A pod of killer whales seen in the Strait of Gibraltar in 2021.

Renaud de Stephanis/CIRCE Conservation information and research

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Renaud de Stephanis/CIRCE Conservation information and research

A pod of killer whales seen in the Strait of Gibraltar in 2021.

Renaud de Stephanis/CIRCE Conservation information and research

Ester Kristine Storkson fell asleep on her father’s small yacht earlier this month, sailing off the coast of France, when she suddenly woke up.

Scrambling on deck, she finds several killer whales, orcas, surrounding them. The steering wheel shook violently. At one point, a 37-foot sailboat had pushed her 180 degrees and was going in the opposite direction.

They were “ramming the boat,” Stokeson says. “they [hit] It gave us the impression that it was a repetitive… coordinated attack. ”

“I said to my father, ‘I’m not thinking clearly and I need you to think for me,'” says the 27-year-old Norwegian medical student. He was a very calm and centered person who put me at ease by speaking kindly about the situation.”

After about 15 minutes, the killer whale left, leaving the father and daughter to assess the damage.they stuck a GoPro camera In the water, she says, and could see it [the rudder] It was broken and some metal was bent. ”

A screen grab from a video of an encounter between a pod of killer whales and Stokeson’s boat.

Esther Christine Stokeson/

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Esther Christine Stokeson/

A screen grab from a video of an encounter between a pod of killer whales and Stokeson’s boat.

Esther Christine Stokeson/

Losing steering at sea is a serious problem for any ship and can be dangerous in adverse conditions, with some sailing vessels having to be towed to port after killer whales destroy their rudders. I did. Fortunately, Storksons had enough rudder left to set foot in Brest on the French coast for repairs. But the incident temporarily derailed their plans to reach the island of Madeira in northwest Africa, part of an ambitious plan to sail around the world.

there is There are no records of killer whales killing humans in the wild. Still, two boats were reportedly sunk by killer whales off the coast of Portugal last month.

Incidents involving the Stokes Renaud de Stephanis, president and coordinator of CIRCE Conservación Information and Research, a cetacean research group based in Spain, said it was an outlier.was further north — Nowhere near the Strait of Gibraltar or the coasts of Portugal or Spain.

That’s a conundrum. Until now, scientists assumed that only a few animals were involved in these encounters and that they were all from the same pod, says Stefanis.

“I really don’t understand what happened there,” he admits. “Too far. I mean, I don’t think so.” [the orcas] Went there for a few days and then came back. ”

These encounters, where most scientists avoid the word “attack”, have captured the attention of both sailors and scientists over the past two years, and their frequency appears to be increasing. Sailing magazines and websites have written about the phenomenon, and killer whales seem to be particularly attracted to boat rudders.A Facebook group with more than 13,000 members has posted personal reports of encounters between boats and killer whales and avoidance tactics. stood up to exchange speculation. And, of course, there are dramatic videos posted on YouTube.

Scientists don’t know why, but they have some ideas

Scientists hypothesize that killer whales like the water pressure created by boat propellers. “What we think is that they want the propeller to face forward,” says de Stephanis. Therefore, when they encounter a yacht that won’t start, they “get frustrated and turn”.

Still, I can’t quite describe my experience when I was helping Martin Evans get a yacht from Ramsgate, England to Greece last June.

About 25 miles off the Spanish coast, “just before entering the Strait of Gibraltar,” Evans and crew were sailing, using propellers to power the boat’s engines to increase speed.

As Evans was on guard duty, the steering wheel began to move violently, he said, and he couldn’t keep his hands on it.

“I was like, ‘Jesus, what is this?'” he recalls. “It was as if the bass was driving it. …I looked to the side and suddenly I saw the familiar black and white killer whales.”

Evans noticed “rudder clumps on the surface.”

Killer whale populations along the coasts of Spain and Portugal are very low. Scientists believe the damage to boats is done by just a few juvenile males, says Jared Towers, director of Bay Cetology, a research organization in British Columbia.

“There’s something about the moving parts…it seems to irritate them,” he says. “Maybe that’s why they’re concentrating on the rudder.”

If a few killer whales are involved, they can grow beyond just behavior, says de Stefanis. Yes, and less time playing on the yacht.

“This is a game,” he speculates. “It will probably stop when they are living their own adult lives.”

A killer whale calf photographed in the Strait of Gibraltar in 2021.

Renaud de Stephanis/CIRCE Conservation information and research

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Renaud de Stephanis/CIRCE Conservation information and research

A killer whale calf photographed in the Strait of Gibraltar in 2021.

Renaud de Stephanis/CIRCE Conservation information and research

Towers points out that these ‘games’ tend to go out of fashion in killer whale society. For example, the population he is currently studying in the Pacific “has young males who frequently interact with shrimp and crab traps,” he says. “It’s just a fad for a few years.”

In the 1990s, there was another epidemic of killer whales in parts of the Pacific. “They killed the fish and they were swimming around with this fish on their heads,” says Towers. “We don’t see it anymore.”