Orcas attack sailboats during an international race: "A dangerous moment"

 Orcas attack sailboats during an international race: "A dangerous moment"

Two sailing teams taking part in a race around the world had a chilling encounter with a pod of orcas on Thursday afternoon, race officials said.

Both teams participate in The Ocean Race, an international competition that also collects climate data. The race has seven legs around the world, but the two boats that encountered the killer whales are competing in a smaller three-stage version of the competition, called The Ocean Race VO65 Sprint.

One boat was crewed by the JAJO team, a band from Amsterdam. The other is driven by Mirpuri Trifork Racing, a team from Portugal. The boats were crossing the Atlantic Ocean west of Gibraltar when the encounter happened around 2.50am local time, the organization said in a press release.

Jelmar van Beek, skipper of the JAJO team, reported that there were several killer whales involved. Both teams said there was no damage to the boats and reported no injuries, but said the killer whales slammed into the boat and pushed and bit the rudders . In one case, an orca rammed the boat.

"Twenty minutes ago we were hit by killer whales," JAJO team skipper Jelmer van Beek said in a press release. "Three killer whales came straight at us and started to hit the rudders. Impressive to see the killer whales, beautiful animals but also a dangerous time for us as a team. We lowered the sails and slowed the boat the most quickly as possible and luckily after a few attacks they left… It was a scary moment."

The incident comes amid reports of seemingly coordinated attacks on boats by killer whales. Several such incidents have been reported around Gibraltar, neighboring Spain. Incidents where killer whales worked individually or in a pod to ram a boat's hull or rudders have tripled in the past two years, researchers have said, but it's unclear why. Between July and November 2020, 52 such interactions were recorded by GTOA, a group that studies killer whales in the Gibraltar area. In 2022, there were 207 such interactions. In at least three cases, the damage resulted in sinking, The Ocean Race said.

A boat captain who has been attacked by orcas twice, once in 2020 and once in 2022, told Newsweek the whales seem to have a plan.

"The first time we could hear them communicating under the boat," he told Newsweek. "This time they were silent, and it didn't take them long to destroy both rudders. ... Looks like they knew exactly what they were doing. They didn't touch anything else."