Orcas damaged two sailing yachts in Galicia inside a day. The first was the 42-foot Seika, hit at the mouth of the Ría de Pontevedra on the evening of Saturday 29 August. Three or four orcas surrounded her. She was left missing about half the rudder blade. Five sailors were aboard, none of them hurt, and the boat kept going. On Sunday afternoon a second yacht, Moya, called Spain's maritime rescue service from the northern entrance to the Ría de Vigo with two sailors aboard. After the encounter with the orcas their yacht had lost steering.
What happened to Seika
Seika had spent Saturday racing. She sailed the fourth Trofeo Ignacio Montenegro, a regatta for classic and veteran boats. Club Náutico San Vicente de O Grove runs it; around thirty boats entered. Her own berth is at Combarro marina, further up the same inlet. She was heading south for Baiona and the next event, which is why she was still out at that hour. She met the orcas at about 19.00.
Crew member Gage Butler filmed what happened and put it on Instagram the following day. Three or four orcas, by his count, stayed with the boat for about eight minutes.
Gage Butler, Seika crew:“Pretty sure they were juveniles just playing with the boat, which ended up breaking the rudder.
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He watched the whole thing. "It was so cool to see how smart these animals are and how they play and hunt as a pod. But at the same time my adrenaline was pumping…" The half-a-rudder figure is Butler's own; Spanish reports call the blade destroyed. Seika steered badly afterwards and carried on under her own power.
Moya reaches Baiona under escort
The second call reached Salvamento Marítimo at 13.00 on Sunday 30 August. The service's own post gave the boat's name — Moya, two people aboard, reporting she had lost steering after orcas damaged the rudder.
The service's rescue boat Salvamar Mirach found her at the northern entrance to the Ría de Vigo. No water coming in, engine running, so Moya motored the rest of the way at six knots with the rescuers alongside and tied up at Baiona marina at 16.30.
Scientists were on the same water that afternoon, aboard the research boat Savana, studying orca behaviour. The crew say Savana carries a reinforced metal rudder, designed for exactly these encounters with marine animals.
Orcas have been damaging yachts for years
The Iberian orcas are a small, distinct population along the Atlantic coasts of Spain and Portugal, usually put at fewer than fifty adults. Interactions have been recorded since 2020, and they centre on the rudder. Why is still not clear. Play and social learning among young orcas are the explanations that come up most often in the reporting, and Butler landed on the same idea from the cockpit.
The counts are approximate and keep moving. English-language coverage of these two incidents puts the running total above 700 interactions since 2020, around 250 boats damaged and at least nine sunk; other outlets say more than 750. None of that reporting carries a comment from GTOA, the Atlantic Orca Working Group — the Spanish and Portuguese body that keeps the count of these interactions and publishes it as Orca Ibérica.
Galicia has been here before. In 2020, as itBoat reported at the time, Spain closed a stretch of the Galician coast to boats under 15 metres for a week and advised them to keep clear of the rest of the region.
That same Sunday, passengers on a Mar de Ons excursion boat watched orcas between Portonovo and the Cíes Islands. Nothing happened to that boat — the orcas were close to people that afternoon and left it alone. The damage in these encounters lands on the rudders of sailing yachts.
Photo: Salvamento Marítimo. Source: Marine Industry News, El Español / Europa Press, Pontevedraviva, El Debate, Salvamento Marítimo, Gage Butler (Instagram).
