Sperm whale rams yacht in South Pacific, sinking vessel and forcing four sailors into overnight ordeal

A sperm whale cracked the hull of a yacht in the remote South Pacific, forcing four sailors into a day-and-night fight for survival, AFP reported on Thursday.

The crew of the 16-metre (52-foot) Tai Tam encountered a pod of sperm whales 250 nautical miles north of Norfolk Island. “There was sort of a loud thud. The whole boat was pushed sideways,” said Australian Jemma Cooper, who was thrown from the steering wheel. Her husband Jeremy Cooper, asleep below deck when the impact woke him, said: “It was pretty immediately evident it was very serious.”

The collision gashed the hull, cracked the fibreglass and smashed the starboard steering gear, flooding the vessel. “We could no longer steer the boat, and a boat with no steering quickly becomes a problem,” said French crew member Martin Jaffre, a joiner, who battled the flooding with expansion foam and swam under the boat to inspect the hull.

About 30 minutes after the collision, at 1pm New Zealand time Saturday, the crew activated an emergency beacon. “We declared a full mayday,” said New Zealander Terry Hetherington. The Royal New Zealand Air Force flew a P-8A Poseidon to establish radio communications and coordinate the rescue.

They abandoned the boat for a life raft that night, cutting the tether early Sunday. The 143-metre container ship MV Sofrana Surville rescued them at 6am Sunday, about 18 hours after the encounter. “It was wonderful, wonderful, and just a terrible, terrible ending — but luckily no loss of life,” said Jeremy Cooper.