"We need to adjust.” Catamaran GuruĪll of the encounters involve some combination of the same roughly 15 animals, which have sunk three vessels and disabled dozens more, according to Mónica González, a marine biologist with CEMMA, or Coordinadora para o Estudo dos Mamíferos Mariños, a nongovernmental organization that is gathering data about the orcas in the strait. “Bottom line, we’re in their territory," he told CNN. Skipper Daniel Kriz said orcas in the Strait of Gibraltar approached and damaged the boat he was helming this past April and in 2020. In the past three years, the Strait of Gibraltar - an 8-mile-wide (13-kilometer-wide) sea corridor separating Europe from Africa - has been a hot spot of activity, with over 500 interactions between orcas and boats. “This time we could hear them communicating under the boat. “In 2020, the attack lasted almost an hour and was not as organized,” Kriz said. The whales had destroyed both rudders - the submerged control surfaces that steer a boat - in what seemed like a streamlined version of the encounter that occurred three years prior.
The four people on board the vessel didn’t suffer any injuries, but without full control of the boat, Kriz had to reach the nearest marina using only his engines. They were two juveniles, and the adults were cruising around, and it seemed to me like they were monitoring that action.” “That happened twice, and the second time we realized that we had two orcas underneath the boat, biting the rudder off. “We were suddenly surprised by what felt like a bad wave from the side,” he said of the recent incident. When Daniel Kriz saw a pair of killer whales underneath his boat while crossing the Strait of Gibraltar in April, he thought: “Not again.”įor Kriz, a veteran skipper who was delivering a racing catamaran across the Atlantic, it was the second such encounter in three years, after a pod of orcas had surrounded and disabled his boat in 2020.
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