> “It is a rare behavior that has only been detected in this part of the world,” said Alfredo López, an orca researcher at the Atlantic Orca Working Group (GTOA), in an interview with Scientific American last year.
They also recently rammed into a yacht near Scotland, and in British Columbia an Orca collided a yacht into another yacht by dragging the anchor chain.
What I saw in other reports that I did not see highlighted in this article is that the whales aren't just deciding to sink yachts, but appear to be teaching each other.
I'm remembering that orca attack was one of the seemingly fanciful explanations floated to explain the disappearance of Jim Gray and his boat near San Francisco years ago.
Would be almost ironic if this were true. (An eminent CS pioneer falling prey to a whale R&D project decades before they took it mainstream.)
There was a YouTube video showing tracked wales trying to cross an ocean. It also visualised ships crossing the same ocean. There was so much traffic that the wales kept having to turn back and turn back. In the end being unable to find a gap in the “traffic” to be able to make the journey across.
I feel this may partly explain the motivation to take a few ships out that fall within do-able for them.
I was genuinely thanking you! As soon as I read your answer I thought "oh, that's incredibly obvious, I should think more before posting". Hopefully it all helped someone else anyway.
I still don't understand - what is it about the noise that prevents the whales from crossing it? Do they confuse the noise for an active predator, or does the noise prevent them from navigating properly with their echolocation?
As susceptible this news story is to humorous takes, I worry that this may soon affect honest seamen and others aboard vessels 50 feet long and below. Or is it happening already but it’s not being mentioned because the yacht stories are juicier? This is troubling.
People who take a yacht in the middle of the unforgiving ocean without a ranged weapon to dissuade pirates or rogue sea life aren't just stupid but a liability since they waste taxpayers' money when they have to be rescued because they chose to be unprepared.
You get that strait of gibraltar is so small you can see the other side right? So hardly middle of the ocean to sail your boat when you can see land on both sides with your eyes.
> You get that strait of gibraltar [sic] is so small you can see the other side right? So hardly middle of the ocean to sail your boat when you can see land on both sides with your eyes.
Not sure what this was supposed to say, but it appears to be a red herring.
Proactively: Design and build yachts that are more robust to blunt impact.
They also recently rammed into a yacht near Scotland, and in British Columbia an Orca collided a yacht into another yacht by dragging the anchor chain.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/orca-rams-into-yac...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLMvUOq7Bms
I don't know how rare it is either, but it's not unprecedented. There are lots of old sailor stories about aggressive whales.