In an intimidating deep-sea incident, a number of killer whales attacked a yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar and caused damage to the rudders of the vessel, a viral video surfaced on social media showed.

In the video posted by a user Catamaran Guru on Instagram, one of the whales can be seen swimming off with a rudder.

The total number of orcas was eight as Dan Kriz, the captain, was sailing through the Strait.

Kriz told Newsweek in an interview that “we were about to cross shipping lines and turning south to the Canary Islands when we felt like we got bad with a wave. When the orcas rammed the boat a second time, the sailor realised what was happening.”

“My first reaction was, ‘Please! Not again,'” Kriz said as, according to him, he also came across orcas back in 2020 in the same sea.

Kriz was delivering a catamaran for a Florida-based company Catamaran Guru when the orcas targeted: “It didn’t take them that long to destroy both rudders. Looks like they knew exactly what they were doing. They didn’t touch anything else.”

Orcas have been targeting these ships in the same region and experts are weighing in to explain why is that so.

According to a popular theory, a female orca named White Gladis may have experienced a traumatic event that triggered a change in her behaviour to attack vessels and other orcas could be imitating her actions in the region, Insider reported.

Kriz believed a female orca led the attack on his boat.

“Suddenly, one big adult orca started chasing us. In a couple of minutes, she was under the boat, and that was when we realised there was still a little piece of fibreglass left, and she wanted to finish the job. After that, we didn’t see them anymore,” he noted.

According to an expert, the orca attacks in the region would only escalate.

Even so, many have warned that, ultimately, sailors are in the orcas’ habitat, so they should be left alone and not demonized.

Kriz said: “I’m strongly against harming the orcas. The bottom line is, we are in their territory.”