This is real. I met someone who was there.
Tue 6:12 am +00:00, 16 Sep 2025Many ‘travel is dangerous’ stories are fake as you possibly realise, as the system wants you afraid to step outside your door.
But this story is true.
Credit: Oceanic Lounge
A pod of killer whales rammed and sank a tourist yacht off the Portuguese coast on Saturday.
The boat from the Nautic Squad club was carrying five people when the orcas attacked it near Fonte da Telha beach.
Footage shows an orca repeatedly hitting the yacht before it starts to sway and sink, prompting one person to shout: “Oh my God.”
All five crew members were rescued by nearby boats shortly before their vessel went down.
A second vessel with four people aboard also required assistance after encountering the same orcas off Cascais. No one was injured.
Orca attacks on boats off the Spanish coast have become more frequent in recent years, which some experts think is motivated by boredom.
Sailors were warned last month not to go out to sea because of the heightened threat.
In the latest incident, the Portuguese national maritime authority received a distress call for the first boat at 12.30pm Saturday before dispatching rescue teams.
Witnesses’ accounts of the attack differed. Some said they saw four orcas, while one skipper said one whale struck the rudder repeatedly, causing cracks that flooded the hull.
It was the third boat sinking attributed to orcas off the Iberian peninsula. Between 2020 and 2023, at least 500 orca encounters were reported in the region, with 20 per cent of vessels sustaining damage.
The attacks began around 2019 and have increased in frequency.
Orcas typically target boat rudders in waters along the Atlantic coast of Galicia and near the Strait of Gibraltar.
Recent attacks have happened in shallower waters and busier areas.
A comment on one of the social media groups set up for sailors navigating along the Iberian coast revealed that orca attacks happen every year “in the exact same stretch”.
“We were terrorised every day for four weeks last year while transiting down for the Arc… Lots of damaged boats… even an airlift to hospital for one poor lady… A very real problem,” one commentator said.
Marine biologists studying the behaviour suggest the whales may be acting out of boredom or seeking physical stimulation.
The Iberian orca population numbers fewer than 50 individuals and is considered critically endangered.
Previous sinkings include boats near Sines in 2022 and off Viana do Castelo the same year.
The sunken vessel’s location has been marked with buoys for possible recovery.
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The person I met worked in the school uniform shop, and previously had a job delivering yachts. We got chatting as I used to sail a bit in a former life.
She told me about the Orcas off Portugal and how they attack sailing boats now.
She says one whale was injured by a boat and it’s got into the species memory or group soul which identifies their enemies.
And they say whales don’t talk.
In the old maps you see picture of large mammals or sea monsters attacking ships. It probably wasn’t made up.
Animals can make war too. But their enemies are real.
Ours are created in the media.
