A crew of sailors have recounted how they survived their terrifying encounter with killer whales – before the same pod of orcas sank a tourist vessel nearby.
The ‘Nova Vida’ set out on a day trip on Saturday to sail from Cascais, off the coast of Lisbon, to Sines when the boat was attacked. On board were three 20-year-old Norwegians, currently planning an expedition around the world, and their captain.
Chilling video from their cockpit shared with the Daily Mail showed the 57ft boat’s steering wheels spinning as killer whales rammed the hull and rudder repeatedly just after 12pm on September 13.
The crew could be seen struggling to stand, and panic broke out as the yacht was pummelled again and again.
Elise Wurschmidt, on board at the time, told the Daily Mail the orcas pushed against the autopilot until the steering mechanism broke in two.
‘We turned on the engine and some minutes later the wheel just starts to spin uncontrolled, so we figured something might be wrong,’ she said. ‘And then on the side of the boat we could just see a huge orca.’
The crew slammed the boat into reverse when the whales suddenly attacked the helm. Having sustained heavy hits to the rudder, ‘we quickly lost control’, fellow crew-member Lisa Festervoll told Seilmagasinet.
The whole boat shook, ‘hit hard and quickly’. They were ‘in disbelief’ as a six-metre long killer whale passed by the side of the vessel, Lisa said.
They used what they had to hand, thinking back to old sailor stories of fighting off whales with sand and vinegar. The women are seen pouring vinegar – ‘the cheapest one from Carrefour’, they say – into the water,in an effort to deter the whales.
‘We really don’t think that the vinegar did anything,’ Elise stressed. ‘But we just poured because it’s better than to feel helpless in the situation.
‘We do think that reversing the engine did have an effect because when you back up the rudder, the propeller sucks instead of blowing out, so maybe the whale doesn’t like that.’
With the rudders struck several times, the vessel began to turn in circles. A tracker showed the vessel circle eight times as the crew tried to fend off the whales.
Footage showed the crew walking on the deck, pouring vinegar into the ocean as the boat turned in rapid circles.
After ‘several intense minutes and hard hits on the rudder’, the whales finally moved on as five or six attacked the sinking Oceanview some 500 metres away.
Oceanview, a tourist boat, was ‘ravaged’ by the orcas until it sank. Pictures shared with the Daily Mail showed the stern sticking out above the waves, the rest underwater.
All five people on board were rescued, but the crew on board the Nova Vida spent another hour and a half sat waiting for help.
Festervoll said they could only ‘cross their fingers’ that the pod would not return to attack their damaged boat.
The Norwegians could be seen in the background of video footage as the Oceanview tourist boat was rushed until it sank off Fonte da Telha beach on Saturday.
In the end, the crew of the Nova Vida were able to install their emergency rudder and pry it enough to get them the 10 nautical miles back to Cascais, to the north.
A Rigid Inflatable Boat from the coast guard came to support, driving alongside on standby.
The Nova Vida will need a few weeks of repairs before it is ready to set sail again, but the group continue to share their journey on Instagram.
They hope to go on to sail across the Atlantic in Fatuhiva, currently under repair in Germany.
Portuguese coastguard officials said the Oceanview sinking occurred approximately five nautical miles from the beach at Fonte da Telha.
Footage of the incident shared by sailing company Mercedes-Benz Oceanic Lounge showed an orca repeatedly striking the underside of the yacht.
Bernardo Queiroz, director of the Oceanic Lounge, said his vessel was on a dolphin watching tour when they noticed the Oceanview making erratic movements.
The Portuguese coast guard was called in two days later, on Monday, to save four people stuck on a sailboat in Costa da Caparica that suffered ‘successive collisions … caused by orcas’, before being accompanied on to the port of Cascais, to the north.
Attacks are relatively common. Between 2020 and 2023 there were reportedly around 500 attacks.
No humans have been injured, but 20 per cent of the vessels have been damaged and several were lost.
