Orca Iberica
POGO 10.50 Boulegan (ex Dranga)
Hervé, after acquiring my Pogo 10.50, undertook to take it, from Douarnenez, to the Mediterranean. He met the orcas on his way out of La Coruña. He tells us here his adventure, thanks to him. The report he made will certainly be of interest to those who will take this route…
Finally on vacation, I finally took possession of the boat, bought at the end of May, and which had been waiting for me in Port Rhu for 2 months, under the benevolent supervision of Emmanuel, her former owner.
Arrived on August 6th in Douarnenez, I took ten days to fit the boat, to do all the usual checks before a long trip to Marseille. Of course the situation with the killer whales never ceases to bother me, but putting the boat on a truck to reach the Mediterranean seems to me a shame and an absurdity.
So I decided to refuel in Galicia, then to go far offshore to reach Gibraltar avoiding the 150/200 miles zone where the orcas are rampant. Too bad for the Atlantic cruise part, but the risks are too high.
My crew (my wife, my sister and her friend) arrived on August 10th, and a weather window appeared for the 16th. We left Port Rhu on the 15th, and set sail on the 16th, with a mild Breton weather.
10 knots of wind upwind, ideal to get acquainted with the boat. We passed the Raz de Sein with 20 knots of NW and 4 knots of current. Rain and fog for the atmosphere, the Marseilles native that I am doesn’t have much to do. Barely time to get used to it, we are already in the middle of the Bay of Biscay, on the beam under solent/1 reef at more than 10 knots average. Then the wind weakens and gradually refuses, until we are forced to motor, then to sail upwind in the calm. We arrived at the anchorage in Ares on the 19th, after a nice spinnaker tack.
In a phone call with Emmanuel, I realized that the killer whales could go up to Galicia, whereas I thought they were further south. So I decided to go to Camariñas to fill up the tank and to leave for the open sea.
On August 20th, around 8:00 PM, 5 miles NW of Laxe (43°17’N, 009°03’W), SW, while we were sailing under engine, with no wind and a long W swell of 5m, we heard on the VHF a sailboat reporting to the MRCC Finisterre that there was an “interaction” with killer whales. This boat is 2 miles ahead of us…
At this moment, all my dreams, hardly realized, suddenly seem to crumble. We put all our strategic stuff in a waterproof grab bag. The raft and the life jackets are ready. I wait, I watch, I know they will come. And of course, 15 minutes later, I see them coming, 2 young people, 5 to 6 m long. I take the measures dictated by the authorities: stop the engine and leave the helm free in the axis, pilot on standby. I reported the situation to the MRCC Finisterre.
This will last until midnight: 4 successive “interactions”.
The first one lasted about 45 minutes. They went straight to the rudders, calmly and resolutely; they breathed very close to the hull, sometimes moving away by about ten meters, then coming back. The boat is spinning, doing 360s in all directions… They’re having fun. I think the starboard rudder is broken very quickly.
Other boats passing by distracted them for a few minutes, during which we thought we were saved, but they came back to us every time.
The second one starts to be worrying: the broken starboard rudder does not interest them. They nibbled away at the port rudder well above the bottom of the fuse: you could hear the crunch of their teeth in the epoxy foam, the bits floating around behind. That’s when they start banging into the hull, I think to try to catch a little more. The shocks are violent, the hood of the rear trunk, not locked, jumps. Sinister cracks are heard louder and louder. The mast is shaken: I am afraid to dismast, I shield the backstay. I cry for the boat: what a pain!
My wife joined us in La Coruña. The atmosphere on the breakdowns is like a killer whale, between those who come back broken and those who don’t dare to leave the harbor anymore… Information taken, we leave again the next day for the marina of Sada, which seems to be better equipped, with all the conveniences at a few minutes walk. Very good welcome: the boat was taken out 2 days later.
Assessment: starboard rudder broken and twisted, port rudder eaten and twisted. The 2 bottom bearings (needle bearings) are broken, the structure of the rear trunk is broken/delaminated.
The Pogo shipyard being closed for the year, and my insurance showing no sign of making any progress in Spain, I quickly realize that the boat will never be repaired in time to arrive in Marseille before the end of September. Moreover, I cannot imagine going back to the orcas once the boat is repaired… Failure and disillusionment; I decide, ashamed of myself, to send it to Marseille by truck …. (which I should have done from Douarnenez)
The damages
For those who are still tempted, here are my conclusions.
What to do:
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Before :
- The probability of being attacked is very high: when they are in a zone, they visit all the boats in the zone.
- Before leaving to sail in the area from Tarifa to Ferrol, check with your insurance company. Considering the price that these little beasts must cost them, it would not be surprising if some exclusions started to appear in our contracts.
- You can never get enough information: the situation is much more serious than I had imagined before. Beyond the internet (GTOA), and Facebook (orca attack reporting), the MRCC Finisterre has been very available and patient. It’s a good idea to call them before arriving in the area to know the position of the current or recent “interactions”.
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During:
After reading a leaflet for tourists coming to the area to observe cetaceans, I realized that the instructions given by the authorities were exactly the same for humans approaching cetaceans, and the opposite, as in the case of “interactions”. I deduced that these instructions have for sole purpose to protect marine mammals, and not at all the boats.
So, what seems to help:
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- Going astern seems to bother them: as they can’t eat the rudders by swimming backwards, they have to expose themselves to the propeller to follow the rudders. But for this to work, the sea must allow it, and a boat with a single rudder and a wheel.
- Some people use transponders, but I don’t know how effective they are.
- I’ve talked to some boats that have found big bangers that work underwater.
- There is also the solution of sailing in shallow waters (20m and less) which seems to work well, but the coast is difficult to navigate, especially when sailing. And then you have to get in and out of this area. Boats leaving the Mediterranean for the West Indies follow the Moroccan coastline until Cape Espartel before diving towards the SW: they prefer fishermen without lights, floating nets and coastguards to orcas!
- In any case, if I had to do it again, I would get much more information, I would not stop, and I would be equipped with deterrents.
And now …
I put the word “interaction” in quotation marks because that is the vocabulary used by the authorities. And I quite agree that the orcas’ attitude is not aggressive: they are only interested in the rudders. Neither the rest of the boat, nor the people on board. In our case they took their time: 2 times 45 minutes and 2 times 15 minutes. For the catamaran Black Pearl on October 03 south of Tarifa in the DST, the “interaction” lasted 2 minutes: the 2 wicks, and it was “folded”.
To me it looks more like a behavioral disorder, a habit, than a game: they looked more like work than play. But for us humans and boaters, it’s hard not to use the word “attack”. Why sailboats? Because they are slow, they have small propellers and large rudders made of crisp materials, a shape that resembles that of their fellow creatures, but above all because the people on board do not defend themselves, quite the contrary. The ideal target!
These animals are very powerful, intelligent, communicate very well between different groups, and know how to adapt. Their food is scarce. In Galicia they eat dolphins and whales, they have decimated the white shark population of the Cape of Good Hope. It is now the same thing in New Zealand. What would happen if one day one of them tasted a human, by mistake, and found it not bad? He would immediately go and tell his friends…
The authorities, supported and advised by marine mammal protection organizations, must really find a solution to protect boaters. Only those who have not experienced them find these “interactions” sympathetic. The rest of us will make sure that it never happens again. Protecting boaters is protecting orcas.
Hervé (Boulegan)
Vidéos
