Dr Wim Rutten, a 72-year-old retired Dutch physicist and experienced yachtsperson, was sailing solo from Lerwick to Bergen in Norway.
“I said: ‘Shit!’” Rutten, who said he had heard about the “Portuguese accidents”, told the Guardian.
The whale hit again and again, creating “soft shocks” through the aluminium hull.
“What I felt [was] most frightening was the very loud breathing of the animal,” he said.
The orca stayed behind the boat “looking for the keel.
This is the same behaviour that has been seen in the Iberian orca population, but it is the first time it has been known to happen in northern waters.
Highly social cetaceans, orcas use complex vocalisations to communicate and to hunt for food, from small fish to blue whales. »
