Whale Attack Sinks Yacht and Leaves Sailors Stranded

A dream sailing trip through the South Pacific turned into a terrifying fight for survival after a sperm whale collided with an Australian yacht, badly damaging the vessel and ultimately sending it to the bottom of the ocean.

Four sailors aboard the Tai Tam survived the dramatic ordeal and were rescued early Sunday morning after spending the night hundreds of miles from land.

The incident unfolded Saturday, September 26, roughly 250 nautical miles north of Norfolk Island, a remote Australian territory in the South Pacific between Australia and New Zealand. New Zealand defense officials identified the Tai Tam as an Australian-flagged yacht measuring about 51 feet long. NZDF

Australian sailor Jemma Cooper was at the helm when the vessel was suddenly hit.

“There was sort of a loud thud. The whole boat was pushed sideways,” Cooper recalled in an interview with AFP.

The force was powerful enough to throw her away from the steering wheel.

At first, the crew had no idea what had happened. But Cooper soon noticed discoloration in the water and spotted a sperm whale nearby. Looking off the port side, the sailors could see a group of roughly six to eight whales in the area.

That was when they realized their yacht had apparently collided with one of the enormous animals.

Cooper’s husband, Jeremy, had been sleeping below deck when the impact jolted him awake.

Within moments, the seriousness of the damage became clear.

The yacht’s steering equipment had been smashed, several sections of the hull were damaged and water was pouring inside.

French crew member Martin Jaffre said the collision created multiple gashes and cracked parts of the vessel’s fiberglass structure. With the steering system no longer functioning, the sailors were left aboard a badly damaged vessel in an extremely remote stretch of ocean.

The crew initially tried to save the Tai Tam rather than immediately abandon it.

Jaffre reportedly used whatever materials were available, including expanding foam, in an effort to slow the flooding. He even entered the water to inspect the underside of the damaged yacht while the others continued bailing water and attempting to keep vital equipment operating.

But the ocean kept winning.

About 30 minutes after the collision, the sailors activated their Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon, or EPIRB, and issued a mayday.

That decision would prove critical.

An EPIRB is designed for emergencies in remote waters. Once activated, it transmits a distress signal and location information that can allow rescue authorities to begin searching even when a vessel is far beyond normal cellphone coverage.

New Zealand’s Rescue Coordination Centre received the Tai Tam’s beacon at approximately 1 p.m. Saturday and requested military assistance. The Royal New Zealand Air Force dispatched a P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, which located the sailors and established radio communications with them while other vessels were directed toward the area. NZDF

For hours, however, the four sailors remained aboard the crippled yacht.

Eventually, it became clear they could no longer keep Tai Tam afloat.

Under calm conditions and a full moon, the crew abandoned the yacht and climbed aboard a life raft.

Even then, their ordeal was not over.

The sailors initially remained tethered to the yacht, but as the damaged vessel continued sinking, they feared it could pull the life raft beneath the surface with it.

They cut themselves free.

Not long afterward, the Tai Tam disappeared beneath the Pacific.

By then, rescuers were closing in.

At approximately 6 a.m. Sunday, the 470-foot cargo vessel MV Sofrana Surville reached the stranded sailors and pulled all four to safety. The rescue came roughly 17 to 18 hours after the initial emergency began. No injuries were reported. NZDF

Jeremy Cooper recalled that seeing such a massive commercial vessel approaching their tiny life raft was intimidating in its own right.

Within about half an hour, however, the sailors had climbed aboard, where they were given coffee and finally had the chance to process just how close their Pacific adventure had come to ending in tragedy.

“It was wonderful, wonderful, and just a terrible, terrible ending — but luckily no loss of life,” Cooper said.

Rescue officials said the sailors’ preparation played a major role in the successful outcome.

Rescue Coordination Centre Operations Manager Mike Clulow praised the cooperation between New Zealand’s military, Australian and New Caledonian rescue authorities, the cargo ship and another private sailing vessel involved in the response.

Clulow specifically pointed to the crew’s early use of the EPIRB, saying their quick action made it much easier for rescuers to find them.

The incident is also an important reminder of just how isolated sailors can become in the South Pacific. At 250 nautical miles from Norfolk Island, the Tai Tam was roughly 288 regular miles from the island when disaster struck.

Sperm whales are among the largest animals in the ocean. Adult males can reach roughly 50 to 60 feet long, meaning a full-grown male can be as long as — or longer than — the Tai Tam itself.

There is also no indication that the whale deliberately attacked the yacht. Although encounters between whales and boats can produce spectacular damage, investigators and rescue officials have described what happened to the Tai Tam as a collision or whale strike rather than intentional aggression.

For the four sailors, that distinction did little to change the outcome.

Their yacht was gone, their Pacific vacation was abruptly over, and nearly an entire night had been spent waiting for help in one of the world’s most remote stretches of ocean.

But every person aboard survived — something New Zealand officials credited in large part to emergency preparation, a working distress beacon and the crew’s decision to call for help before the situation became even worse. NZDF