Orca attacks have been causing havoc across the Mediterranean in recent years, with hundreds of sinkings and vessels left severely damaged.
Experts are concerned about the escalation of the incidents and what makes the ocean mammals turn violent.
One couple’s terrifying experience, not in the Mediterranean, but off the coast of Costa Rica has long served as a warning of the extreme danger such attacks can pose.
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When William Butler voiced his dream to sail across the globe, his wife Simone Butler reluctantly agreed.
Mr Butler, a 60-year-old retired engineer, was a seasoned sailor – he had taken his sailboat from Miami to Maine, Miami to Bermuda, and Miami to Venezuela. But this time, he wanted to circumnavigate the globe, and Ms Butler, then 52, was going with him.
Three weeks into their journey on their 40ft yacht, the unthinkable happened. They were roughly 1900m off the coast of Costa Rica when they were awakened by a thump on June 15, 1989.
Dozens of killer whales had surrounded their boat, and the two were left scrambling after one of the orcas smashed into the yacht’s side creating a hole.
Within minutes water was waist-high as the two frantically gathered up their essential supplies: canned food, bottled water, fishing gear, and a pump called the “Survivor-35” which converts saltwater to fresh water.
The couple then boarded what would be their home for 66-days — a rubber raft.
It was a gruelling 66-day ordeal, with their food supply running out within four weeks. Raw fish, they decided, would have to get them through.
“I forced myself to eat almost two pounds of raw fish a day, and I forced my wife to eat it too”, Mr Butler told UPI from his hospital bed.
On August 19 ,1989, the Costa Rican Coast Guard found the drifting raft 20km off the coast.
They were taken to a hospital in the city of Golfito, where they recovered from dehydration and sunburn.
Despite being in relatively good health, the two had lost over 20kg each, according to UPI.
The Butler’s made a full-recovery, and offered a warning to fellow sailors.
“Oh, that Pacific can be very unfriendly”, Mr Butler told the Los Angeles Times. “From now on, I’ll be staying in the Atlantic.”
However, killer whales are known to cause mayhem in the Atlantic too, with hundreds of vessel ramming incidents off the coast of Portugal, Spain and Morocco recorded.
A similar incident happened only three months ago, when a pod of orcas attacked a yacht off the coast of Portugal on October 10.
Three children, aged eight, 10 and 12, and their parents were forced to abandon their boat in a life raft, but thankfully were later rescued by a nearby fishing vessel.
On September 15, four people had to be rescued from a boat 10 nautical miles off Lisbon, two days before that five people were on board a yacht that sank close to the Fonte da Telha beach and that same day, what is believed to be the same pod of orcas rammed another boat off the Bay of Cascais.
However, a group of experts tasked with determining what was causing the whales to strike rudders and how to stop it, found that rather than trying to hurt people, the orcas just wanted to have fun.
“This looks like play,” said Naomi Rose, a senior scientist at the Animal Welfare Institute who was part of the working group.
“It’s a very dangerous game they’re playing, obviously. But it’s a game.”
Mr Butler died in June 2024, with an obituary describing his many ocean adventures.
“Bill went on to skipper countless voyages, including treasure hunting, fishing, three transatlantic voyages, rounding Cape Horn, and an attempted circumnavigation which ended when his sailboat Siboney was sunk by whales,” it said.
