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A pod of orcas smashed a $128k yacht into pieces in the Mediterranean in a two-hour attack described by its owner as “terrifying.” Robert Powell, the owner of the 39-foot Bonhomme William, told the New York Post that he had set sail from Vilamoura, Portugal only a day prior on a birthday trip to Greece when the orcas struck. “To me, they were not playing at all, they knew exactly what they were doing,” Powell told the Post. “They knew the weak points of the boat, and they knew how to sink it,” he added. Powell described five orcas circling the boat “like watching wolves hunt,” before they began attacking the rudder. Powell radioed for help as the attack began. Fifteen hits from the killer whales later, the boat was dead in the water, two miles off the Spanish coast. “They were taking it in turns to come in—sometimes two would come in at the same time and hit it,” Powell described the whales’ attack. With the rudder gone, the whales began knocking the hull for an hour and a half before the boat split. “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. A Spanish salvage vessel arrived only minutes before Powell’s boat capsized.
