Photo: gettyimages
From Yacht by Ursula Meer
An orca and a boat: once an awe-inspiring sight, now a frightening one.
To help sailors on the Iberian Peninsula plan their routes, the Portuguese Navy has therefore now published a map showing sightings and attacks.
A new official Orca map produced by the Portuguese Navy is designed to help sailors plan their routes. It brings together sightings and attacks along the Portuguese coast.
However, when looking at the figures in particular, it remains true that the maps provide a valuable overview of the situation, not a comprehensive set of statistics
On 8 September 2026, the Instituto Hidrográfico, the Portuguese Navy’s Hydrographic Institute, launched an online platform for orca sightings.
The
Official Orca Portal displays reported sightings and interactions on maps, highlights nautical warnings and accepts new sighting or attack reports via an online form.
Anyone who registers can also receive notifications by email.
For sailors, this is more than just another map.
For the first time, a Portuguese authority is bringing all this information together in an official service. However, it does not replace your own route planning, nor does it replace ongoing warnings or radio contact whilst at sea.
The orcas had damaged the rudder so badly that water poured in and the boat was beyond saving.
The two sailors on board were rescued by a nearby motorboat – unharmed, but without their boat.
It is the latest in a series of eight documented total losses since 2022.
Incidents such as this one demonstrate why reliable real-time information is no mere academic exercise for sailors in Orca Alley.
This makes it all the more significant that the Instituto Hidrográfico, the Portuguese Navy’s Hydrographic Institute, launched a platform for orca incidents on 8 September 2026.
The official Orca portal displays reported sightings and interactions on maps, provides links to nautical warnings and accepts new reports of sightings or attacks via an online form.
Anyone who registers can also receive email notifications.
For sailors, this is more than just another chart.
For the first time, a Portuguese authority has brought all this information together in an official publication.
However, it does not replace your own route planning, nor does it replace ongoing warnings or radio contact whilst at sea.
What's happening right now Anyone scrolling through the Facebook pages of the relevant orca groups these days will quickly get a sense of the scale of the problem.
Between 1 August and 7 September alone, attacks were reported: twice off Huelva, once off Tarifa, near Setúbal, off Laxe, Vigo, Cabo de São Vicente and Penedo da Saudade.
In between, there have been repeated sightings – and reports of crews who escaped unharmed.
One of these reports comes from sailor Elin Power.
In the ‘Orca Attack Reports’ group, she wrote about an attack that lasted around 10 to 20 minutes and involved more than ten strikes against the boat.
She said she had followed the standard procedures: engine off, steering released, pots banged against steel parts.
Then the orcas abruptly swam off.
Her conclusion: “I think we had a lucky day.”
The rudder was intact, and no water had got in.
A nearby motorboat skipper had stayed close by – that gesture alone had given her a sense of security.
At the same time, sailors repeatedly report harmless or even no sightings of orcas at all.
This shows that an encounter is possible, but not inevitable.
Official map and private initiative
Anyone wishing to sail safely through this dangerous area should avoid any encounter in the first place. That is why various organisations have been collecting data for years on the orcas and their routes along the Iberian Peninsula – some for scientific purposes, others to protect sailors.
One of the most important private providers in this regard in recent years has been Rui Alves with his website
orcas.pt.
His website collects reports from a large network of sailors, observation boats and other contacts, and publishes the latest events, including the location, time and classification as a sighting or incident.
In response to a query from YACHT, Alves explains how he goes about his work: every report is checked individually.
He interviews skippers in person, compares reports from crews who were in the area on the same day, and requests photographs.
Identifiable orcas are matched to individual animals using photographs in order to understand their movement patterns.
“This allows me to verify 80 to 90 per cent of cases,” he says.
But Alves takes it a step further: every day, he posts movement forecasts for well-known orca pods on Facebook.
These are based on the last reported position, combined with an assumed average speed of two to three knots.
This makes it possible to estimate when a group might pass a particular stretch of coastline – not real-time tracking, but a concrete planning guide.
These alerts are also sent to his Telegram community, which now comprises more than 3,000 sailors.
The Instituto Hidrográfico explains that its mapping module also displays events that extend beyond
orcaiberica.org and reported to
orcas.pt.
Orcaiberica.org is run by the Grupo de Trabajo Orca Atlántica (GTOA), a Spanish network of scientists which has been collecting data since the incidents began and publishes monthly interaction maps.
Rui Alves describes the collaboration in more detail in response to a query from YACHT: According to him, he regularly sends the Instituto Hidrográfico – albeit with a slight delay – all sightings and interactions collected on orcas.pt.
The institute presents this data and supplements it with its own reports.
“The Institute uses my data as a basis and also supplements it with its own reports,” writes Alves.
This means that the official map is not a completely separate second data source.
It is a consolidated representation of official warnings, reports from
orcas.pt, information from orcaiberica.org and other data.
The Instituto Hidrográfico expressly points out that an event may appear multiple times due to the consolidation of external sources.
Time discrepancies are also possible, as Alves, according to his own statement, does not transmit his data without delay.
In terms of interpretation, this means that the map provides a broad, useful overview for route planning, but is not a finalised set of overall statistics covering all incidents.
Not a real-time image in the strict sense
The Navy refers to updated, georeferenced information.
This is useful for route planning – but it is not a real-time picture in the technical sense.
Time can elapse between observation, reporting, plausibility checks and publication.
Furthermore, not all encounters are reported.
Then there is the question of terminology.
A sighting initially only indicates that orcas have been observed.
An interaction or attack describes contact with a boat.
Damage to the rudder, loss of manoeuvrability and a distress situation are yet further categories. Anyone looking at a map must therefore always check what the respective point actually documents.
This distinction is also important because the causes of the behaviour have not yet been conclusively established. Experts debate whether it is play, exploration, learnt behaviour or other explanations
A recently published scientific review also emphasises, that the well-known approaches explain various aspects of the phenomenon, but do not provide a definitive answer.
In recent years, several organisations have established themselves around Orca Alley off the Iberian coast, collecting, analysing and disseminating sightings and incidents.
They adopt different approaches, collect different data – and do not always cooperate with one another.
An overview:
- orcas.pt (Rui Alves, Portugal) The most comprehensive private platform featuring a real-time map, daily movement forecasts and a Telegram community of over 3,000 sailors.
Every report is checked individually: Alves interviews skippers in person, compares reports from the same area and requests photos.
The data is regularly passed on to the Instituto Hidrográfico.
Reports can be submitted via orcas.pt/orcasreport or directly via Telegram.
- Hydrographic Institute (Portuguese Navy, since 8 September 2026) The new official portal brings together data from three sources: reports from the national maritime warning system ANAV, entries from orcaiberica.org and data from orcas.pt. It is therefore not an independent data collection effort, but rather a consolidated presentation – with the explicit note that duplicates may occur. Useful as an official overview of the Portuguese coastline, supplemented by an email alert service and a dedicated reporting form.
- Cruising Association (CA, United Kingdom) The CA operates its own Orca information and reporting portal at theca.org.uk/orcas in four languages – English, French, Portuguese and Spanish.
The Orca project group is led by Paul Lingard.
The CA collects not only reports of attacks but also of uneventful encounters – a methodologically important distinction that makes comparisons possible in the first place. The data collected is shared with marine biologists and behavioural researchers.
The reports form the basis of an ‘Interaction Comments Library’, which categorises and evaluates various defence strategies.
In addition, the CA publishes historical comparative statistics by year, month and coastal section.
The GTOA publishes monthly interaction charts providing a geographical overview of Orca activities – including a traffic-light system for the individual sea areas.
The charts are an important basis for route planning, but are not considered to be complete, according to the organisation’s own assessment.
The GT Orca AIS app, which provides real-time data, is available as a supplementary resource.
Has 2026 been a particularly strong year so far?
The recent spate of reports suggests as much, but there is no definitive answer.
The most comprehensive publicly available comparison table of all orca incidents is provided by another organisation: the British Cruising Association.
It analyses the monthly reports from the Grupo de Trabajo Orca Atlántica.
These record a total of 54 interactions for the period from 1 January to 13 July 2026.
During the same period, there were 58 in 2025 and 83 in 2024.
On this basis, therefore, there is no question of this being an exceptionally high year.
However, this limitation is already stated in the source itself.
According to its own explanation, the historical CA analysis is the most comprehensive overview available; however, the underlying GTOA maps are not considered to be 100 per cent complete.
The figure 54 is therefore not an exact total of all encounters.
It is a comparative figure derived from a specific reporting chain.
At the same time, the latest reports suggest that it is too early to give the all-clear.
With ten attacks and nine sightings, it is one of the busiest months recorded on the map since the earliest period shown, from July 2022.
It is thought that three different orca groups may currently be active at the same time.
This indicates a lively late-summer period, but does not allow for a reliable extrapolation to the whole season.
Links :
- Book recommendation : Yacht accidents Jan-Erik Kruse categorises typical risks on sailing yachts based on analysed accident reports. When sailing through an orca-inhabited area, it is particularly helpful to consider preparation and the ability to take appropriate action: the book covers distress signals, AIS and radar, as well as risk management and the loss of the rudder and keel. It is no substitute for up-to-date local sailing information, but it does sharpen the focus on what the crew and skipper should clarify before a serious incident occurs.
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