A group of Iberian orcas have developed a risky new behaviour: chasing sailboats and breaking their rudders. Since 2020, scientists have been baffled by these interactions, which have increased in frequency and geographical range.
In the summer of 2022, sailor Andrea Fantini and his crew were surrounded by seven orcas during a global regatta. 'They started to attack the rudder. It was super weird, and a bit scary,' he recalls. Orcas are not known to be aggressive towards humans in the wild, but the Iberian pod appears to have invented a game of pushing rudders until they break.
Renaud de Stephanis, an orca specialist, has filmed the encounters and explains: 'They're pushing, pushing, pushing – boom! It's a game. Imagine a kid of 6, 7 years, with a weight of three tonnes.' He notes that if the orcas wanted to wreck a boat, they could do so in ten minutes.
According to the Atlantic Orca Working Group, there were 207 interactions in 2022, up from 197 in 2021 and 52 in 2020. Only about 15 of the fewer than 50 Iberian orcas are involved, always the same group. The interactions follow their migratory routes, now extending from the Strait of Gibraltar to the coasts of Morocco and France.
Three yachts were sunk in 2022 and 2023 after such interactions. Breaking the rudder can open a hole, causing water to rush in and sink the boat. Even experienced sailors find it frightening, as skipper Jelmer van Beek described after orcas hit his rudder during The Ocean Race.
