We were attacked by Orcas!!!

[Manateeman]

Please read my posts on the same subject on the other identical thread.
Please read Susan Smillie article Sunday the 13th in the Gardian.
The concept the orcas “orchestrated an attack” on sailboats is preposterous.
Look at a group of musk ox, or elephants or soccer moms with young.
Start making a lot of noise then run directly towards them fast, real fast.
You won’t get past the musk ox females. After the elephants stomp you, they will pick your carcass up and flip it. They do this to lions. But it’s the soccer moms who will drop you before you get near the young.
Mammal behavior. Orcas are mammals.
Why doesn’t the thread read sailboat attacks orcas. We hear one version of the event which produced free publicity for the Captain and crew.
Not the first time a lucrative book was the result of a whale attack.
One of the posters on the forum describes a frightening encounter with manatees. From his perspective, not a pleasant one to say the least.
I think he swam near a group of frolicking and randy male manatees and one female who just got tired of all the pushing and shoving on the dance floor.
Manatees like to surf.
Seriously, they enjoy it. Orcas like to be towed, so maybe they just bit on the rudder to get a ride. Maybe they felt they were being attacked by fishermen.
Hitting a marine mammal might lead to legal action against any captain who has failed to keep a proper lookout, failed to take necessary action in time to avoid a collision or operated at a speed in excess of given conditions. Violations of the USA Marine Mammals Act provides for stiff fines or criminal prosecution.
It also provides rewards for information on violators.
Manatees do not attack people or boats. Boats hurt manatees.
To an orca, a sail boat is not food. To a female, a fast sailboat might appear to threaten her calf...or it might look like a toy ..or a fishing boat which has caused them injury before. They live in an acoustic world. They are highly intelligent.
Like the elephants or the musk ox or the soccer moms...live and let live.
Happy trails to you.
Captain Mark and his TIG gun toting manatees.

[Dave_S]

I believe the rudders are making a noise underwater that is aggravating this particular whale. If the water flow is not nice and laminar it will make noise, it might not even be noticeable on the boat.

Pretty confident the data fits well.

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by Dave_S

I believe the rudders are making a noise underwater that is aggravating this particular whale. If the water flow is not nice and laminar it will make noise, it might not even be noticeable on the boat.

Pretty confident the data fits well.

In the other thread it was hypothesized that Covid may have effected a relative quiet period such that, now that things are ramping up, perhaps the return of the (increased) noise could be aggravating things.

Sort of a 9 page review article I found from an animal welfare group (apparently produced prior to recent events):
https://sonicsea.org/sites/default/f...EB_spreads.pdf

""The rise of ambient noise in the ocean has been described by eminent oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle as being like a “death by a thousand cuts.”53 Almost everywhere, particularly in coastal regions but also in the open ocean, humanity has introduced an industrial chorus of bangs, clanks and thuds across the sea, transforming large swaths of the ocean into a horn-honking, traffic-choked Manhattan. From almost every corner, the noises grow and continue.""

""According to Christopher Clark of Cornell University, a blue whale that was born in 1940 would have seen its “acoustic bubble”— the distance over which its vocalizations can travel and be heard — shrink from 1,000 to 100 miles within its lifetime""

[BenBowSirocco]

I have read other sailing/boating accounts of whale attacks and they are almost always associate the attacks (after investigation) with nearby whaling/killing of whales of the same species. Any chance there might be some poaching or that a boat struck one of the pod members?

[Halam]

Hi Pete, it's good to have your first hand report after so much media hooha. The attack stopped when the boat stoped, right? Was the depth sounder still on?

Of course it's fun to try and understand what the Orca was thinking and the why? And there is too little data to say there is much risk to individual journeys. So to me the biggest question is how to react, if as a skipper, something similar happens to me. It sounds like stopping the boat worked.

Cheers,
Halam

[Manateeman]

The frequencies of most non military sonars and depth sounders are well within the hearing range of Orcas and Manatees. Amplitude ( how loud) is another question...so is time. Manatees can hear propeller/ engine noise quite well. They did testing. They can determine speed and source direction. Sometimes they are just too slow or the channel is to narrow to escape.
Orcas probably have as wide a frequency hearing range and certainly have the intelligence to remember sounds and the eyesight to associate it with a sound source like a boat as opposed to surf.
I don’t believe depth finder responses have been test with either species. Most marine mammals will avoid constant high amplitude noise sources like oil field boom boats or pile driving. High amplitude, short duration, broad frequency noises like a firecracker will produce the same startle reaction you would find in humans.
Marine mammals live in a very acoustic environment.
Stop pinging, shut off engine, stop the vessel ? I’d give it a try because playing dead might mean you are no longer a threat.
Except elephants. If you are a lion or the guy with the pointed stick trying to get you to carry more logs..if they are tired of your antics, they won’t let you play dead, they will stomp and fling you till you are dead.
Orcas can do the same. Remember the woman trainer killed and taken to the bottom of the pool? Hippos will not permit any thing near their young. It seems not to be a question of frequency or amplitude or duration specifically, but rather a reaction to movement and noise. Act like a threat and don’t be surprised you will be seen as one. It won’t hurt to stop and not react (play dead). Both species are intelligent and very curious...which makes them easily board. Till then..
Happy trails to you.
Captain Mark and his intelligent but trouble prone, beer drinking manatee friends.

[waterman46]

Originally Posted by Baba Buoy

Grizzly Bears eat people if they have a bad day.

Yeah, guess it would be quite a bad day for the human as well. (Sorry, could not resist!). Anyway, next time I'm having a bad day I'll be sure to stay out of the woods.

[kish]

Originally Posted by rhpike

I read an article yesterday that several sailboats in the Med near Gibraltar were recently attacked by orcas in a similar manner, i.e. they rammed and bit the rudder.

Ep 35 Sailing Solo Across Bay of Biscay Whale Encounter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaYSeJHrJlo&t=9s

[seandepagnier]

Originally Posted by PeteTheDeliverySkipper

We turned the engine off and the Orca swam away.

There you have the reason why. The orca took offense to your engine.

We had to be towed back in by the coastguard. The Orca then came back for some more and bashed us whislt under tow, so hard that the towing line snapped. A

No wonder, the coast guard probably used an engine also?

I never used an engine and am deeply grateful for the wonderful orca in dealing justice.

[sailorman7225]

Recently SV TRANCE was attacked in the Puget Sound area (not positive of exact location). They hauled the boat for repairs and continued on their journey.

[Dougtiff]

Orcas attack seal' and sea lion's for sport,kill baby whales also, this Orca i believe has had a bad experience with a small boat of some kind [not a ship], and is relating it to any small boat's now, as a commercial diver of 20 year's, i never had a pipe put in the water, and banged on to scare what ever away, and that includes shark infested waters off Bombay, doing pipe line and production platform work.

[kmacdonald]

My guess is they were trained to do so and escaped from the trainers. Military weapons so to speak. Beluga whales were approaching boats somewhere and it was speculated they were trained. Attacking the rudder would be the easiest way to disable a boat.

[upstateny]

Don't know about Orca's. When I was a kid I climbed up a tree to check out a nest of baby birds. The mother bird was not happy I was up there. When I went to climb back down I accidentally let go of the branch with the nest. The baby birds and the nest went flying down to the ground. The mother bird was pissed off big time and kept dive bombing my head. She eventually landed on my head and pecked at my head. If a bird with a pea size brain can get pissed off at humans, think about what a very smart Orca with a much bigger brain can do.



BTW I put the baby birds back in the nest and the nest back up in the tree. The mother bird wanted nothing to do with the nest or the babies. I tried to fix what I did, to no avail.

[thunderhoof]

My take is that some rudders vibrate at a frequency annoying or painful to some sea life. I know my rudder vibrates in the audible range when I am surfing. It is possible that it vibrates at low frequencies at other speeds. I think that a vibrating structure generates a set of frequencies not dependent on excitation (boat speed) and some of these may remind the orca of an ex-wife or bad bet.

[zstine]

Speaking as an American, the obvious solution is to hunt all oras and kill them to near extinction. We can't allow animals to threaten our yachts or safety!

It really is an amazing behavior pattern. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out. Will it just stop? Will other pods of orcas learn and mimic this?