrooms and six bathrooms, the boat is nicer than most people’s homes. But orcas don’t care about your supersized interior or onboard ice maker—orcas care about their home, and other orcas.
VIDEO | Killer whale rips rudder off boat in the Straight of Gibraltar
According to the company, the captain aboard the boat had previous experience with orcas in this area, and attacks are going up because the orcas are now experienced:
Captain Kriz reported to several news outlets that in 2020, he was attacked by a small pod of orcas. And in April 2023, the crew of the Bali 4.8 he was skippering near the Strait of Gibraltar felt like it took a hard hit from a wave, then another. Immediately the skipper thought, “Oh no, not again!”.
Because Captain Kriz knew what was happening, the crew was able to video the encounter that left them rudderless. The crew aboard the brand new Bali 4.8 limped to Barbate, Spain, using its motors. Kriz said it seemed that the whales were getting more strategic as during his first cetacean assault 3 years ago, he could hear them communicating beneath the boat during a full hour as they pushed the boat around the sea and took its rudder. The most recent attack took only 15 minutes in silence with both rudders being bitten off, with a whale returning to take the last bit of rudder that remained after the initial removal.
An eerie portend of things to come, humanity! I particularly like when the orca returned for the last little bit of rudder and surfaced briefly as if to say “ha ha, who’s got the rudder now!”
Researchers believe a whale nicknamed Gladis was traumatized by an illegal fishing boat and is seeking her revenge by instructing other young orcas in how to attack rudders. The attacks are disabling boats traversing through the Strait of Gibraltar, which connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic, with Spain on one side and Morocco on the other. While the attacks began in 2020, there have been 20 such attacks in the last month alone.
Not since the Ever Given has an aquatic news story brought so many people together. So far, no one has been reported injured or killed in these attacks, though orcas have sunk at least three boats since 2020. What the attacks do do, however, is cost mostly rich people (or their insurance companies) thousands in repair bills. The orcas win again.
