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SVN Solovelanet Global
was white, a colour that resembles very much that of
a ceta-cean's belly.Orcas often attack other cetace-
ans, also to show their cubs how to behave against a
potentially competitor species.Sailboats are not at-
tacked if the orcas' sonars deem their hulls not easy
to damage (aluminium, fibreglass), but wood gave
orcas a "softer" signal. They probably real-ized that
it was not a marine mammal, but the return of the
signal in the case of wood may also de-ceive them,
the biologist explained. And they may also strike
non-aggressively, just to show their cub how to do it.
But it was we who joined their pack, on their route.
We discovered later that we accidentally ended up
on the route of a migration. And in that area there
were no merchant ship routes.
SVN - Did you manage to call for rescue before
abandoning the ship?
G.d.M.- The first thing we tried to do before aban-
doning the boat was to communicate via radio, but
the de-vice was already wet, so we were unable to
launch any emergency calls. That day, however, we
had to communicate our position to the regatta co
-
ordinators, and when we failed to do so, those asho-
re were alarmed.
Above: someone
decided to go for a swim
while an killer whale is
nearby with her young:
bad idea. Beside: one
of the rudders torn off
during an attack by killer
whales off Spain in the
Atlantic
