According to officials, a sailing yacht that was carrying two individuals encountered an unknown quantity of orcas that caused a water breach and caused the vessel to sink in the Strait of Gibraltar on Sunday. The most recent in a series of attacks on vessels by killer whales in recent years, as reported by Spain’s maritime rescue agency, was the rescue of both crew members by a passing oil tanker.
The incident occurred at approximately 9 a.m. local time in the narrow strait between Spain and Morocco, which has become a notorious location for human interactions with killer whale pods. These whales, for reasons that are still not completely understood, occasionally collide with boats and even sink them. After encountering orcas, the crew of the SV Alboran Cognac yacht issued an evacuation request approximately 14 miles before the coast of Cape Spartel.
The rescue service reported that the crew members experienced damage to the rudder and superstructure of the vessel as a result of the whales. The agency’s coordination center in Tarifa, Spain, facilitated their departure by coordinating their evacuation via the tanker MT Lascaux. The crew members were rescued from the submerging yacht by the tanker within an hour, and they disembarked in Gibraltar before 10:30 a.m. Subsequently, the SV Alboran Cognac disappeared entirely into the ocean after it was abandoned.
It is recommended that individuals who are using a personal sailing boat or a larger motorized vessel to navigate the waters between the Strait of Gibraltar and the Gulf of Cádiz in southern Spain avoid specific areas that the maritime rescue service has identified as potentially hazardous for orca interactions. The most common sightings of killer whale colonies in the Atlantic occur between May and August, during which time they pose the greatest threat.
Conversely, historical incidents suggest that these hazards may emerge at any given moment. In October of last year, a Polish boat touring company reported that a pod of orcas had been able to sink one of its vessels by repeatedly striking the steering fin for 45 minutes, resulting in a leak. Two sailing teams that were participating in an international race around the world last June reported harrowing incidents in which multiple orcas rammed into or were pushed up against their vessels as they sailed west of Gibraltar.
The documented increase in confrontational behavior has researchers and mariners attempting to ascertain the reason why orcas have attempted to sink or capsize so many boats off the coasts of Spain and Portugal. However, no one on board any of the vessels was injured in those encounters.
Some mariners have even resorted to playing thrash metal music in an attempt to deter the apex predators.
The GTOA research organization has documented hundreds of such incidents in the region since 2020. The number of reports of orcas interacting with humans has more than tripled in the past two years. However, the most recent data suggests that the orcas’ decorum may have undergone a change, as the group reported only 26 interactions in the Strait of Gibraltar and Bay of Biscay regions between January and May of this year. GTOA estimates that this figure represents a 65% decrease in comparison to the regional average of interactions recorded during the corresponding months of the previous year and a 40% decrease in comparison to the corresponding months of the 2021–2023 period.
