Environment Animals

The off-schedule

20 orcas mistake rudder blade for whale fin: the misadventure in Gibraltar

The story of journalist Enzo Bencini engaged in a crossing of the Atlantic Ocean, from Martinique to Malaga, with a stop in the Azores

16/05/2023

Rai/Tg1

Everything ended with a happy ending, and it is the same Enzo Bencini, from Livorno, to tell Tg1 what happened in the Strait of Gibraltar. The journalist, busy concluding the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean, from Martinique to Malaga, with a stop in the Azores, came across with the rest of the crew in an attack of killer whales. A pod of twenty cetaceans that continued to slam against the hull until it detached part of the rudder blade: "They mistook it for the fin of a whale". Bencini, now retired, an expert on the sea, continued: "The skipper was faster than everyone else and immediately sensed the danger." A piece of the rudder at one point is visible in the water, with killer whales slinging at it. Fortunately, the second rudder was not affected by the attack. The seven crew members were unharmed. The repair, precarious, then three days of navigation: "It was hard but we did it".