A British sailor recalled his terrifying shut encounter with a pod of killer whales that slammed round his boat "like a rag doll". Captain Iain Hamilton, 60, was left on the mercy of 5 killer whales on Friday after they broke off the rudders of his boat and began pushing it round.

The Butey of the Clyde, which was crusing some 30 km off the coast of Gibraltar on the time of the encounter, is without doubt one of the newest boats to have sustained an assault by these animals within the space.

While he did not minimise the scary encounter, the sailor additionally mentioned he would not consider the animals needed to hurt him or destroy the boat, one thing they might have simply achieved so had they needed to.

Appearing on BBC Radio 4, the sailor mentioned: "I was sailing 20 miles west of Gibraltar, noticed a fin then noticed a light bump and then a very big bump and looked round and there was a very large whale pushing along the back and trying to bite the rudder.

"To start with there was one huge whale and 4 smaller whales they usually have been simply bumping it and bumping it after which one among them managed to take off one of many rudders - the boat has two.

"Then we lost the second rudder so we had no mechanism of steering the boat and the whales were in charge of the boat and they pushed us around like a rag doll."

Mr Hamilton went on to take a position the larger killer whale was main the assault and was joined within the chase by the 4 youthful animals in what seemed "almost like synchronised swimming".

He conceded: "If you were in a play park or something you would have thought that was magnificent. At the time I maybe had a different thought."

Mr Hamilton mentioned that, since he has been ready to get his boat repaired, he has seen a 60ft catamaran getting into the harbour with in depth damages.

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The sailor expressed his issues the frequent assaults could have a ripple impact on the native economic system, as he mentioned: "I think it is only a matter of time before the insurance companies say, 'You're not insured' which will have an impact on the local industry."

The variety of boats rescued by Salvamento Maritimo, Spain's search and rescue maritime service, within the first half of 2023 has nearly doubled when in comparison with incidents recorded in the entire of 2022. In the Strait of Gibraltar alone, 24 vessels have been towed this 12 months.

Data collected by the Atlantic Orca Working Group (GTOA) steered that, over the previous three years, there have been 744 encounters between killer whales and boats recorded between the coast of North Africa and Brittany.

More than 500 of those have been direct interactions, with the animals responding kind of on to the presence of the vessels within the water, whereas the others have been mere sightings.

Biomarine specialists are hoping that monitoring killer whales with GPS tags will assist forestall additional assaults.

One of these believed to be concerned within the encounter with Mr Hamilton has already been tagged with a non-invasive GPS system.

Six different whales are additionally set to be tagged after they have been recognized because the culprits in different boat assaults.

The data obtained by the monitoring will probably be shared with related administrations, which in flip will share it with sailors as a way to try to minimise the interactions with the animals.

The tagging is being promoted by the Spanish Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (Miteco), who's working with the Conservation, Information and Study on Cetaceans (CIRCE) group.