“Impressive and scary”
Orcas ram boats in the Ocean Race
6/23/2023 7:52 am
The reports of orca attacks on boats in the Mediterranean are piling up: now two crews are caught in the ocean race. A team reports an attack on the ship’s rudder. The affected skipper Jelmer van Beek speaks of scary moments on board.
A group of orcas forced two boats to stop at the final leg of the Ocean Race. The killer whales circled and occasionally rammed the Jajo and Mirpuri Trifork Racing teams en route to the Strait of Gibraltar. “These are beautiful animals, but it was also dangerous. An orca attacked our rudder,” said Jajo skipper Jelmer van Beek.
His crew immediately pulled in the sails and stopped the voyage. “Three orcas came straight at us. That was impressive, but also scary,” said van Beek. His team dropped from second to fourth place due to the break. According to the organizers, at least one whale “rammed” a boat.
Crew members filmed the encounter with the animals. The area around Gibraltar was already well known for “Orca attacks” before the Ocean Race, the organizer said. In some cases there was considerable damage, and three boats even sank. “Scientists are still trying to understand this new behavior,” it said in a statement. The final stage leads from The Hague to Genoa.
Meanwhile, the overall winner of this year’s race may be determined at the green table instead of on the high seas. Leader 11th Hour Racing Team gave up last Saturday on the final stage two days after an accident at the start in The Hague through no fault of their own due to the damage caused – and at the same time applied for what is known as “compensation” in accordance with the regulations.
Should the race management approve the application and award the US crew only one point as compensation, 11th Hour would no longer be able to be intercepted by their Swiss pursuer Holcim PRB and, despite the collision last Thursday with the European team Guyot of Berlin co-skipper Robert Stanjek, would be the overall winner .