My understanding from anecdotes[1] is that it's common for dolphins to play with small boats by intentionally getting the humans' attention (e.g. splashing wat

My understanding from anecdotes[1] is that it's common for dolphins to play with small boats by intentionally getting the humans' attention (e.g. splashing water on them), and a lot of sailors think they understand that humans control the motion of the boat. Though it is sketchy anecdotes. However, they are almost certainly smart enough to understand how rowboats work and that humans control them. Orcas have been considering human boats for tens of thousands of years and they have human-like cultural transmission of knowledge; perhaps they could quickly adapt what they knew about rowboats to sailboats when those were invented, then motorboats. [1] E.g. https://www.quora.com/Do-whales-know-that-big-ships-are-controlled-by-contain-humans https://www.quora.com/Do-whales-know-that-big-ships-are-cont...