Sailors rescued after Orca Pod Rams enters the Spanish coast yacht – National
The Spanish Coast Guard rescued two sailors in Spain on Monday after a group of orcs repeatedly hit a yacht.
The incident occurred at 2 pm local time, two nautical miles from the small 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 Mayday’s distress call. They were both taken to the port of Getaria “safe and sound”. It is said that the two were “shocked, but not hurt.”
Rescuers noted that such incidents were ultimately “rare” in the northern Atlantic Ocean and said they had not been asked to assist in orca attacks in the Basque Country before.
In the Strait of Gibraltar, orca whales are more active, also known as “Orca Alley”.
Last August, an Orcas pod hit a sailboat and hit a large chunk of the rudder on the northwestern coast of Spain, prompting a clumsy rescue mission that left one of the crew seriously injured.
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The attack occurred near the coast of Galicia, when two Belgian nationals crossed the Bay of Biscay and the port of Orca was approaching. Similar to other attacks, the killer whale hit the rudder of the ship, fixing the ship.
According to Reuters, the men and women on board called Spanish maritime rescue services to seek help, and authorities deployed the rescue tugs to their location. During the towing exercise, the woman suffered severe injuries to her hand and needed to evacuate the helicopter to the hospital.
A few months before the incident, another Orcas pod hit a yacht across the Strait of Gibraltar until it began pouring into the water and sinking.
The incident occurred in the Spanish Maritime Rescue Agency in Moroccan waters in the Strait of Gibraltar that the number of orcas there was unknown and began to hit a small 15-meter sailing yacht.
There were two people on the boat called Alboran Cognac and they asked for help on the radio. Unnamed rowers reported that the hull and rudder on board suddenly blew before their ships began pouring into the water.
A nearby tanker redirected to their location, picked up two crew members and transported them to Gibraltar. According to Reuters, Alboran cognac was drifted and eventually sank.
Since 2020, the Atlantic Orca Working Group has documented more than 700 interactions between orca and ships around the Iberian Peninsula. Despite the surge in “destructive” behavior, its root cause remains a mystery for researchers.
According to the working group, the orca did not mistake the rudder for prey.
“Orcas doesn’t confuse the rudder with anything, they know what it is, how it moves and the impact when touching it. The speed of the boat and the resistance of the rudder cause it to continue to move.”
If Orca begins interacting with your ship, the researchers recommend stopping the ship and its engines and letting go of the rudder. This may cause orcas to “give up their interests and stop interacting in most cases.”
– With files in global news
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