orca pod
© Killer Whales / Orca PodAn orca pod off the coast of Scotland that may be the one that attacked a lone sailor off Shetland.
Scientists believe that a killer whale pod in North sea may have been educated by the Mediterranean orca Gladis.

A killer whale has repeatedly rammed a yacht off the coast of Scotland, it has emerged, in an attack reminiscent of those seen 3,000 miles further south near Gibraltar.

The orca is said to have made contact with a small boat off the Shetland coast in the North sea as a solo sailor embarked on a trip from Lerwick to Bergen, Norway.

Dr Wim Rutten, 72, is a retired scientist and told The Guardian he saw the whale come up through the water and repeatedly, and deliberately, collide with his boat. The most frightening aspect of the ordeal, he claims, was not the several shocks from the impacts but the "very loud breathing of the animal".

He claims the orca was "looking for the keel" after its initial barrage before vanishing back into the water before mounting numerous follow-up attacks afterwards and circling the seven-tonne yacht. "Maybe he just wanted to play. Or look me in the eyes. Or to get rid of the fishing line," he told the newspaper.

The reported attack in British waters comes after several tales of orcas attacking boats around Gibraltar and the Iberian peninsula.

Orcas are highly intelligent social creatures that live in pods and are capable of communicating with each other to share information. They hunt in coordinated movements with specific tactics but the reasoning for the attacks on boats remains unknown.

Some scientists have posited that this behaviour is merely young, adolescent killer whales playing, while others think they hone in on boats with a fishing line attached, as Dr Rutten had while hoping to hook a mackerel on his trip.

However, the apparent focus on the rudders of boats has led some experts to suggest the attacks are a deliberate technique learnt over time to disable the boat.

The Scottish attack has raised questions over how and why an orca is engaging with boats so far north. Although killer whales are often seen around northern Scotland, they are a completely different group and pod to their counterparts around Gibraltar that made headlines earlier this year for their assaults.

"It's possible that this 'fad' is leapfrogging through the various pods/communities," Dr Conor Ryan, a scientific adviser to the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust, told The Guardian. He added that some pods are particularly mobile and they may have spread this information 3,000 miles from the mouth of the Mediterranean to Shetland's waters.

Gladis, a particularly vindictive killer whale in the Gibraltar Strait, is thought to be teaching other members of her species how to attack yachts. It is thought Gladis is enacting her revenge on various yachts after a previous collision with a boat, or perhaps a scarring encounter with illegal fishing nets.

The matriarch has now educated the rest of her pod and they are now also thought to be ramming vessels with the aim of sinking them.

On May 2, six of the apex predators slammed into the hull of a Bavaria 46 yacht, which was sailing in the Strait of Gibraltar, near Tangier in Morocco. The hour-long attack left Cambridge couple Janet Morris, 58, a business consultant, and Stephen Bidwell, 58, a photographer, who were on board for a sailing course, in awe.

Mr Bidwell told The Telegraph it was "daunting" and added there was "a clearly larger matriarch" seemingly supervising the attack, which may have been Gladis. The trend towards targeting boats has led to sailors making adaptations to their boats in an attempt to protect themselves.

Bags of sand are now being carried aboard after hundreds of boats were damaged in the Strait and three sunk in the last three years, normally through headbutting the rudder to its destruction. Sand, when sprinkled in the water pre- or mid-attack, is said to confuse the cetacean sonar system and a few kilograms dropped overboard to create an "acoustic mirror effect".