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Orcas sink $128K yacht in Mediterranean attack: 'Like watching wolves hunt'
- Devasta 2y ago[flagged]
- apwell23 2y agofiled under heartwarming news
- abecedarius 2y agoWhat's your beef with a random boat owner, both of you?
- swed420 2y agoProbably something to do with the typical series of events that unfold before becoming the "owner" of a $128K yacht.
- Gud 2y agoSorry but 128k for a yacht is not a lot of money and should be achievable by anyone who is willing to work hard.
- swed420 2y agoI think you mean to say "is currently achievable by anyone willing to exploit hard" considering most of these people own far more than just the $128K yacht. These acts have lasting repercussions on everybody else in the world, and very rarely ever originate from "hard work."
- Gud 2y agoAre you serious? Many of the people yachting with (fairly midrange) boats are retired professionals with a passion for sailing. Many times people pool their money together.
- swed420 2y agoIt's a good predictor of class, and most in that position exploited their way upward, and/or inherited from those who did so. It's not so much a moral failing as it is a systemic one, because we can rearrange the pieces on the Monopoly board and still get the same predictable rent-seeking behavior.
- dzhiurgis 2y agoI don’t think you ever met real oceanic vagabond. People you see in marinas isn’t them - marinas are super expensive.
- MattPalmer1086 2y agoI think you'll find that the vast majority of people who work very hard have no hope at all of affording $128k for a luxury item. Maybe you just mean it's not a lot of money for very well paid people?
- ur-whale 2y ago> Go team Beast! It's all fun and games until someone brings a shotgun aboard.
- alamortsubite 2y agoThis isn't a bunch of yahoos on a party boat in Corpus Christi Bay. Where is a yacht owner in the Mediterranean going to get a shotgun, and would such a tiny weapon even be effective against a half dozen 8000 lb whales, anyway? I have a hard time believing it'd be worth the risk of getting caught by authorities with an illegal firearm onboard.
- ur-whale 2y ago> I have a hard time believing it'd be worth the risk Well, isn't that nice, we get to do a Gedankeexperiment. You get choose between the two following scenarios: - bringing a shotgun onboard, using it to defend your life by at least inflicting pain to the attacking beast and trying to chase them away. Oh, and yeah, maybe paying a 300 euro fine for trying to make sure you come back home alive. - not bringing a shotgun aboard, getting pummeled, sunk and either eaten or drowned. But sure, you'll not be fined 300 euros. I know what I'd do. Oh, and > where is a yacht owner in the Mediterranean going to get a shotgun LOL. Any large coastal city suburb in either Spain, France or Italy ?
- bell-cot 2y ago> “It’s only a matter of time before someone shoots one of these killer whales,” Powell ominously warned. There's no "animal lovers only" screening for boat ownership, and the captains & owners of small boats are often very invested in them (emotionally and/or financially). Reasonable assumption: The shooting started a while ago, it's only scale-up and media coverage that are matters of time.
- fullspectrumdev 2y agoMost of the countries along that coastline (where you would dock, the other side is like Libya) have rather strict laws about the keeping of firearms, which makes shooting somewhat less likely.
- bell-cot 2y ago> somewhat less likely. Very well put. Though (as others have pointed out), common small firearms are not well-suited to this use case. Might you know about the legality of spearguns, or similar weapons? I'd guess that small explosive charges - typically used for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blast_fishing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blast_fishing - would be both "obvious", and easily available to those least inclined to lawful behavior. And it'd be easy enough to check whether their use would attract real naval or coast guard attention.
- svnt 2y agoIt’s the same as farmers with wolves, coyotes, lynx, etc: shoot, shovel, shut up —just without the shoveling. That is, if you get the predator before it gets your object of value, the data point is lost. We have always been at war with Oceania.
- 317070 2y agoI remember there was a story of an American sailing yacht which got reported for shooting at the orcas. (Someone heard the shots and used AIS to report the boat to the coastguard) Spanish police entered the boat, found the weapons and last I read they are currently awaiting trial for smuggling weapons and possesion of illegal firearms. It is rare for boats to have guns, as transporting guns between countries is a very difficult affair. Edit, found a source: https://euroweeklynews.com/2023/08/18/sailboat-crew-denounced-after-video-shows-them-firing-shots-at-protected-orcas-in-strait-of-gibraltar/ https://euroweeklynews.com/2023/08/18/sailboat-crew-denounce...
- theGeatZhopa 2y agoThey're looking for something that has been experienced earlier after an accidental attack once. May be some food, may be cocaine (like the sharks or the bear), may be alcohol which was in de water after such a crash.. the animals are too get hurt by the actions, so it's clearly not for fun. But, it may be compared with collaboration among other species to get food. May be the orcas are looking at the boats as crows on nuts..
- pmayrgundter 2y agoInteresting idea
- throwaway8384c 2y agoI read one theory to why these attacks happen that seems plausible to me. The Mediterranean has a lot of noise from boats that disturb the marine life. Imagine living 24/7 in a construction site. I think they are angry and desperate.
- cosbgn 2y agoOrca attacks don't happen in the Med. They happen in the Atlantic ocean.
- ofrzeta 2y agoYou read the article or headline? "2-hour Mediterranean Sea attack"
- user3939382 2y agoTFA is about an Orca attack in the Mediterranean
- Gare 2y agoLooks like TFA is wrong. According to other sources, the attack happened near Tarifa and Barbate in Spain, which are on the Atlantic side of the Strait of Gibraltar.
- Mistletoe 2y agohttps://www.the-sun.com/news/12019114/spain-orca-yacht-sink-britain-attack-water/ https://www.the-sun.com/news/12019114/spain-orca-yacht-sink-... This has a map showing attacks and they are definitely also happening in the Mediterranean.
- orwin 2y agoI wonder why we suddenly see this in news. Orcas learned how to sink sailing boats around a decade ago, and seems to teach the technique to other pods. What to do is also known, move the rudder and fins back in the boat, open a gas jerrican, spread the gas around the boat and wait.
- scrumper 2y ago> move the rudder and fins back in the boat What does that mean?
- numpad0 2y agoNot sure but retracting outboard devices out of water?
- scrumper 2y agoShort of a 10' dinghy I can't think of any boat where you can remove the rudder and even if 'fin' means 'centerboard' that's still dinghy stuff. Nobody (bar a once-a-generation daredevil) is dinghying across the Atlantic.
- argiopetech 2y agoThere are a number of 40+ foot boats with centerboards, e.g., the Wellington 44 (first that came to mind). Rudders removable underway are less common, but not unknown. Additional rudders like you might find on a non-integrated autonav/windvane system can frequently be moved out of the water. Same with emergency rudders. Still, non-standard language here. You may be interested to know about the annual trans-atlantic rowing races, where crews compete on boats as small as 6m (Rannoch 10 solo) to cross from the Canaries to Antigua. 40+ crews of 1-5 are scheduled to compete this year. Not quite 10 foot dinghies, but still impressive in a "mildly unhinged" way. Nothing but respect for these folks.
- scrumper 2y ago
- Tehnix 2y agoImagine this happening on a longer sail where help might be much further away, that’s kinda scary I definitely would not be surprised if this ends up in people being prepared for these attacks in the future, if this keeps occurring, and I’m afraid that won’t do good for the orcas.
- blinding-streak 2y agoCan you buy a yacht for $128k? Maybe a very old one. Not sure about the European boat market.
- 6510 2y agoToday 2500 Euro is enough. https://www.marktplaats.nl/l/watersport-en-boten/kajuitzeilboten-en-zeiljachten/#q:jacht|PriceCentsFrom:100000|sortBy:PRICE|sortOrder:INCREASING|postcode:|searchInTitleAndDescription:true https://www.marktplaats.nl/l/watersport-en-boten/kajuitzeilb...
- ljlolel 2y agoYacht can just mean 40 foot boat
- argiopetech 2y agoTechnically, anything over 26 feet can be a yacht.
- DemocracyFTW2 2y agoTIL 'technically' is the new 'ackshelly'
- argiopetech 2y agoIt wasn't meant in that way, as the definition includes parent's 40ft example. Having said that, I now can't find a source that 26ft is the cutoff. I'll retract the statement pending source.
- Gare 2y agoIt's a 39 foot sailboat
- 317070 2y ago128k is a pretty expensive one. I've done week long holidays on much cheaper boats. The cost of boats is more in maintenance and storage, which tends to be 10-20% of the price of the boat per year.
- cosbgn 2y agoI'm a skipper and I recently spoke with other skippers who do these routes often. All orca attacks happen of 20mt+ deep waters. It's common knowledge that in the hot orca areas you must be in shallow waters (20mt or less). As in all orca attacks so far, also this one was on a hot area and on deep waters.
- kuschku 2y agoWhat kind of nautical unit is mt? I don't see it anywhere on the unit table https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_Units https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_Units
- cosbgn 2y agoMeters
- emilfihlman 2y ago[flagged]
- keepamovin 2y agoThe arrogance of someone from another field telling someone else how they should write their units. Just get used to differences. Hahaha! :)
- Gud 2y agoThis is the only time I’ve seen meters abbreviated as “mt”. I have seen “metric tonne” written as mt though.
- hanche 2y agoHa, clearly mt means millitonne. It’s a complicated way to write kilogram. I use it that way sometimes, but only jokingly. I also enjoy confusing people by using Mm for a thousand kilometers. It’s correct, but unexpected
- JohnMakin 2y agoReally don’t buy the “this is a rogue pod of juvenile orcas that are just playing.” The fact they seem to deliberately target the rudder first in most of these attacks doesn’t really seem like “play” it seems like an intent to do damage. Why? Who knows, we haven’t figured out how to communicate with them.
- moomin 2y agoThe idea that what they’re doing is deliberately destructive and the idea that they’re playing are not mutually exclusive.
- scrumper 2y agoYes exactly. Teenage humans frequently do monumentally stupid and destructive stuff because they're bored or want to impress peers. Everything on a continuum from egging and TP'ing houses to keying cars, graffiti/tagging, breaking windows on abandoned buildings, shoplifting, vandalizing public structures, breaking into cars, stealing cars and joyriding, to actual gang murder.
- dmix 2y agoHumans don't handle news story with neutral actors well. We're very conditioned to expect motivated overtly good/bad characters in all stories so people don't handle the possibility well that some things are just agents of chaos. Similar to the recent assassination attempt.
- tossandthrow 2y ago> Why? Why any species with the slightest ability to memorize would (counter)attack humans? One can only wonder. Humans are not particularly known to treat wildlife that well.
- keepamovin 2y agoYeah. I don't think we can ascribe harmless benevolent animal motivations to them. Orcas have much larger brains than us. They're apex predators, aggressive physically and sexually. It's likely that this type of behavior is like a hoodlum gang. I'm all for animals. I just don't think you need to be "animal behaviorist apologists" for anything. People who always blame humans / explain away animal behaviors under some mistaken ideal that animals are always good, humans are at fault.
- dommus 2y agoI dare to suggest that in a very early incident, the owners of a yacht fired a gun on the whales and killed one. Then, the pod is attacking any similar yacht around the area. Is that behavior unique to killer whales? Of course not. Crows also attack people - https://mothership.sg/2024/07/crow-attack-tampines-hdb-bleeding-scalp/ https://mothership.sg/2024/07/crow-attack-tampines-hdb-bleed... In every case of crow attacks, someone had pruned earlier the city trees and in the process the crow chicks fell from the nests and died. A group of crows is called a murder.
- ASalazarMX 2y ago> I dare to suggest that in a very early incident, the owners of a yacht fired a gun on the whales and killed one. Then, the pod is attacking any similar yacht around the area. Unhinged speculation aside, What kind of gun could possibly kill a whale?
- silverquiet 2y agoI’ve had this thought since reading about Orcas attacking yachts; it seems inevitable that the humans will do what they usually do when threatened. You can buy a fifty-caliber rifle fairly readily in the US which I believe will disable most vehicles when fired at the engine block. I’m far from an expert but I suspect that will severely injure just about any mammal. And obviously humans hunted even large whales historically, so the techniques and equipment must be known to some.
- dzhiurgis 2y agoUnsure, but it’s a bit of a secret that people in the area carry guns to protect from orcas..
- Drubbard 2y ago[dead]
- znpy 2y agoGo orcas!