They come out of it with a big fright. While sailing with a crew along the Spanish coast to deliver his boat from Toulon to Brittany, skipper Sébastien Destremau experienced an unusual misadventure. For almost an hour, the boat was attacked by killer whales.
The distressing misadventure lasted 55 minutes this Monday, May 22, while “Le Lancelot”, Sébastien Destremau’s boat is located off Cap de Trafalgar, in the south of Spain. The former skipper is with his crew bringing his boat back from Toulon to Brittany, when he is attacked by a dozen orcas. Surrounded, the 15-ton boat is strongly shaken by the battering of the animals.
“It was really violent as shocks. They attacked the rudder, took it between their teeth, crunched it. They shook the boat, made it turn. It’s a big boat, 15 meters, 15 tons and they playing with it, like with a nutshell!”
Sébastien Destremau, former skipper (FaceOcean)
The former Vendée Globe sailor then brings the boat to a stop by lowering the sails, in accordance with the procedure recommended in the event of an attack. “After 20 minutes, I put the engine back on. I moved forward and backward according to the orcas to prevent them from approaching the rudder. This strategy raised a question in the crew, because we were afraid of them. annoy even more”says the navigator.
After 55 minutes, the killer whales get tired and move away. If the rudder has been damaged, the crew is safe and sound, but in the adventure, Sébastien Destremau will still have twisted a finger during a manoeuvre.
In two years, about fifty events of the same type between killer whales and boats have taken place in this area. For specialists, it could either be a game for animals or follow an incident in which an orca was injured by a rudder.
Moreover, shortly after, aboard his Ocean Fifty Le Rire Médecin-Lamotte, Luke Berry, live from the Pro Sailing Tour, also encountered killer whales, who had come to feel the rudders of his boat, but without damage, this time.
video duration: 00h00mn46s
In full navigation, in the Pro Sailing Tour, Luke Berry says that killer whales came to feel the rudders of the boat.
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©Luke Berry – Le Rire Médecin-Lamotte
And in communication at night with Thibaut Vauchel-Camus (Solidaires en Peloton-ARSEP), also in navigation, they found they had had the same experience!
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