© Renaud de Stephanis/CIRCE Conservación Information and ResearchAn orca pod seen in the Strait of Gibraltar in 2021.
Ester Kristine Storkson was asleep on her father's small yacht earlier this month, sailing off the coast of France, when she was violently awakened.
Scrambling on deck,
she spotted several orcas, or killer whales, surrounding them. The steering wheel swung wildly. At one point, the 37-foot sailboat was pushed through 180 degrees, heading it in the opposite direction.They were "ramming the boat," Storkson says. "They [hit] us repeatedly ... giving us the impression that it was a coordinated attack."
"I told my dad, 'I'm not thinking clearly, so you need to think for me,'" the 27-year-old Norwegian medical student says. "Thankfully, he is a very calm and centered person, and made me feel safe by gently talking about the situation."
After about 15 minutes, the orcas broke off, leaving father and daughter to assess the damage. They stuck a GoPro camera in the water, she says, and could see that "approximately three-quarters of [the rudder] was broken off, and some metal was bent."
For any vessel, losing steering at sea is a serious matter and can be dangerous in adverse conditions and
some sailboats have had to be towed into port after orcas destroyed their rudders.Fortunately, the Storksons had enough of their rudder left to limp into Brest, on the French coast, for repairs. But the incident temporarily derailed their plan to reach Madeira, off northwest Africa, part of an ambitious plan to sail around the world.
