Killer Whales Ram Sailboats and Their Humans
Why are killer whales attacking sailboats off the European coastline? Scientists pondering this question have no answer, but they do have some wacky theories.
This week NPR reported the harrowing tale of a sailing trip off the French coast, in which a father-daughter crew was surrounded and hounded by an unknown number of orcas, ramming their 37-foot boat for a solid 15 minutes. The attack was so fierce it spun the boat around 180 degrees, as the killer whales had honed in on the boat’s rudder, nearly destroying it. The boat was able to limp, nautically speaking, into Brest for repairs, with about three-quarters of its rudder trashed.
This misadventure follows a pair of orcan encounters off of Portugal in July, in which two sailboats were pounded until one sank, the other was towed to safety. No one was hurt, but the recovered boat had a badly damaged rudder.
Marine biologists are reluctant to use the word “attack” to describe the phenomenon (we have no such reservations), and are quick to point out that there is no record of an orca killing a human in the wild, ever. But whatever is going on here is apparently happening more often, especially on the Atlantic coast of the Iberian peninsula. As of June this year, 200 such incidents have been reported.
Why target sailboats or focus on the rudders? One theory holds that the rudder’s movement stimulates the orcas. If it moves, it might be food. Another is that orcas really like to swim behind the twirling propellers of powerboats because it feels good on their snouts. A sailboat denies them this singular pleasure, so they take it out on the ship’s rudder.
Or perhaps it’s just a matter of boys will be boys. Renaud de Stephanis, president of a cetacean research group based in Spain, believes the perps are just a few juvenile males who will outgrow the behavior. “This is a game,” he speculates. “When they ... have their own adult life, it will probably stop.”
Or maybe, this is just our theory, the orcas heard about Norway’s brutal butchery of Freya, the friendly walrus, and are taking it out on humans.
