How orca 'dialects' could help explain boat attacks

When three killer whales struck the Lady L, Heath Samples thought a tanker had collided with his yacht, as everyone on board was knocked off their feet.

- GRAHAM KEELEY

After the orcas repeatedly buffeted the yacht, the British businessman was forced to call mayday and feared for his life.

“It was terrifying. We thought, if we are thrown in the water, what are they going to do to us? They have just thrown a 10-tonne yacht all over the place, what are they going to do to you?” says Samples, reliving the run-in off the coast of southern Spain.

According to 2024 research and the International Whaling Commission, at least 673 incidents have been documented since May 2020, prompting a nautical riddle: Why do orcas attack boats?

Samples, 57, a businessman and experienced yachtsman from Scarborough, Yorkshire, suffered £24,000 damage to his yacht, which took 11 months to repair after it was attacked in 2022. The latest incident of orcas hitting a boat came off the coast of Portugal earlier this week - with four people needing to be rescued. It was the third such attack on a boat in the past seven days.

Scientists are currently studying the underwater “dialect” that killer whales use, to see if they can solve the puzzle which has alarmed sailors navigating through the Strait of Gibraltar, one of the world's busiest seaways, running between Spain and Morocco.

Convinced the orcas are playing with yachts much like children toy with anything to hand, researchers do not believe that when the marine mammals ram boats' rudders, it is an aggressive act, even if sailors are often shaken up.