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The yacht Grazie Mamma II carried its crew along the coastlines and archipelagos of the Mediterranean. Its last adventure was off the coast of Morocco last week, when it encountered a pod of orcas.<\/p>\n
The marine animals slammed the yacht\u2019s rudder for 45 minutes, causing major damage and a leak, according to Morskie Mile<\/a>, the boat\u2019s Polish operators. The crew escaped, and rescuers and the Moroccan Navy tried to tow the yacht to safety, but it sank near the port of Tanger Med, the operator said on its website.<\/p>\n The account of the sinking is adding to the worries of many sailors along the western coast of the Iberian Peninsula, where marine biologists are studying a puzzling phenomenon: Orcas are jostling and ramming boats<\/a> in interactions that have disrupted dozens of voyages and caused at least four boats<\/a> in the past two years to sink.<\/p>\n The largest of the dolphin family, orcas are playful apex predators that hunt sharks, whales and other prey but are generally amiable to humans in the wild<\/a>. The orcas hunting in the Strait of Gibraltar are considered to be endangered<\/a>, and researchers have noticed an upsurge of unusual behavior since 2020: A small group of the marine animals have been battering boats in the busy routes around Portugal, Spain and Morocco.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n While most interactions occur in the waters of southwestern Europe and North Africa, an orca also reportedly rammed<\/a> a yacht some 2,000 miles north off the coast of Scotland, according to The Guardian.<\/p>\n \u201cOrcas are complex, intelligent, highly social,\u201d Erich Hoyt, a research fellow at Whale and Dolphin Conservation and author of \u201cOrca: The Whale Called Killer,\u201d said. \u201cWe\u2019re still at the early stages of trying to understand this behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n Researchers have pushed back at the idea that orcas are attacking vessels. Instead, they theorize that the rudders of boats have become a plaything for curious young orcas and that the behavior has become a learned fad spreading through the population. Another hypothesis, according to biologists who published a study<\/a> on the population last June, is that the ramming is an \u201cadverse behavior\u201d because of a bad experience between an orca and a boat \u2014 though researchers tend to favor the first.<\/p>\n It is unclear what will stop the ramming, whether it\u2019s playful or otherwise, a point that has left anxious skippers traveling these parts sharing advice in Facebook groups dedicated to tracking such interactions<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been an interesting summer hiding in shallow waters,\u201d said Greg Blackburn, a skipper based in Gibraltar. Orcas slammed into a boat he was commandeering in May and chewed at the rudder, he said, though the vessel was able to return to shore.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The encounter left an impression: On a recent trip to Barcelona, Mr. Blackburn had to pass through a patch where orcas had been sighted the week before. \u201cI genuinely felt sick for about three hours,\u201d he said, \u201cjust watching the horizon constantly for a fin to pop up.\u201d<\/p>\n Conservationists, maritime rescue groups and yacht clubs are partnering to navigate the challenge<\/a> of preserving an endangered population and helping sailors avoid calamity. The Cruising Association, a club supporting sailors, has recommended safety protocols for orca encounters, such as disconnecting the boat and staying quiet. Skippers have offered one another anecdotal advice to deter attacks, including throwing sand into the water and banging loudly on the boat.<\/p>\n