 |
2023 in Review |
By Rachel Riederer |
The Year of the Orca
On the night of May 4th, the skipper Werner Schaufelberger was sailing the Swiss yacht Champagne toward a Spanish port town on the Strait of Gibraltar when he heard a loud rumble. His first thought was that the boat had hit something, but he quickly realized that the vessel was under assault—by a group of orcas. “The attacks were brutal,” Schaufelberger told the German magazine Yacht. Three orcas, the large black-and-white dolphins also known as killer whales, worked in tandem; a large orca rammed the boat from the side while two smaller ones gnawed at the rudder until it was destroyed and the yacht was taking on water. Schaufelberger radioed for help, and the Spanish Coast Guard sent a helicopter and rescue cruiser to collect the four people on board. None were injured. The only casualty was the Champagne itself, which sank while being towed toward land.
it is for revenge for past wrongs or to promote some other melodramatic storyline.”
Can you blame us, though? We love charismatic megafauna. And orcas, in particular, have rizz. When a crew tried, this autumn, to deter a group of orcas from approaching their boat by blasting heavy metal underwater, the plan backfired—and the orcas chased the boat down because, you can only assume, they love metal. Orcas occupy a sweet spot in terms of how humans see wildlife: they’re captivatingly alien, but the presence of trained orcas in film and amusement parks has taught us to think of them in relation to our own culture—often as a symbol for nature reacting to human overreach. When such creatures start ramming the boats associated with the rich, it’s natural to want to connect the dots.
Recall what else was happening at sea early this summer, at the same time that melodramatic orca story lines reached a fever pitch. On June 18th, a small group of ultrawealthy individuals perished in the Titan submersible disaster in the depths of the North Atlantic. On June 14th, more than six hundred people from South Asia and the Middle East trying to reach Europe drowned when an overcrowded boat capsized in the Mediterranean Sea. There was a moment when some ugly truths were starkly outlined: who has to take serious risks to escape danger, and who is so used to being safe that they can court danger in the name of adventure. To look at the news in June was to think about safety, and the terrors of the ocean, and extreme division between the haves and the have-nots.
Like any catastrophe, the climate collapse will have its gallows humor, and the fascination with the orcas—like the surge of interest in the Titan disaster—mined a vein of real discontent. Global wealth inequality is at Gilded Age levels. The ten richest men on earth doubled their fortunes during the pandemic. A new study reports that the wealthiest ten per cent of Americans are responsible for nearly half of the national carbon emissions. The air is smoky, the storms are crazy, and the superyacht industry is booming as never before. A fed-up endangered species seems an apt avatar for economic and environmental anxiety combining and turning to rage.
The truth, of course, is that nature cannot do the work of saving us from ourselves. Shamu’s distant cousins aren’t staging a rebellion. The ruling classes won’t be eaten by large dolphins. By all indications, the rich are going to continue to fly in private jets as rising sea levels and natural disasters force others to leave their homes. Some may have even attended the year’s cop summit, which offered a panel on environmentally sustainable yachting. ♦
The Year of the Orca
On the night of May 4th, the skipper Werner Schaufelberger was sailing the Swiss yacht Champagne toward a Spanish port town on the Strait of Gibraltar when he heard a loud rumble. His first thought was that the boat had hit something, but he quickly realized that the vessel was under assault—by a group of orcas. “The attacks were brutal,” Schaufelberger told the German magazine Yacht. Three orcas, the large black-and-white dolphins also known as killer whales, worked in tandem; a large orca rammed the boat from the side while two smaller ones gnawed at the rudder until it was destroyed and the yacht was taking on water. Schaufelberger radioed for help, and the Spanish Coast Guard sent a helicopter and rescue cruiser to collect the four people on board. None were injured. The only casualty was the Champagne itself, which sank while being towed toward land.
.png?format=original)
