orcas kentern yacht

Why are orcas attacking boats and sometimes sinking them?

Killer whales are interacting with boats and may be teaching others to mimic the behavior.

After four years and hundreds of incidents, researchers remain puzzled why orcas, also known as killer whales, continue to ram boats – sinking a few of them – along the Iberian Peninsula. The most-recent incident was the sinking of a yacht on Oct. 31 in the Strait of Gibraltar.

The origin of these interactions remain a "great mystery," said Alfredo López, a University of Santiago biologist, but he does not believe the behavior is aggressive. Orcas are large dolphins, López said. And like dolphins, the events could stem from the orcas’ curious and playful behavior, such as trying to race the boats.

López, who specializes in orcas, and his team, Grupo de trabajo Orca Atlántica (GOTA) , have tracked these encounters since 2020. The team’s recent study theorizes the orcas could also be exhibiting cautionary behavior because of some previous traumatic incident.

Where have killer whales interacted with boats?

GOTA has tracked more than 350 interactions just on the Iberian Peninsula since 2020. Most have taken place along the Strait of Gibraltar, but the orcas’ mischief or self-defense may be spreading north. An incident was reported in June in the Shetland Islands in Scotland .

GOTA defines interactions as instances when orcas react to the presence of approaching boats, such as:

Interaction without physical contact.
Some physical contact without damage.
Contact that causes serious damage that could prevent the navigation of the boat.

Recent incidents when orcas attacked boats and sank them

The Oct. 31 incident occurred in the Strait of Gibraltar where a pod of orcas sank a mid-size sailing yacht named the Grazie Mamma after a 45-minute interaction, Live Science reported .

On June 19 an orca rammed a 7-ton yacht multiple times off the Shetland Islands in Scotland, according to an account from retired Dutch physicist Dr. Wim Rutten in the Guardian.

"Killer whales are capable of traveling large distances, so it is not out of the ordinary that an animal could travel that far," said Tara Stevens, a marine scientist at CSA Ocean Sciences Inc. "To my knowledge, this data is not available, so we cannot confirm at this time if these are the same animals."

Including the Oct. 31 incident, orcas have sunk four boats this year. The previous sinking occured in May , off the coasts of Portugal and Spain, but whale expert Anne Gordon told USA TODAY in May that the incidents shouldn't heighten concerns about the whales.

"Yes, they're killer whales. And yes, their job is to be predators in the ocean, but in normal circumstances there is absolutely zero threat to humans in a boat," Gordon said .

Most of the interactions have involved sailboats, but fishing boats, semi-rigid boats and motorboats haven’t gone unscathed.

Are these the same killer whales attacking boats or unrelated incidents?

López hypothesizes that the interactions could be a self-induced behavior where you're "inventing something new and repeat it. This behavior coincides with the profile of the juveniles." He said it could also be response to an aversive situation: "One or several individuals had lived a bad experience and tried to stop the boat so as not to repeat it. This behavior coincides with the profile of adults."

"Fifteen different orcas from at least three different communities" have been identified, López said. And they are probably teaching the habit to others, or the others are mimicking the behavior. "Without a doubt orcas learn by imitation," López said. The majority of the culprits are juveniles that touch, push and sometimes turn the vessels. He noted that adult males don't appear to be involved.

"Killer whales are incredibly intelligent animals that do learn behaviors from observation of other individuals," Stevens said. "Typically, very unique behaviors such as this are learned 'within' group, meaning individuals of the group may learn from each other and participate, but that does not necessarily mean that the behavior is shared outside the group with other individuals."

Which pods of killer whales are battering the boats?

Orcas operate in a social structure called a pod. These pods generally are a group of several generations of related orcas. Hierarchies are established within them, and they communicate and learn from one another, the study reads.

GOTA researchers have identified the individuals responsible for the interactions . One large pod is made up of three generations. It starts with grandmother Gladis Lamari, her daughter, grandchildren and a few other relatives.

Another pod comprises siblings Gladis Negra and Gladis Peque. Both have been photographed interacting with boats. Their mother, Gladis Herbille, has generally just watched her children at a distance from the boats, the study said.

A third group in the study are siblings and a cousin.

Orcas often tracking bluefin tuna

The movements of orcas depend on the location of their main food source, bluefin tuna. The migratory movements of tuna are very dynamic and predicting exactly where interactions will take place is very difficult, the report said. According to NOAA , Atlantic bluefin tuna are the largest in the tuna family and can reach a length of 13 feet and up to 2,000 pounds. They are a highly migratory species and can migrate thousands of miles across an entire ocean.

About the Iberian orcas

While they are called killer whales, orcas are actually the largest member of the dolphin family. This aquatic marine mammal family includes whales, dolphins and porpoises.

The Iberian orca is a subpopulation of the Atlantic orca population. These orcas are from the Strait of Gibraltar and the Gulf of Cádiz. Iberian orcas are small: 16 to 21 feet compared with Atlantic orcas that measure almost 30 feet.

Orcas in general are fast, reaching speeds up to 27.6 mph. By comparison, a 39-foot sailboat travels at about 9.2 mph.

What should you do if your boat is attacked by killer whales

The study recommended these tips to reduce the duration and intensity of the interaction.

Stop the boat.
Leave the rudder loose.
Radio for help.

According to the GOTA study, most of the vessels involved in interactions are medium-sized (less than 49 feet) sailboats, with a paddle rudder, sailing at an average of 6.9 mph, under both sail and motor.

The interactions have been mostly concentrated in the spring and summer months and have been concentrated in the midday hours. They've lasted on average for 40 minutes, but several last less than 30 minutes.

Types of rudders Iberian orcas have approached

"It is very common for dolphins to interact with the boats and approach," López said. "Before 2020, the orcas did it with frequency but they weren't classified as attacks. Now, sometimes they touch the boat and the encounter is unfairly classified as an attack. They judge socially before understanding what (orcas) do."

Orcas have sunk 3 boats in Europe and appear to be teaching others to do the same. But why?

Scientists think a traumatized orca initiated the assault on boats after a "critical moment of agony" and that the behavior is spreading among the population through social learning.

Orcas have attacked and sunk a third boat off the Iberian coast of Europe, and experts now believe the behavior is being copied by the rest of the population.

Three orcas ( Orcinus orca ), also known as killer whales, struck the yacht on the night of May 4 in the Strait of Gibraltar, off the coast of Spain, and pierced the rudder. "There were two smaller and one larger orca," skipper Werner Schaufelberger told the German publication Yacht . "The little ones shook the rudder at the back while the big one repeatedly backed up and rammed the ship with full force from the side."

Schaufelberger said he saw the smaller orcas imitate the larger one. "The two little orcas observed the bigger one's technique and, with a slight run-up, they too slammed into the boat." Spanish coast guards rescued the crew and towed the boat to Barbate, but it sank at the port entrance.

Two days earlier, a pod of six orcas assailed another sailboat navigating the strait. Greg Blackburn, who was aboard the vessel, looked on as a mother orca appeared to teach her calf how to charge into the rudder. "It was definitely some form of education, teaching going on," Blackburn told 9news .

Reports of aggressive encounters with orcas off the Iberian coast began in May 2020 and are becoming more frequent, according to a study published June 2022 in the journal Marine Mammal Science . Assaults seem to be mainly directed at sailing boats and follow a clear pattern, with orcas approaching from the stern to strike the rudder, then losing interest once they have successfully stopped the boat.

"The reports of interactions have been continuous since 2020 in places where orcas are found, either in Galicia or in the Strait," said co-author Alfredo López Fernandez , a biologist at the University of Aveiro in Portugal and representative of the Grupo de Trabajo Orca Atlántica, or Atlantic Orca Working Group.

Related: Grisly new footage shows orcas attacking a great white shark and eating its liver

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Most encounters have been harmless, López Fernandez told Live Science in an email. "In more than 500 interaction events recorded since 2020 there are three sunken ships. We estimate that killer whales only touch one ship out of every hundred that sail through a location."

The spike in aggression towards boats is a recent phenomenon, López Fernandez said. Researchers think that a traumatic event may have triggered a change in the behavior of one orca, which the rest of the population has learned to imitate.

"The orcas are doing this on purpose, of course, we don't know the origin or the motivation, but defensive behavior based on trauma, as the origin of all this, gains more strength for us every day," López Fernandez said.

Experts suspect that a female orca they call White Gladis suffered a "critical moment of agony" — a collision with a boat or entrapment during illegal fishing — that flipped a behavioral switch. "That traumatized orca is the one that started this behavior of physical contact with the boat," López Fernandez said.

Orcas are social creatures that can easily learn and reproduce behaviors performed by others, according to the 2022 study. In the majority of reported cases , orcas have made a beeline for a boat's rudder and either bitten, bent or broken it.

"We do not interpret that the orcas are teaching the young, although the behavior has spread to the young vertically, simply by imitation, and later horizontally among them, because they consider it something important in their lives," López Fernandez said.

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Orcas appear to perceive the behavior as advantageous, despite the risk they run by slamming into moving boat structures, López Fernandez added. Since the abnormal interactions began in 2020, four orcas belonging to a subpopulation living in Iberian waters have died, although their deaths cannot be directly linked to encounters with boats.

The unusual behavior could also be playful or what researchers call a "fad" — a behavior initiated by one or two individuals and temporarily picked up by others before it’s abandoned. "They are incredibly curious and playful animals and so this might be more of a play thing as opposed to an aggressive thing," Deborah Giles , an orca researcher at the University of Washington and at the non-profit Wild Orca, told Live Science.

As the number of incidents grows, there is increased concern both for sailors and for the Iberian orca subpopulation, which is listed as critically endangered by the IUCN Red List . The last census, in 2011, recorded just 39 Iberian orcas, according to the 2022 study. "If this situation continues or intensifies, it could become a real concern for the mariners' safety and a conservation issue for this endangered subpopulation of killer whales," the researchers wrote.

Sascha is a U.K.-based trainee staff writer at Live Science. She holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Southampton in England and a master’s degree in science communication from Imperial College London. Her work has appeared in The Guardian and the health website Zoe. Besides writing, she enjoys playing tennis, bread-making and browsing second-hand shops for hidden gems.

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ConvictedFelon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porphyrios_(whale) Reply
Jesus Perhaps it's your exhaust and pollution, and noise. Perhaps frequencies disturb their consciousness. Reply
slanagat If it were frequencies and exhaust I'd expect them to go after powerboats instead of sailboats. It's intriguing. Reply
Jesus Perhaps, a neurotoxin. Perhaps, a cry for help. Reply
schwingingatfences Orca see; orca do. They are intelligent. I'm relieved the focus is how to protect the orca as well as the mariners when the encounters occur. Reply
puffrfeesh I think the orca can hear the humans interacting in a sail boat they don't like human noises because they aren't the same specie and are foreign to their habitat. Like territorial protection for their water. They are saying we are the largest and most aggressive and we eat white sharks livers just for a snack. Reply
Nog How about the global warmers are bending the orca's minds with the vibrations from the idiotic windmills. Reply

admin said: Scientists think a traumatized orca initiated the assault on boats after a "critical moment of agony" and that the behavior is spreading among the population through social learning. Orcas have sunk 3 boats in Europe and appear to be teaching others to do the same. But why? : Read more

slanagat said: If it were frequencies and exhaust I'd expect them to go after powerboats instead of sailboats. It's intriguing.

View All 17 Comments

A pod of orcas has sunk a yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar

Ayana Archie

A pair of orcas swim off the west coast of Vancouver Island in 2018. Brian Gisborne/AP hide caption

A pair of orcas swim off the west coast of Vancouver Island in 2018.

For 45 minutes, the crew of the Grazie Mamma felt like they were under attack from below. A pod of orcas had zeroed in on the yacht's rudder as it made its way through the Strait of Gibraltar last week, and rammed it repeatedly, "causing major damage and leakage," according to the company that operated the boat.

Rescuers were able to save the crew and return them safely to port in Tanger-Med on the coast of Morocco. Their vessel, though, sank into the sea.

"This yacht was the most wonderful thing in maritime sailing for all of us," read a statement posted to Facebook by Morskie Mile , the Warsaw-based touring company that operated the boat. "Very good memories will be transferred to Grazie Mamma II. Love of the sea always wins and friendships remain with us."

The company said it is working to ensure its upcoming trips to the Canary Islands go on without a hitch.

Last week's incident was the latest in a string of recent "attacks" by orcas in the waters separating southern Europe and northern Africa — encounters that have left researchers scratching their heads.

Killer whales are 'attacking' sailboats near Europe's coast. Scientists don't know why

Since 2020, there have been about 500 encounters between orcas and boats, Alfredo López Fernandez, a coauthor of a 2022 study in the journal Marine Mammal Science, told NPR earlier this year. At least three boats have sunk, though there is no record of an orca killing a human in the wild.

Scientists have been trying to pinpoint the cause of the behavior.

One theory among researchers is they're just playing around. Other researchers say it may be that the whales like the feel of the rudder.

"What we think is that they're asking to have the propeller in the face," said Renaud de Stephanis, president and coordinator at CIRCE Conservación Information and Research in Spain, in an interview with NPR last year. When they encounter a sailboat without its engine on, "they get kind of frustrated and that's why they break the rudder," de Stephanis said.

Another theory is that the behavior may be some sort of act of revenge due to possibly traumatic , previous encounters with fishing boats.

Revenge of the killer whales? Recent boat attacks might be driven by trauma

"I definitely think orcas are capable of complex emotions like revenge," Monika Wieland Shields, director of the Orca Behavior Institute previously told NPR. Shields said she does not think "we can completely rule it out," even if she was not entirely convinced herself.

Deborah Giles, the science and research director at conservation group Wild Orca, says pods in other areas, such as near Washington state, have been targeted by humans, but haven't shown a pattern of ramming boats.

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Which underscores why researchers say it's difficult to draw any conclusions from the interactions documented to date. In an open letter published this summer, 30 scientists cautioned against "projecting narratives onto these animals," writing that "In the absence of further evidence, people should not assume they understand the animals' motivations."

Correction Nov. 7, 2023

An earlier version of this story misstated the yacht's name, Grazie Mamma, as Grazie Mamma II.

Why are killer whales going ‘Moby-Dick’ on yachts lately? Experts doubt it’s revenge

A group of killer whales partially above the waterline in the ocean.

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The attacks started suddenly and inexplicably in the spring of 2020 — pods of endangered killer whales began ramming yachts and fishing boats in European waters, pushing some off course and imperiling others.

Since then, there have been more than 500 reports of orca encounters off the Iberian Peninsula, the most recent occurring Thursday when a trio of whales rubbed against and bumped a racing sloop in the Strait of Gibraltar.

In most cases, the financial and structural damage has ranged from minimal to moderate: Boats have been spun and pushed, and rudders have been smashed and destroyed. Three vessels have been so badly mauled, they’ve sunk.

As the encounters continue, shaky video captured by thrilled and fearful seafarers has ignited a global internet sensation, while experts have struggled to explain the behavior and its timing. The seemingly militant whales have also won over a legion of adoring fans — many transfixed by the notion that the mammals are targeting rich people and exacting revenge for all the wrongs humanity has waged on their species and their ocean home.

Between 20 and 24 killer whales were spotted near the Farallon Islands, possibly a meeting of six or seven different orca families, or matrilines, celebrating the spoils of a good hunt, Pierson said. May 7, 2023.

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Others wonder if the unusually large pods of multi-ton cetaceans now appearing off the coasts of San Francisco , Monterey and Nantucket, Mass., may soon follow suit.

Despite such rampant speculation on social media, most killer whale scientists have offered a very different interpretation. The Moby-Dick “revenge” narrative for the behavior is highly unlikely, they say.

“That just doesn’t sit right with me,” said Deborah Giles, an orca researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle and director of Wild Orca, a Washington-based conservation research organization.

She noted that despite the long history of orcas being hunted by whalers — and more recently marine parks — these top ocean predators have typically demonstrated a lack of aggression toward humans. There are no verified instances of orcas killing humans in the wild. The only deaths have occurred in marine parks and aquariums, where animals taken from the wild and forced to perform for humans in small tanks have attacked their trainers.

“So, I just don’t really see it as an agonistic activity; I just don’t see it going down like that,” said Giles, who has studied killer whales in the Pacific Ocean, Puget Sound and the Salish Sea for nearly 20 years.

Instead, she thinks the animals are engaging with boats because the vessels are “either making an interesting vibration or sound, or maybe it’s the way the water moves past the keels that is intriguing to these animals.”

The scientific literature is rife with anecdotes and research showing high cognition, playfulness and sociality in the species known as Orcinus orca — and examples of what appear to be the cultural transmission of new behaviors, either via teaching or observation.

In 1987, a female orca in the Pacific waters off North America was spotted sporting a dead salmon on her head. Within weeks, individuals in two other pods also began wearing fish hats. The trend lasted a few months and fizzled out within a year.

In South Africa, the killing of white sharks appears to be growing in popularity among a resident group of killer whales in the waters near Cape Town; Giles has watched a local trend of “phocoenacide” — porpoise killing — grow among a group of whales off the San Juan Islands.

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In both cases, the behavior does not appear to be for the purpose of feeding, Giles said. The orcas do not eat the dead animals. For instance, in the case of the porpoises, the killer whales played with them — bandying them about, sometimes surfing with them, other times carrying them on the orcas’ pectoral fins — until the porpoises drowned, at which point they were abandoned, she said.

“Fads” are not unique to orcas. Other animals, including primates and other cetaceans, have also been observed to adopt new behaviors, which then spread through a social group.

Susan Perry, a biological anthropologist at UCLA, has studied a population of capuchin monkeys in Costa Rica, where she has observed and demonstrated the cultural transmission of novel behaviors, including “eye poking” — in which one monkey slips its finger “knuckle deep” between the eyelid and the bottom of another monkey’s eyeball.

But the idea that the whales’ behavior is a response to trauma has gripped many — including the researchers who most closely study this population and first documented the behavior.

In a paper published last year , a team of Portuguese and Spanish researchers suggested the behavior seen in the Strait of Gibraltar orcas could have been triggered by a variety of causes, including trauma.

Alfredo López Fernandez, a killer whale researcher with GT Orca Atlántica, a Portuguese conservation research organization, said it is impossible to know how it started, or which whale or whales may have initially instigated the attacks.

He listed several adult females as the possible original perpetrators — which then taught or showed others how to participate.

There is White Gladis, which seems to be present in most of the attacks; Gladis Negra, which was observed to have injuries in 2020, possibly from a ship strike; and Gray Gladis, which in 2018 witnessed another whale get trapped in fishing gear.

Gladis is a name given to all orcas in the pod that interact with boats; it comes from Orca gladiator, an early nickname given to these boat-jouncing killer whales.

“All of this has to make us reflect on the fact that human activities, even in an indirect way, are the origin of this behavior,” he said.

For Cal Currier’s part, he thinks the whales are entertaining themselves.

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On June 8, as the 17-year-old Palo Alto High School senior sailed through the strait with his father, James, 55, and brother, West, 19, their 30-foot sailboat was accosted and spun in circles.

The rudder was battered, and the trio had to be towed to shore in Spain. “They were playing,” Currier said.

He said that when they pulled in, they were told roughly 30 other boats were ahead of them in line for repairs; half were damaged by the killer whales. He said there were no bite marks on the rudder, and he did not sense aggression from the whales.

For Giles, the Washington killer whale researcher, her biggest concern is that the longer the whales continue this behavior, the more likely it is they’ll get injured or suffer retribution at the hands of humans.

She’s hoping authorities in the region will consider non-traumatic hazing techniques — such as instructing boats to play or make sounds that irritate the whales — to get them to stop. She said studies have shown orcas don’t like the calls of pilot whales and will generally swim away if they hear them. Loud banging sounds, such as hitting a large, metal oikomi pipe underwater, can also be effective.

“Anything that might irritate them, make them lose their interest or swim away,” Giles said.

Currier said he wasn’t too rattled by the whole experience — unlike his dad and brother, who were “scared for their lives.”

The trio have since sold the boat and intend to spend the rest of the vacation on dry land.

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Why orcas keep sinking boats

Scientists have some theories why killer whales have seriously damaged boats about a dozen times this year off the coast of spain and portugal.

In the early morning Thursday, killer whales smashed into a sailboat off the southern coast of Spain, puncturing its hull and damaging its rudder. Spanish authorities raced to save the sinking vessel, according to Reuters , but it was in such disrepair it had to be towed ashore.

It wasn’t the first attack by an orca, or killer whale, off the coast of Spain and Portugal this year. And it may not be the last time one chews a rudder or crashes into a hull. Normally, killer whales aren’t considered dangerous to humans. But pods of killer whales have done serious damage to boats in the region about a dozen times already this year, according to the Grupo de Trabajo Orca Atlántica, or GTOA, a research group studying the region’s killer whales, part of a rise in attacks first observed in 2020.

Stories and videos of the attacks widely shared on social media have turned the orca into a meme. After the marine mammals struck some fancy yachts, some observers are calling the strikes concentrated around the Strait of Gibraltar, where the whales congregate in the spring and summer, an act of anti-capitalist solidarity from “orca comrades” and “orca saboteurs.” For others, the series of strikes is eerily similar to a scene in James Cameron’s latest “Avatar” movie , “The Way of the Water.”

So what is happening? The scientists studying the whales themselves aren’t entirely sure, either. But they have two leading ideas:

Theory No. 1: The orcas are playing around

Closely related to bottlenose dolphins, orcas are highly intelligent and curious marine mammals. Using a series of underwater pulses and whistles, the whales communicate with such sophistication that pods form their own dialects and parents teach their young hunting methods that are passed along for generations.

After learning a new behavior, juvenile orcas often keep repeating it ad nauseam. (In that way, they are a lot like human youngsters.) Playing around is just a part of learning how to be an apex predator.

That matches the pattern of attacks whale scientists have witnessed this year, according to Alfredo López Fernandez, a researcher at the University of Aveiro in Portugal working with GTOA.

In this case, the behavior is “self-induced,” López Fernandez said, and not caused directly by some outside (i.e., human) provocation. “Which means that they invent something new and repeat it,” he added.

But there’s another potential motivation that sounds straight out of “Moby Dick.”

Theory No. 2: The orcas want vengeance

Orcas off the Iberian Coast like to follow fishing vessels to snag bluefin tuna before fishermen can reel them in, putting the aquatic mammals at risk of being struck or entangled. Scientists have seen killer whales in those waters with fishing lines hanging from their bodies.

So it is possible, López Fernandez said, an orca had a bad run-in with a boat in the past, and is now teaching other killer whales how to attack vessels as well. The team suspects a female adult named White Gladis may be the one doing so.

López Fernandez emphasized we don’t have enough information to know the real reason behind the attacks yet. Even assuming the second theory is true, “we don’t know what that triggering stimulus could have been,” he said.

With only 39 orcas counted in 2011, the Iberian orca subpopulation is considered critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The impact that entanglements and boat strikes are having on all sorts of whales and dolphins around the world underscores that humans are a bigger threat to them than they are to us.

“All this has to make us reflect on the fact that human activities, even in an indirect way, are at the origin of this behavior,” López Fernandez said.

Why have orcas been damaging and sinking so many boats?

Orcas have been documented damaging or sinking boats off the coast of Spain and Portugal, but these altercations may simply be the whales scratching their backs on boats or playing terrifying games

By Corryn Wetzel

20 June 2023

Orcas swimming in the wake of a boat off the coast of Spain

Government of Spain - Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda

In the past few months, there have been several reports of orcas severely damaging sailing boats off the coast of Spain and Portugal. At least a dozen whales are taking part in the activity, sparking a flurry of speculation over whether the orcas ( Orcinus orca ) may be teaching each other how to bring down boats and organising into an army. But there are non-combative reasons that could be behind the rise in encounters.

Where is this happening?

In the Strait of Gibraltar, there is a pod of orcas that have been ramming boats and ripping off the rudders, sinking three sailboats and damaging dozens more over the past year. The orcas began a new wave of activity this May, and videos documenting the encounters have been sweeping the internet since.

How long has this been going on?

People have been paying more attention recently, but altercations with these orcas have been reported for years . Scientists, fishermen and locals began reporting unusual encounters in the Strait of Gibraltar in May 2020 . According to the Atlantic Orca Working Group , which tracks this pod, there were 207 reported interactions in 2022, and at least 20 last month alone. While many interactions were relatively harmless, at least three ships have sunk this year, with no reported injuries to people.

Over the past few years, these orca-boat confrontations in the Mediterranean seem to have escalated during the month of May when the pod’s favourite food, bluefin tuna, is migrating through the area.

Orca seen foster parenting a pilot whale calf for first time

What exactly are the orcas doing to boats?

In most encounters, orcas quickly approach the stern of the boat, with an apparent interest in the boat’s rudders, which they pierce or snap with their teeth. The whales have also been seen pressing into sailboats with their head and the flank of their body, occasionally tearing holes in the hull. Sometimes, they cause no damage to the ships, instead riding in the boat’s wake. Notably, this group of whales seems less interested in large or motorised vessels. “They’re hyper-focused on sailboats,” says Deborah Giles at the University of Washington in Seattle.

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How many orcas are involved?

Each encounter usually involves only a handful of whales from a pod of around 39 total orcas. Images and video of the events are helping researchers track which individuals are most involved and which have yet to exhibit the behaviour. Currently, around 15 orcas are partaking in the boat-ramming activity. “It’s a behaviour that has probably spread from one individual,” says Andrew Trites at the University of British Columbia in Canada.

Can orcas learn from one another? Will this behaviour spread?

Orcas are a social species capable of learning from their podmates, so it is possible the behaviour is a trend that is catching on. But that doesn’t mean that the whales are intentionally teaching their podmates to target boats, which would require communicating a motive and recruiting others to the cause. Instead, it may just look fun or interesting to the orcas.

This North Atlantic subpopulation, like many orca pods, is distinct from others in diet , culture , dialect and genetics. These orcas don’t mingle with those outside their pod, so it is unlikely this behaviour will spread to other populations of orcas, though it could spread through some of the rest of their pod.

Orcas are spreading further into the Arctic Ocean as sea ice melts

Why are orcas doing this? Is it revenge?

Online rumours have swirled about an orca called White Gladis, who was supposedly traumatised in an encounter with a boat – this is speculation based on healed injuries on her fins, but these haven’t been confirmed to be from a boat. Orcas rake each other with their teeth, which could be the source of the scars. But most experts agree there isn’t any evidence White Gladis is training other whales to attack, and no clear motive for podmates to risk personal injury for her vengeance.

“Nobody knows why this is happening,” says Trites. “All the reports coming in have been from non-scientists, non-specialists – people that are terrified.” He says orcas are a highly intelligent species capable of self-recognition, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are capable of planning and enacting revenge.

What else could be behind the increase in orca encounters?

Both Trites and Giles think it is more likely that the orcas are just having fun or seeking an admittedly terrifying back scratch. “These whales are very tactile,” says Giles. “They interact with things in their environment, including each other.” A pod of whales in British Columbia has been seen vigorously rubbing against rocky beaches, for example.

Wild orcas have never been documented hunting or eating humans, so it is unlikely this relates to wanting a meal.

Until researchers know what is motivating the encounters, it will be challenging to abate them. If the orcas see the activity as a game, for example, fleeing may elicit a more aggressive response. “This is something that we humans need to figure out and not place the blame on the whales,” says Giles.

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Orcas Sank 3 Boats in Southern Europe in the Last Year, Scientists Say

A small group of orcas is ramming into sailboats in waters off the Iberian Peninsula. Researchers say they do not know what is driving the unusual behavior toward boats.

By Isabella Kwai

Hours into a journey to Portugal from Morocco, the crew of a 46-foot sailing cruiser noticed something was wrong with the rudder. Then, someone shouted what they saw slicing through the choppy waves: “Orcas! Orcas!”

The orcas kept pace with the boat, slamming into its side and chewing at the rudder, according to its skipper, a photographer onboard and video of the encounter. For about an hour, the crew signaled their predicament to the Spanish Coast Guard and tried to stay calm.

“There was nothing we could do,” said Stephen Bidwell, the photographer, who was two days into a weeklong sailing course with his partner when the ramming began. “You’re in awe at the same time as you are nervous.”

The skipper, Gregory Blackburn, said he wrestled for control of the boat as the orcas banged into it, interfering with the rudder. “It’s a reminder of where we are in the food chain and the natural world,” he said.

Eventually the boat managed to motor back to Tangier, Morocco. But marine scientists took note of the episode, on May 2, and said it continued a puzzling pattern of behavior by a small group of orcas off the Iberian Peninsula’s western coast. The orcas, according to the researchers, have caused three boats to sink since last summer and disrupted the trips of dozens of others.

Wild orcas, although apex predators that hunt sharks and whales , are not generally considered dangerous to humans . The animals, the largest of the dolphin family , have been known to touch, bump and follow boats, but ramming them is unusual, marine scientists say. A small group of orcas, numbering about 15, started to batter boats around Spain in 2020, with researchers calling the behavior uncommon and its motivations unclear.

“We know that it is a complex behavior that has nothing to do with aggression,” said Alfredo López Fernandez, a biologist at the University of Aveiro in Portugal who worked on a study published last June on the subject. The orcas show no sign of wanting to hurt humans, he said.

In most sightings, the orcas do not change their behavior or make physical contact, according to the Atlantic Orca Working Group , which began tracking direct interactions — as well as sightings — in 2020.

Since an initial surge that year, orcas have been documented approaching or reacting to vessels about 500 times, causing physical damage about 20 percent of the time, in the high-trafficked seas near Morocco, Portugal and Spain, the group said.

The orcas off the Iberian coast are considered an endangered population : The group arrives in waters near the Strait of Gibraltar every spring from waters deeper and farther north up the coast to hunt tuna. But while they are a usual sight, scientists do not know how to stop the small group’s recent behavior, which has left sailors worried about safety and ship damage, and which has caught the attention of the Spanish and the Portuguese authorities.

“Every week there is an incident,” said Bruno Díaz López, a biologist and the director of the Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute who was not involved in last year’s research. “We really don’t know the reason.”

In the most recent example, orcas battered a sailboat off the coast of Spain, causing it to sink in the early hours of May 5. The Spanish authorities quickly arrived, and the four people onboard were rescued “in good humor,” said Christoph Winterhalter, the president of the Swiss company that was operating the boat, Hoz Hochseezentrum International.

The University of Aveiro biologist, Dr. López Fernandez, said that it was possible that the three boats sank over the past year because they were vulnerable to leaks or not equipped to endure the damage. (“The condition of the boat was very good,” Mr. Winterhalter said of the one his company had chartered.)

The small group of orcas, including only two adults, were responsible for a majority of the interactions with boats, which number some 200 a year and range from the North African coast to France, according to Dr. López Fernandez.

Researchers do not know what is behind the behavior. Some have speculated that it is an “aversive behavior” that could have started after an incident between an animal and a boat, like an entanglement in fishing line, or an invented behavior from young orcas that is being repeated.

Those remain only theories, though Dr. López Fernandez said it appeared that the behavior might be passing between local animals.

“We know that orcas share their culture with their young and with their peers,” he said, adding that they learned from imitation. But because the behavior has been observed only in this particular subpopulation of orcas, he said that it was unlikely to pass onto distinct orca groups that populate waters around the world.

Given the lack of evidence and the presence of young orcas in the group, other scientists expressed skepticism that the behavior stemmed from a boat incident and believed that the animals may simply be playing.

“They’re getting some sort of reward or thrill from it,” said Erich Hoyt, an orca expert and research fellow with Whale and Dolphin Conservation, a wildlife charity. “Play is part of being a predator.”

Scientists say that aside from having sailors avoid the area, they do not know how to stop orcas from bothering sailboats, which tend to be quieter than most vessels and therefore more attractive to the animals.

It has also left conservationists worried about how humans will treat the orca population, especially as sailors in the region express growing frustration with the animals.

“I hope that they stop doing it as quickly as they started, because it’s actually imposing a risk on themselves,” said Hanne Strager, a marine biologist and the author of “ The Killer Whale Journals ,” adding that it was putting pressure on an already vulnerable species.

Mr. Bidwell, the photographer, said the episode would not stop him and his partner from booking another sailing trip in June, though perhaps with some changes. “Maybe we don’t go that same route,” he said.

Isabella Kwai is a breaking news reporter in the London bureau. She joined The Times in 2017 as part of the Australia bureau. More about Isabella Kwai

Things you buy through our links may earn Vox Media a commission.

Why Do Orcas Keep Messing With Boats in Southern Europe?

On Thursday morning, a small group of killer whales battered the 66-foot sailing yacht Mustique off the coast of southern Spain, doing enough damage — including puncturing the hull and breaking the rudder — that the crew had to call in a maritime rescue and the vessel had to be towed to port for repairs. It was the second time in less than a week that such an encounter was reported in the area, and the latest in a baffling series of seeming attacks on boats by the animals in or near the Strait of Gibraltar. On May 5, the 50-foot sailing yacht Alboran Champagne sank after being struck by orcas the previous night — the third vessel in the last three years to go under after a run-in with some unruly Orcinus orca locals.

It’s still not clear why these highly intelligent, innately curious mammals — who have apparently been learning the behavior from each other — are going after the boats or whether the damage is even intentional. Some scientists have theorized that the behavior may be a kind of self-defense that originated with a single female orca after a traumatic encounter with a boat. It’s also possible it’s just a fad that has become popular with some of the orcas and will eventually fall out of fashion — a phenomenon scientists have previously observed among orcas and other members of the dolphin family.

Since the first known incident in May 2020, Grupo Trabajo Orca Atlántica (the Atlantic Orca Working Group) has tracked more than 500 cases in which members of the Iberian orca population reacted to or harassed boats in some way. But only a very small percentage of these encounters have involved physical contact, and only a handful of animals in this small endangered population of orcas appear to have engaged in the abnormal behavior — many of them juveniles. When the encounters have turned physical, the orcas have typically targeted the boats’ rudders and have sometimes bumped or rammed the boats themselves. In those instances, less than 20 percent of the vessels have been disabled as a result; and everyone aboard was safely rescued afterward.

These animals are not acting like horror-movie monsters, in other words, nor is their abnormal behavior deserving of some of the sensational news coverage the incidents have received in recent weeks. At the same time, the alarming encounters have become a routine hazard for people who sail in the area, some of whom have been using a Facebook group called Orca Attack Reports and other online forums to share experiences and advice on how to avoid or limit close encounters with the mammals.

GTOA scientists believe just 15 individual orcas out of a population of more than 50 in the area are taking part in the incidents, and that the behavior may be something invented out of the blue by the animals or might be a kind of reaction to previous encounters with vessels. Scientific American reports :

In a study published in June 2022 in Marine Mammal Science , [GTOA researcher Alfredo López] and his colleagues cataloged 49 instances of orca-boat contact in 2020 alone. The vast majority of the attacks were on sailboats or catamarans, with a handful involving fishing boats and motorboats. The average length of the vessels was 12 meters (39 feet). For comparison, a full-grown orca can be 9.2 meters (30 feet) long … In 2020 researchers observed nine different individual killer whales attacking boats[.] The attacks tended to come from two separate groups: a trio of juveniles occasionally joined by a fourth and a mixed-aged group consisting of an adult female named White Gladis, two of her young offspring and two of her sisters. Because White Gladis was the only adult involved in the initial incidents, the researchers speculate that she may have become entangled in a fishing line at some point, giving her a bad association with boats. Other adult orcas in the region have injuries consistent with boat collisions or entanglement, López says. “All this has to make us reflect on the fact that human activities, even in an indirect way, are at the origin of this behavior,” he says.

Other scientists are skeptical that a traumatic experience prompted the behavior. Orca expert Erich Hoyt told the New York Times that it was likely the animals involved in the incidents are “getting some sort of reward or thrill from it,” since “play is part of being a predator.”

Another marine mammal expert, University of St. Andrews’s Luke Rendell, notes at the Conversation that the past-trauma theory is plausible but unlikely to be something anyone will ever be able to prove:

Notions of collective self-defence in cetaceans (aquatic mammals including whales, dolphins and porpoises) are far from outlandish. We have accounts of sperm whales rising to each other’s defence when orcas attack, for example. Solidarity is a more subjective issue, and we don’t have access to the internal mental states of these animals to really understand whether this is going on … It is not impossible that these orcas perceive their own common aggressor in us — but it is also entirely possible they have no such concept.

Orca Behavior Institute director Monika Wieland Shields explained to NBC News that appearances can also be deceiving. “I think it gets taken as aggression because it’s causing damage, but I don’t think we can say that the motivation is aggressive necessarily,” she said, adding that there is no evidence of orcas seeking payback on humans:

We know their brains are wired to have really complex emotions, and so I think they could be capable of something like anger or revenge. But again, it’s just not something that we’ve seen any examples of, and we’ve given them plenty of opportunities throughout the world to want to take revenge on us for various things. And they just choose not to.

In addition, scientists are worried the population of Iberian orcas, which is already critically endangered, will face retaliation from humans over the incidents, as Andenes Whale Center co-founder Hanne Strager emphasized in an interview with National Geographic :

They are among the most polluted marine mammals in the world, so their breeding success is not good. It’s a very stressful environment for them. … Now they are becoming feared in the area, and there are reports of people suggesting you should pour diesel on top of them if they attack your boat, that you should put firecrackers in the water or ignite dynamite. I understand if people are afraid. But it’s really a very dangerous situation for the killer whales.

This post has been updated.

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Orca Attack Map: Killer Whales Have Rammed Boats in These Locations

A group of infamous orcas have been attacking boats off the Strait of Gibraltar at Spain's southern tip—and the trend now appears to be spreading.

Orcas have been causing problems for years in the Strait of Gibraltar and around the Iberian coast, but these attacks have intensified and spread in recent months.

The map below, using data from the Cruising Association and prepared by Newsweek , shows the extent of the interactions.

The attacks are taking place increasingly north, with a number in France and one even taking place off the coast of Scotland.

Data shows the attacks reached a peak in 2022, but have been common since 2020.

On June 19 of this year, 72-year-old retired Dutch physicist Wim Rutten was on his boat sailing from Lerwick, Scotland, to Bergen in Norway when he was attacked by an orca.

While he was fishing, an orca appeared from nowhere and rammed his boat.

"I said 's***!'," Rutten told The Guardian. "What I felt [was] most frightening was the very loud breathing of the animal."

The orca came back to the boat and circled it a few more times before finally leaving Rutten alone. The interaction was the first with an orca to be reported in waters that north.

In most of these incidents, the orcas repeatedly ram a boat's rudder. Scientists are not sure what motivates this behavior.

David Lusseau, professor of marine sustainability at the Technical University of Denmark, told Newsweek he doesn't believe the attacks come from aggression.

"I am sorry to say that if a killer whale (even more so with a group of killer whales) had aggressive intentions, most interactions would not end well, at all, regardless of the actions of the skippers," he said.

"So, it is my opinion that this is not aggressive behavior, and definitely not planned behavior with more complex motivations, such as revenge. vessels are objects in the environment of these killer whales. A few individuals figured out that they could manipulate those objects for some unknown motivation (play, social behavior, "dexterity" practice, fun, etc) and it stuck in this population as something to do.

"The question now is whether it is a fad that will pass by or a cultural trait which will become fixed in the population."

Lussaeu believes that this one isolated incident in Scotland is not enough to determine whether they are the same types of interactions being seen in the Strait of Gibraltar.

Orcas ram yacht during round-the-world Ocean Race
Dead shark washes up on beach hours after killer whale hunting spree
Orcas and sharks face to face once again off Cape Cod

Orcas are known for being incredibly intelligent animals, and have previously shown evidence of adopting learned behaviors from senior members of a pod.

In the Strait of Gibraltar, one individual orca has been named by scientists as the main culprit for the attacks.

White Gladis and her pod have been ramming boats in the area for the past few years. In 2020, researchers with the Coordinator for the Study of Marine Mammals (CEMMA) said they were behind 61 percent of the attacks.

"I don't think we have a grasp of the motivation behind this behavior. We can only go by what are the common denominator for all these interactions: it is a subset of individuals from the population which is involved, the outcome of the interaction varies from tragic cases (boat fully disabled) to vessel leaving unscathed, to vessels not being approached in the first place," Lusseau said.

"There are not really commonalities in the details of the vessels with which the killer whales interact (such as size, engine type, hull shape etc), besides the focus on vessel parts. It looks like managing to take a 'trophy' away ends the interaction."

An alternative theory is that White Gladis may have suffered a traumatic moment involving a boat. The attacks could therefore be fueled by a motivation to prevent this from happening again.

Orca, just like other marine mammals, are often in danger of becoming entangled or hit by fishing vessels.

While Rutten's experience mirrors that of the ones seen further south, it seems the man had a lucky escape.

Some interactions in the Strait of Gibraltar have proved nasty—and sailors passing through are now highly aware of the creatures.

A Dutch team that had recently been competing in the Ocean Race— a yachting competition that is held every three or four years— had a terrifying encounter with the orcas while they passed through the region.

"We were aware, and realized that it would be a possibility," Bart Salemans, who was onboard the boat, told Newsweek . "We saw them appear and coming towards us."

Video footage posted to Team's JAJO's Instagram page shows two orcas swimming straight towards the yacht.

One orca heads straight for the rudder, banging its head on it repeatedly.

"It went pretty fast so there was no real time to really feel or get worried. There is some damage on the rudder but nothing structural," Salemans said.

A sailor has even been ambushed twice in these waters.

Dan Kriz, a delivery skipper with the company Reliance Yacht Management, previously told Newsweek that he had his first orca encounter in 2020.

"I was sailing with my delivery crew through the Strait of Gibraltar delivering a yacht when I was surrounded with a pack of eight orcas, pushing the boat around for about an hour," Kriz said.

"We were one of the first boats experiencing this very unusual orca behavior."

At the time, the orcas caused severe damage to the rudder. After the incident, Kriz and his crew were towed to shore in Barbate, Spain.

But three years later, on April 15, 2023, it happened again.

"While delivering a catamaran for the Catamaran Guru company, the same pack of orcas appeared out of nowhere," Kriz said.

"We were about to cross shipping lines and turn south to Canary Islands when we felt like we got hit bad with a wave, but with the second hit, we realized that the same situation from 2020 was happening. My first reaction was, 'Please! Not again." There is not much one can do. They are very powerful and smart."

It remains to be seen whether this trend will continue to other locations. But so far, it appears largely concentrated to the Gibraltar strait.

Scientists are continuing to look into potential reasons why.

"I guess the question is not unlike asking why would some humans engage in 'parkour,'" Lusseau said. "Minus the property destruction of course."

Uncommon Knowledge

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

About the writer

Robyn White is a Newsweek Nature Reporter based in London, UK. Her focus is reporting on wildlife, science and the environment. Robyn joined Newsweek in 2022 having previously worked at environmental publication LetsRecycle. She has also worked on a range of consumer magazines at Damson Media focusing on pop culture, art and health. She is a journalism graduate of Kingston University. Languages: English.

You can get in touch with Robyn by emailing [email protected]

To read how Newsweek uses AI as a newsroom tool, Click here.

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Killer Whales Are Not Our Friends

Stop rooting for the orcas ramming boats.

Photo of a group of orcas in the wild, just their dorsal fins are visible

In recent months, orcas in the waters off the Iberian Peninsula have taken to ramming boats. The animals have already sunk three this year and damaged several more. After one of the latest incidents , in which a catamaran lost both of its rudders, the boat’s captain suggested that the assailants have grown stealthier and more efficient : “Looks like they knew exactly what they are doing,” he said. Scientists have documented hundreds of orca-boat incidents off the Spanish-Portuguese coast since 2020, but news coverage of these attacks is blowing up right now, thanks in part to a creative new theory about why they’re happening: cetacean vengeance . Now that’s a story!

“The orcas are doing this on purpose,” Alfredo López Fernandez, a biologist at the University of Aveiro in Portugal, told LiveScience last month. “Of course, we don’t know the origin or the motivation, but defensive behavior based on trauma, as the origin of all this, gains more strength for us every day.” López Fernandez, who co-authored a 2022 paper on human-orca interactions in the Strait of Gibraltar, speculates that a specific female, known to scientists as White Gladis, may have suffered a “critical moment of agony” at the hands of humans, attacked a boat in retaliation, and then taught other whales to do the same.

Whatever the truth of this assertion, White Gladis and her kin have quickly ascended to folk-heroic status on the internet. “What the marine biologists are framing as revenge based on one traumatic experience may be a piece of a larger mobilization towards balance,” the poet Alexis Pauline Gumbs tweeted before referring to the killer whales as “revolutionary mother teachers.” Media figures and academics are expressing solidarity with their “ orca comrades ” and support for “ orca saboteurs .” One widely circulating graphic shows a pod smashing a boat from below, above the words “JOIN THE ORCA UPRISING.” (You can even purchase it in sparkly sticker form.) Yet all of this fandom and projection tends to overlook important facts: First, these orcas are likely to be playing with the boats rather than attacking them, and second, if one insists on judging killer whales in human terms, it’s plain to see they aren’t heroes but sadistic jerks.

The recent incidents, none of which has resulted in any injuries to humans, are simply the result of curiosity, Monika Wieland Shields, the co-director of the Orca Behavior Institute in Washington, told me. A juvenile may have started interacting in this way with boats, she said, and then its habit spread through the local community of killer whales. Such cultural trends have been observed before: In the Pacific Northwest, orcas have been playing with buoys and crab pots for years; in the late 1980s, one group of orcas there famously took to wearing salmon hats . Is ramming boats the new donning fish ? Shields believes that theory makes more sense than López Fernandez’s appeal to orca trauma. White Gladis shows no physical evidence of injury or trauma, Shields told me, so any “critical moment of agony” is purely speculative. Also, humans have given orcas ample reason to retaliate for hundreds of years. We’ve invaded their waters, kidnapped their young, and murdered them in droves. And yet, there is not a single documented instance of orcas killing humans in the wild. Why would they react only now?

Read: 7 reasons killer whales are evil geniuses

And though recent events may fit the story of these orcas’ being anti-colonial warriors, you can’t just anthropomorphize animals selectively. What about all the other “evidence” we have of orcas’ cruelty, or even wickedness? Scientists say they hunt and slaughter sharks by the dozen, picking out the liver from each one and leaving the rest of the carcasses to rot uneaten. Orcas kill for sport . They push, drag, and spin around live prey, including sea turtles , seabirds, and sea lions. Some go so far as to risk beaching themselves in order to snag a baby seal—not to consume, but simply to torture it to death. Once you start applying human ethical standards to apex predators, things turn dark fast.

Perhaps #orcauprising was inevitable. Humanity does have, after all, a long history of freighting cetaceans with higher meaning. Moby Dick is, among other things, a symbol of the sublime . The biblical whale—or is it a large fish?—that swallows Jonah is an instrument of divine retribution, a means of punishing the wicked in much the same way some have framed the boat-wrecking orcas. The whale 52 Blue, known as the loneliest whale in the world because she speaks in a frequency inaudible, or at least incomprehensible, to her brethren, has become a canvas for all shades of human sorrow and angst.

Orcas in particular have long been objects of both fear and sympathy, in some cases with an explicitly anti-capitalist tint. The 1993 classic Free Willy centers on a conniving park owner’s scheme to profit off of the bond between a child and a young killer whale. And more recently, the 2013 documentary Blackfish chronicles SeaWorld’s real-life exploitation of captive orcas. The “orca uprising” narrative fits neatly into this lineage. In our present era of environmental catastrophe, Shields told me, it’s appealing to think that nature might fight back, that the villains get their just deserts.

But projection and anthropomorphization are only shortcuts to a shallow sympathy. Orcas really are capable of intense grief ; they are also capable of tormenting seal pups as a hobby. They are intelligent, emotionally complex creatures. But they are not us.

Watch CBS News

Killer whales sink yacht after 45-minute attack, Polish tour company says

By Emily Mae Czachor

November 6, 2023 / 9:58 AM EST / CBS News

A group of orcas managed to sink a yacht off the coast of Morocco last week, after its 45-minute attack on the vessel caused irreparable damage, a Polish tour company said.

The incident happened Tuesday, Oct. 31, as a crew with the boat touring group sailed through the Strait of Gibraltar. The narrow waterway bridges the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, which separates the southern tip of Europe from northern Africa.

A pod of orcas, colloquially called killer whales, approached the yacht and "hit the steering fin for 45 minutes, causing major damage and leakage," the tour agency Morskie Mile, which is based in Warsaw and operated the yacht, wrote on Facebook in a translated post.

Although its captain and crew were assisted by a search-and-rescue team as well as the Moroccan Navy, the yacht could not be salvaged. It sank near the entrance to the port of Tanger-Med, a major complex of ports some 30 miles northeast of Tangier along the Strait of Gibraltar. None of the crew members were harmed, said the Polish tour agency, adding that those on board the sunken yacht were already safe and in Spain by the time their Facebook post went live.

"This yacht was the most wonderful thing in maritime sailing for all of us. Longtime friendships formed on board," wrote Morskie Mile. The company said it was involved in other upcoming cruises in the Canary Islands and would work to make sure those boat trips went ahead as planned.

Last week's incident in the Strait of Gibraltar was not the first of its kind. Reported attacks by killer whales that seem to be trying deliberately to capsize boats off the coast of Spain and Portugal have more than tripled over the last two years, according to data released in the spring by the research group GTOA, which studies orcas around Gibraltar.

"Nobody knows why this is happening," Andrew W. Trites, professor and director of Marine Mammal Research at the University of British Columbia, told CBS News in May. "My idea, or what anyone would give you, is informed speculation. It is a total mystery, unprecedented."

GTOA recorded 52 maritime interactions with orcas between the Strait of Gibraltar and Galicia, a coastal province in northwestern Spain, between July and November 2020. The incidents picked up in the years that followed, with 197 interactions recorded in 2021 and 207 recorded in 2022, GTOA said, noting that the interactions mainly affected sailboats.

Then, in June of this year, one of two sailing teams involved in an international race around the world reported a frightening confrontation involving multiple orcas as they traveled through the Atlantic Ocean to the west of Gibraltar. The teams, which were competing in The Ocean Race, said the orcas did not damage their boats or harm crews, but recalled the sea creatures pushing up against and, in one instance, ramming into one of the boats. The orcas also nudged and bit the rudders, one crew member said.

Caitlin O'Kane and Kerry Breen contributed to this report.

Emily Mae Czachor is a reporter and news editor at CBSNews.com. She covers breaking news, often focusing on crime and extreme weather. Emily Mae has previously written for outlets including the Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed and Newsweek.

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A pod of orcas has sunk a yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar

A pair of orcas swim off the west coast of Vancouver Island in 2018.

Rescuers were able to save the crew and return them safely to port in Tanger-Med on the coast of Morocco. Their vessel, though, sank into the sea.

The company said it is working to ensure its upcoming trips to the Canary Islands go on without a hitch.

Scientists have been trying to pinpoint the cause of the behavior.

One theory among researchers is they're just playing around. Other researchers say it may be that the whales like the feel of the rudder.

Another theory is that the behavior may be some sort of act of revenge due to possibly traumatic , previous encounters with fishing boats.

International edition
Australia edition
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A Bigg's orca jumping out of the sea in Vancouver Island, Canada.

Orcas ‘attacked’ my boat too. What does this say about the sea?

Violent interactions with humans off the Iberian coast have caused alarm but mystery still surrounds the apex predators

T his past week’s new reports of orca interactions off the Iberian coast has cast new light on these apex predators. Are they annoyed with us? Or just playing? Whatever the truth, such interactions – a word most scientists prefer to the judgmental “attacks” – are nothing new.

Diving in the Indian Ocean in 2017 with underwater photographer Andrew Sutton, we watched two pods of orca preying on sperm whale calves. Their attempts were defeated by adult whales who had gathered around to defend their young. The orcas then turned their attention to our 6m fishing boat, circling us, before repeatedly ramming our prow. Five of the orcas swam directly at our side, creating a compression wave as if to tip us over.

Afterwards Kathryn Jeffs, director of David Attenborough’s Frozen Planet , told me it was the same technique used by orcas in the Antarctic to prey on seals by flipping them off ice floes – her own crew experienced similar behaviour from a pod of orca frustrated “after a particularly spectacular seal hunt”. Even more remarkably, as my marine biologist colleague Jeroen Hoekendijk notes, the Sri Lanka orcas were using it in equatorial waters where it could have no practical application. So far as we know.

Having been in the water with those orca – and having rapidly got out – I felt the whole encounter was an echo of the first cetacean I ever saw as a boy – indeed, the first most of us ever see. It was a male orca named Ramu, in the so-called Royal Windsor Dolphinarium, as if the animal were the personal possession of the queen. The site is now home to Legoland. The captive animal went through a kind of circus act – heading a ball, catching fish in his beak – that made me realise how humans could get things so wrong. Earlier this year, in an echo of Free Willy , the Miami Seaquarium announced it was to release Lolita , an orca kept captive for more than 50 years – although she is now too old to be freed and will have to spend her retirement in a sea pen.

A scene from the film The Heart Of The Sea.

In our encounter with wild orcas off Sri Lanka, the intense presence of these graphic, glossy black and white animals, so perfect that they almost appeared animatronic, seemed a kind of vindication of their beauty.

Sentient, matriarchal, tremendously successful as a species, their culture is much older than ours, and the recent reports of orca interactions off the Iberian peninsula force us to readdress the power of these marine mammals on our imagination: on what these animals represent and what they are thinking when they interact with us. We’ll probably never know, unless we learn to translate their whistles and clicks. But their actions do have a historical precedent.

Early modern accounts of orca, or killer whales, saw them as sea demons. Olaus Magnus’s 1539 description appears almost prophetic in light of the current news stories: “An Orca is like a Hull turned inside outward; a Beast with fierce Teeth, with which, as with the Stem of a Ship, he rends the Whales Guts and tears his Calves body, he quickly runs and drives him up and down.”

An illustration from Historiae animalium

Twenty years later, the orca suddenly comes into focus in a remarkably realistic, almost god-like image – save for the odd whiskers – of an animal stranded in Hartlepool, as illustrated in Conrad Gessner’s Historiae Animalium of 1558.

In all these incarnations, orca are seen as ravenous hunters: indeed, their early species name, Orca gladiator , reflected this pugilistic sensibility.

Whales had yet to acquire their modern status as emblems of environmental threat. The greatest foundation myth of whales of our time was the sinking of the Essex in the Pacific in 1820. The Nantucket whaleship was struck twice by a sperm whale, holing it and causing it to sink, and setting the crew adrift in boats.

The story became the inspiration for Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick and was subsequently re-imagined in Nathaniel Philbrick’s bestselling book, filmed as In The Heart of the Sea starring Cillian Murphy and Ben Whishaw.

Imagine, then, the consternation of the captain, whose ship had been sunk by one species of cetacean, only to find a 3.5m orca – which he called a “killer-fish” – following their flimsy boat. Suddenly the animal “made an unprovoked attack … with his jaws … After having struck the boat once, he continued to play with her, on every side, as if manifesting a disposition to renew the attack, and did a second time strike the bows of the boat, and split her stem”. The crew had to beat off the orca with a pole – only to end up eating six of their shipmates when their rations ran out.

Illustration of a whale defending itself against whaleboat attack, circa 1859.

Orcas continued to lurk at the edges of human oceanic experience the further we encroached into their territory. Robert Falcon Scott, leading his expedition to the South Pole in 1911, wrote in his journal of “a most extraordinary scene” as “some six or seven killer whales” appeared off an ice floe ahead of their ship, the Terra Nova .

The expedition photographer, Herbert Ponting, and two of their dogs were on the floe as Scott and his crew watched it “heaved up and split” as the orcas “rose under the ice and struck it with their backs”. Both man and dogs managed to escape that day, and it was clear to Scott that “the whales shared our astonishment” as their “hideous heads shot vertically into the air with …their small glistening eyes, and their terrible array of teeth … There cannot be a doubt that they looked up to see what had happened to Ponting and the dogs”.

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Scott – whose son, Peter, went on to become one of Britain’s greatest naturalists – thought that “they would undoubtedly snap up anyone who was unfortunate to fall into the water”. But he had to admit that their actions “were a revelation to us. It is clear that they are endowed with singular intelligence, and in future we shall treat that intelligence with every respect”.

More recently, in 1971, an English family, the Robertsons, sailing around the world, had to abandon ship in the mid-Pacific after a pod of three orca hit their yacht. “Suddenly there was an ear-splintering crash, and the boat jolted three times,” Douglas Robertson, then 18 years old, recalled . “Bang, bang, bang, like that, and the boat was lifted out of the water.”

The incident shows that such contacts are as dangerous for orcas as they are for humans. Douglas Robertson reported that the large male of the pod had “his head split open, and blood was pouring out into the sea”; he believed the orcas might have “attacked us for food purposes, thinking we were a whale”.

Briefly thrown into the water , Robertson thought he was going to be eaten by the orca, and kept feeling for his legs to check they were still there. It took 37 days before the family were rescued from their dinghy.

In 1984, Henk van de Weg, a Dutch sailor participating in the Observer Singlehanded Transatlantic Race – sponsored by this newspaper – experienced an equally traumatic incident in the mid-Atlantic when an orca struck his homemade yacht like “a terribly large sledgehammer”, leaving him shipwrecked 186 miles from the US east coast. He was subsequently rescued and brought to Cape Cod.

Now the recent interactions off Spain and Portugal appear to be spreading north. In June Wim Rutten, a retired Dutch physicist sailing east of the Shetland Islands, felt an orca ram his boat “with a soft thud”. Rutten heard the “very loud breathing of the animal” as it “came at fast speed, twice or thrice”. “Maybe he just wanted to play,” Rutten said. “Or look me in the eyes.”

Where will it end? Many scientists think the interactions are a fad among a small group of orcas and should be allowed to run its course. It is telling that no one has been harmed in these incidents, and indeed there is only one well-documented case, from 1972, of a human getting injured by an orca in the wild . Those orcas in the Indian Ocean could have done what they liked with us.

In waters now so noisy, so overfished, and so overheated, it’s clear that it is not people the orcas are interested in. It’s the effects of what we do in their seas.

Prof Philip Hoare is a writer and historian who set up the Moby Dick Big Read project. Additional research by Jeroen Hoekendijk

The Observer
Marine life

What to do if orcas attack your boat: If you see a killer whale, 'never enter the water' and turn off your engine

Killer whales, or orcas , can be vicious hunters and have recently been attacking boats .
A whale expert told the Khaleej Times you should "never enter the water" if you see a killer whale .
If you see an orca , try to maintain your distance and turn off your engine, the expert said.

Orcas keep attacking sailboats , and nobody is sure why.

Just last week, a pod of orcas spent 45 minutes ramming into a Polish yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar, according to Morskie Mile, the tour company that owns the vessel. The beleaguered company reported that its crew was safe, but the boat itself sank at the entrance of a Moroccan port.

In the past three years, hundreds of boat-orca interactions have been reported off the coasts of Portugal, Spain, and Morocco, including ambushes where the animals repeatedly rammed a sailboat and caused damage. This isn't even the first incident where the killer whales sank a boat .

The incidents all seem to come from one group of orcas in the area , and scientists still aren't sure why this behavior has become so fashionable in that pod.

Still, the flood of orca ambushes has prompted boaters and scientists to put their heads together and come up with guidelines for dealing with a killer-whale encounter .

There's no guarantee that this advice will stop orcas from damaging a boat if they're really in the mood for it, but the below guidelines can reduce the risk for vessels and their passengers.

What to do during an orca encounter

Experts say if you see any whales near you in the ocean , you should "never enter the water."

Watch: Orcas are under threat from man-made noise pollution. These scientists are fighting to protect them.

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Premium Content

Rogue orcas are thriving on the high seas—and they’re eating big whales

A fourth type of Pacific killer whale may live miles offshore from California and Oregon, preying on whales, other dolphins, and sea turtles.

A dorsal fin pokes out of the water on a foggy day.

Most orcas tend to stick to coastlines, from the Antarctic dwellers that make waves to knock seals off ice floes to the liver-extracting brothers around Cape Town . But now, scientists have found what could be a brand-new population of killer whales: Animals that ply the high seas, hunting large whales and other sizable prey.

These open-ocean denizens have been spotted at numerous locations far from Oregon and California, many of them well beyond the continental shelf, where waters can reach depths of 15,000 feet, according to a recent study in Aquatic Mammals .

“There haven’t been any real studies, at least in the North Pacific, looking at killer whales in the open ocean,” says study leader Josh McInnes , a master’s candidate at the University of British Columbia’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries.

“It was kind of a shock when … we saw animals that were out in this open ocean habitat and were completely different from the other ecotypes we know.”

Killer whales in the Pacific are grouped into three ecotypes: Residents, which live close to shore and eat salmon and other fish; offshores, which live farther out and also eat fish; and transients, also called Bigg’s, the only orcas previously known to eat mammals. (See 13 fantastic photos of orcas.)

Scientists could not match the 49 whales in the new study with any known orcas through photos and descriptions, which are based on their unique dorsal fins and saddle patches, the gray or white pattern on an orca's back.

This means the animals are either a subgroup of the transient ecotype or an entirely unique population, says McInnes, who is also a research associate with the Pacific Wildlife Foundation.

The team could also differentiate the population, dubbed the oceanics, from other known orcas due to scars or bite marks from the parasitic cookie-cutter shark, which only occur in the deep ocean.

An graphic in shades of blue from dark to light, the box shows the characteristics and common locations for different types of animals.

Beyond individual variations, the oceanics don't look like other known ecotypes, for example sporting a large gray saddle patch or no saddle patch at all.

“The open ocean doesn’t support a lot of large predators; it’s often described as a giant desert, so we weren’t expecting to find so many different animals, so we’re excited to carry on more research,” McInnes says.

“We really just don't know yet what is happening with the killer whales in the open ocean. This is the mystery behind what we hope to do next.”

Following the prey

Our knowledge of orcas living in the open ocean is limited, as it’s difficult to find the widely distributed animals in a boat.

Yet the recent paper, a mixture of literature review and new observations, discovered nine instances in which marine mammal researchers, fishermen, and tourists observed whales in the northern Pacific Ocean between 1997 and 2021.

In the first documented incident, researchers watched a large pod of killer whales attack a herd of nine adult female sperm whales, managing to separate one from the pack and kill it. Other pods also hunted and ate an elephant seal, a pygmy sperm whale, a Risso’s dolphin, and a leatherback sea turtle.

With detailed records from each such encounter, the researchers plotted geo-referenced locations, determined water depth, and compared photos in databases to determine that the 49 whales sighted could potentially be a new ecotype.

It’s possible that this new population formed as prey drew them farther from shore.

A whale splashes as it comes down from a jump in water.

“Mammal-eating killer whales are doing well, and their numbers are increasing as seal and other whale populations have rebounded since whaling and sealing became illegal,” says Robert Pitman , a marine ecologist at Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute, who wasn’t involved in the study.

While prey overall is less abundant in deep-sea waters, killer whales may still find that habitat is more appealing than competing with the larger populations of resident whales closer to shore, he says. (Watch video: sperm whales vs. orcas.)

To this end, McInnes and colleagues hope this study will spark efforts to document the new whale population through genetic sampling, satellite tagging, acoustic tracking, further photo identification, and additional field observation.

Climate change is affecting some populations of killer whales , such as those in Antarctica, which depend on seals that live on the rapidly decreasing ice. On the U.S. West Coast, a decline in salmon has reduced a population off Puget Sound , Washington.

Worldwide, however, the species is thriving, and coming more into contact with people in coastal areas. Orcas ramming and even sinking boats off Spain made headlines in 2023, with some people rooting for the animals as fighting back against human domination .

“Killer whales are probably the most widely distributed vertebrate on the planet. They are everywhere,” Pitman says.

With many tourist cruises available worldwide, he encourages everyone to put seeing a killer whale, whose males can reach lengths of 27 feet, on their bucket list.

“This is the biggest apex predator we have on the planet today. We haven't seen anything like it since dinosaurs roamed the Earth.”

Orcas are killing porpoises—but not eating them. Why?

First-ever photos show humpback whales mating—and they’re males

Single orca seen killing great white shark for first time ever

This video captures a rarely seen sperm whale birth. It’s beautiful.

Menopause is very rare among animals. Here’s why orcas go through it.

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Orca Repeatedly Attacked a Yacht Off the Coast of Scotland; First Attack in Northern Waters Raises Concerns of Spreading Trend

In a rare occurrence, an orca aggressively slammed a yacht navigating the North Sea near Scotland, indicating a potential expansion of orca attacks in the area. Wim Rutten, a retired Dutch physicist and the captain of the yacht, expressed his fear in an interview with The Guardian of the powerful animal's loud breathing during the unsettling encounter.

Orcas Terrorizing Boats

In the interview, the retired physicist and captain of the yacht described how the orca stayed behind the boat before disappearing and then returning at a faster speed, circling him. Rutten felt "soft shocks" created by the mammal as it made contact with the aluminum hull of the yacht.

Rutten immediately made a connection to the recent orca attacks along the Spanish and Portuguese coasts, particularly in the Strait of Gibraltar. Last month alone, USA Today reported 20 orca incidents in those waters, and there have been instances of orcas sinking three boats in Southern Europe since the previous summer.

As per Futurism , the majority of recent orca attacks have been concentrated in the seas south of Spain, specifically the Strait of Gibraltar, as killer whales cause distress to sailors in the past month. However, the incident involving Rutten marks the first reported case of an orca attack in the Northern Waters.

Rutten speculated on the motives behind the orca's behavior, suggesting that it may have wanted to play, establish eye contact, or remove a fishing line. The unusual and escalating encounters between orcas and humans or their vessels have only been documented since 2020, with over 500 reported orca boat interactions between 2020 and 2023, as reported by the Atlantic Orca Working Group.

READ ALSO: Why Are Killer Whales Attacking Boats? Orcas Attacking Sailboats on European Coasts

It Might Be a Fad: Killer Whales Influencing Others to Attack Boats

Scientists suspect that the recent trend of orca attacks on boats may be the result of learned behavior being spread within orca pods. The behavior initially observed in the Strait of Gibraltar has now been reported as far north as Scotland, leading researchers to believe that it is being taught and transmitted among different communities.

Social animals like orcas are known to pick up behaviors from one another, similar to human fads, according to Live Science . For example, in 1987, orcas in Puget Sound started wearing dead salmon as hats, which spread through different pods.

Dolphins, another social cetacean, have also been observed exhibiting fads, such as tail walking, after one dolphin had the opportunity to witness it in a rehabilitation center.

In the Pacific, orcas have been playing with crab pots, while in Europe, they appear to be targeting boat rudders. The exact reason behind this behavior is still uncertain, but it is speculated that the orcas might be attracted to the sensation of water being moved by a boat propeller. It is also suggested that the attacks could be driven by the curiosity and playfulness of juvenile males.

Scientists believe that as the orcas mature and enter their adult life, they will likely outgrow these behaviors and the attacks on boats will cease. They consider the incidents to be a form of playful interaction rather than aggressive intent.

Check out more news and information on Whales on Science Times.

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Cruising the Moskva River: A short guide to boat trips in Russia’s capital

There’s hardly a better way to absorb Moscow’s atmosphere than on a ship sailing up and down the Moskva River. While complicated ticketing, loud music and chilling winds might dampen the anticipated fun, this checklist will help you to enjoy the scenic views and not fall into common tourist traps.

How to find the right boat?

There are plenty of boats and selecting the right one might be challenging. The size of the boat should be your main criteria.

Plenty of small boats cruise the Moskva River, and the most vivid one is this yellow Lay’s-branded boat. Everyone who has ever visited Moscow probably has seen it.

This option might leave a passenger disembarking partially deaf as the merciless Russian pop music blasts onboard. A free spirit, however, will find partying on such a vessel to be an unforgettable and authentic experience that’s almost a metaphor for life in modern Russia: too loud, and sometimes too welcoming. Tickets start at $13 (800 rubles) per person.

Bigger boats offer smoother sailing and tend to attract foreign visitors because of their distinct Soviet aura. Indeed, many of the older vessels must have seen better days. They are still afloat, however, and getting aboard is a unique ‘cultural’ experience. Sometimes the crew might offer lunch or dinner to passengers, but this option must be purchased with the ticket. Here is one such option offering dinner for $24 (1,490 rubles).

If you want to travel in style, consider Flotilla Radisson. These large, modern vessels are quite posh, with a cozy restaurant and an attentive crew at your service. Even though the selection of wines and food is modest, these vessels are still much better than other boats.

Surprisingly, the luxurious boats are priced rather modestly, and a single ticket goes for $17-$32 (1,100-2,000 rubles); also expect a reasonable restaurant bill on top.

How to buy tickets?

Women holding photos of ships promise huge discounts to “the young and beautiful,” and give personal invitations for river tours. They sound and look nice, but there’s a small catch: their ticket prices are usually more than those purchased online.

“We bought tickets from street hawkers for 900 rubles each, only to later discover that the other passengers bought their tickets twice as cheap!” wrote (in Russian) a disappointed Rostislav on a travel company website.

Nevertheless, buying from street hawkers has one considerable advantage: they personally escort you to the vessel so that you don’t waste time looking for the boat on your own.

Prices start at $13 (800 rubles) for one ride, and for an additional $6.5 (400 rubles) you can purchase an unlimited number of tours on the same boat on any given day.

Flotilla Radisson has official ticket offices at Gorky Park and Hotel Ukraine, but they’re often sold out.

Buying online is an option that might save some cash. Websites such as this offer considerable discounts for tickets sold online. On a busy Friday night an online purchase might be the only chance to get a ticket on a Flotilla Radisson boat.

This website (in Russian) offers multiple options for short river cruises in and around the city center, including offbeat options such as ‘disco cruises’ and ‘children cruises.’ This other website sells tickets online, but doesn’t have an English version. The interface is intuitive, however.

Buying tickets online has its bad points, however. The most common is confusing which pier you should go to and missing your river tour.

“I once bought tickets online to save with the discount that the website offered,” said Igor Shvarkin from Moscow. “The pier was initially marked as ‘Park Kultury,’ but when I arrived it wasn’t easy to find my boat because there were too many there. My guests had to walk a considerable distance before I finally found the vessel that accepted my tickets purchased online,” said the man.

There are two main boarding piers in the city center: Hotel Ukraine and Park Kultury . Always take note of your particular berth when buying tickets online.

Where to sit onboard?

Even on a warm day, the headwind might be chilly for passengers on deck. Make sure you have warm clothes, or that the crew has blankets ready upon request.

The glass-encased hold makes the tour much more comfortable, but not at the expense of having an enjoyable experience.

Getting off the boat requires preparation as well. Ideally, you should be able to disembark on any pier along the way. In reality, passengers never know where the boat’s captain will make the next stop. Street hawkers often tell passengers in advance where they’ll be able to disembark. If you buy tickets online then you’ll have to research it yourself.

There’s a chance that the captain won’t make any stops at all and will take you back to where the tour began, which is the case with Flotilla Radisson. The safest option is to automatically expect that you’ll return to the pier where you started.

If using any of Russia Beyond's content, partly or in full, always provide an active hyperlink to the original material.

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Restaurant-Yacht Chaika

Ratings and reviews, location and contact.

Pleasantly surprised, service is good so is the food. Great selection of Fusion food, a mixture of Italian, Japanese, European, Asian etc. A pleasantly nice dining experience, highly recommended, a must try!

Thank you for your feedback and invite you to have lunch or dinner again aboard the ship in an atmosphere of high standards of yacht hospitality.

everything was perfect - the food, the service, the desserts were the best, nice atmosphere and the location - magical

Best food, best view in Moscow. absolutely faultless from arrival to finish. Best risotto i had for many years absolutely perfectly cooked. The view on Ukrainian hotel and the white house by night is amazing

Had to wait for the food for 1.5 hours and then another 20 minutes for the check. Finally called for the manager and he offered... a 10% discount as a compensation. Simply pathetic! The food is mediocre at best. Not bad per se, but one... would expect something better considering the prices. There are many places to eat in area that are much better. Avoid this one at all costs. More

Hello, Alexander Your comment is extremely important for us, thank you a lot for it. We are terribly sorry for your time that you`ve spent waiting your order and we have already taken actions to improve quality of our service and it would be realy... More

Food is very expensive,very pretentious, doesn't worth that money. Portions are very small. We ordered ravioli and there were 4! Four raviolis! For almost 15 euros. Then we asked to bring us dessert menu but nothing, they didn't even bothered, so we payed and left... without dessert. Very poor service for that price. More

This is a very good restaurant. The food is really good, maybe the best in Moscow. The service is also good. The view from the restaurant is great. The prices are very high.

I often visit this restaurant and must say it’s one of the best in Moscow in terms of quality and service. Staff really try hard to make sure that you are happy and satisfied. Customer service is a huge problem in Moscow but Chaika sets... a great example for others in the industry! Food is delicious and the menu has lots of options for everyone! Atmosphere is great and view is beautiful on the embankment. Special thanks to German & Oleg! More

Thank you for your feedback! Again aboard the yacht restaurant "Chaika" in accordance with the high standards of yacht hospitality.

Highly recommended, great location in the city center of Moscow with a superb atmosphere. Too many menu choices, though all delicious!

Thx a lot for your review! We are looking forward to see you in our restaurants.

Visited this lovely restaurant with a friend of mine. It was relaxingly warm August evening - so the place on the river seemed like a good idea. We came quite early and the restaurant was not full. The hostesses kindly offered several places to sit... and we chose to sit on the sofas. We had some wine, which was good. We struggled a bit when deciding about the food as few options (scallops) were not available. Fish on ice on display did not look very fresh. To be honest it was an unusually hot August and it is probably understandable that some see food options were not available. However, we did manage to order something and sat waiting and looking onto the river. My long-legged friend struggled sitting at the low sofa and the manager noticed that, offering as a very good, proper table beside the open window. It was nice touch and I was very pleased by their polite observations and immediate reaction to solve the problem. Food was quite good and presentation was perfect. Perhaps I can something about the food, but 1 visit is not enough to criticize or make a definitive opinion. Overall, quality place, which of course, does not come cheap. I would recommend this restaurant without hesitation. More

Good afternoon! Thank you for your detailed feedback! We are looking forward to seeing you again, we are sure that you will be delighted with our dishes!

I've been here several times during two business trip in Moscow. The overall quality for both service and food is absolutely top-notch, plus the location is very unique.

Hello! Thank you for your feedback! We are looking forward to visiting again!

Located on a boat at Krasnopresenskaya River Bank this 5 Star Restaurant transforms into a party location due to multiple groups hosting events. Impressive wine selection, Asian and European kitchen...

Thx a lot! We are waiting for you!

It is a nice place to gather specially at the lounge The service and staff very good I like the river view The food is almost like all restaurants in Russia they serve different cuisine. Staring Russian appetizer till Asian dishes Presentation and taste amazing... I consider it overpriced little bit More

Good location. Nice views. Good choice of food and drinks. European and Asian menu. Nice service. Pricey enough.

Had a large group dinner here. Food was above average and service quite good. The real attraction is the view of Moscow from the river on a nice night. Great place for a larger group dinner. More

Hello, John We are really pleased by reading that you and your friends were satisfied by our service, client`s experience is the highest value for us. We will be happy to see you again, come and enjoy some new dishes from our chef and nice... More

The luxurious atmosphere of this place, the view and the location make it quite outstanding. We had dinner here with friends and the dishes were amazing, accompanied by a chilled bottle of Chablis, it really made me feel as if it was a part of... the classic Russian movie. More

RESTAURANT-YACHT CHAIKA, Moscow - Presnensky - Menu, Prices & Restaurant Reviews - Tripadvisor

Service: 4.5
Atmosphere: 4.5

COMMENTS

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RESTAURANT-YACHT CHAIKA, Moscow
Restaurant-Yacht Chaika. Claimed. Review. Save. Share. 185 reviews #547 of 10,703 Restaurants in Moscow $$$$ Italian Seafood Mediterranean. Krasnopresnenskaya Emb., 12A Berth International Exhibition, Moscow 123610 Russia +7 495 777-87-88 Website Menu. Closed now : See all hours.

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