RYA SPRING 2021


Close encounters RYA UPDATES


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News from around the association


A series of confrontations between orcas and yachts off Spain and Portugal last year left sailors stunned and scientists baffled. We find out what might have caused the incidents, and how boaters can be prepared


he first sign of trouble was when the yacht’s wheel suddenly spun ‘hard over’, almost pulling the helmsman’s


arm from its socket. A shudder then went through the hull, as if the boat had struck a submerged rock or shipping container. Many thoughts go through a skipper’s mind at a moment like this: had they hit something? How bad is the damage? Were they taking on water? Called on deck, the rest of the crew emerged into the morning light to see a black dorsal fin cut the surface of the water astern. The fin grew higher out of the water and a characteristic black body with flashes of white and grey broke the surface. Gracefully, three more orcas broke the surface, casting a cool glance, from dark eyes, at the alarmed crew. Then the boat started to spin…


unsettling experience


This description is typical of a number of incidents that took place last summer off the coasts of Spain and Portugal. Such close encounters between humans and wildlife pose a dilemma for maritime authorities: how do you safeguard protected species while maintaining people’s safety? Although such human-wildlife conflicts (HWC) are known on land, solving this issue in a marine environment poses difficulty with large species that range over hundreds of nautical miles. Last year the RYA was notified about


several incidents involving British- registered yachts being rammed and damaged by orcas in Spanish waters. The first occurred in July, to the west of Tarifa on the approach to the


The temporary Navigation Exclusion Zone around Finisterre was designed to keep orca interaction to a minimum.


“it’s fascinating, puzzling and worrying to hear of this behaviour”


Straits of Gibraltar. Here, a yacht was repeatedly bumped by a group of whales. The incident began when the helm of the yacht was forced ‘hard over’, with the crew unaware of the presence of whales until the animals surfaced close by before striking the craft again. The force of the impacts was enough to spin the yacht through 120 degrees. During the same period, other yachts and small craft were damaged near the Straits.


The second incident, which played out almost identically to the first, took place in September,


approximately 20km north-west of Cape Finisterre, off north-west Spain. In both incidents, the yachts, both under 50ft (15m) long, were under power and the crews took the precaution of turning off the engines and echo sounders to avoid injuring or attracting the orcas.


Photo: Ron Sanford/Getty Images


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