Orcas relentlessly battered a yacht in a “terrifying” two-hour attack Wednesday that didn’t end until the $128,680 vessel sunk to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea.
Robert Powell, 59, and his crew were just 22 hours into their 10-day trip from Vilamoura, Portugal, to Greece when the pod set its sights on the £100,000 — or $128,680 — sailing boat.
“To me, they were not playing at all, they knew exactly what they were doing. They knew the weak points of the boat, and they knew how to sink it,” Powell, who was meant to be celebrating his birthday aboard the boat, told SWNS.
“Their sole intention was to sink the boat, and that was it.”
The five orcas circled the 39-foot sailing boat and took turns smashing it to bits around 8 p.m. in a coordinated assault Powell compared to the carnage of wolves.
It took an hour and a half until the hull finally buckled beneath the whales’ pressure and split, causing water to gush into the main living area of the Bonhomme William.
Though they were just two miles off the coast of Spain — and the crew radioed for help as soon as the attack began — it took two hours before help arrived.
A Spanish salvage vessel fortunately helped them abandon the stricken ship, minutes before it sunk 130 feet below the Mediterranean’s surface.
Powell — who lost his birthday trip and his ritzy boat — said he tried everything from dropping firecrackers in the water and turning off the engine to deter the attack, but the pod was determined.
“It was a very long attack, and it was really the violence of the attack that surprised me,” he said.
The former boat owner believes the pod — which included two juveniles — could be the same group responsible for terrorizing other skippers in European waters in recent years.
“I have a feeling that this group are boat sinkers — I think they knew what they were doing, I’m sure of it,” Powell said.
Orcas also interfered with a sailing race last year when a boat traveling from the Netherlands to Italy had a 15-minute showdown with the mammals. The crew was forced to drop its sails and make a ruckus to repel them.
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