Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/05/14/whales-attack-and-sink-a-yacht.html
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The whales have not responded to requests for comment.
A spokeswhale was quoted, “SKREE-EEO-OOOO, K-K-K-K! (Inaudible pitch) EEEE-SSSSPTHTHTPT!” before swimming backwards while flipping the bird.
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Not whales
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Is it just me, or does everyone immediately have zero pity for anyone who has anything bad happen when you hear they were “on a yacht”?
I was cheering for the whales by the 6th word.
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In this case I’m with you. The Alboran Cognac is was a 52 foot Sun Odyssey with 3 toilets and a bow thruster. Whoever chartered her definitely had a lot of money and probably wouldn’t be fun to be around.
That said, I don’t wish being in distress on the open sea on them. This could easily have ended fatally, and I wonder what reactions would have been then.
Also, not everyone who sails a “yacht” is rich.
I sail. I don’t own a boat, I crew on a club boat. Many of the people in previous attacks had modest sailboats. These aren’t superyachts, if bought used they cost less than the cheapest new car.
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Orcas—like dolphins, porpoises and sperm whales—are classified as “toothed whales.” Toothed whales (specifically Sperm whales) are also the largest toothed predators on the planet!
So enough with the cetacean gatekeeping already.
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I think when you call it a yacht, it implies something. One of my friends owns a boat. It’s fairly big (to me, a non boat person) but I do enjoy hearing his tortured tales about maintaining it. Even moreso when I say “you could just sell it” and he looks at me as if I was mad. “But, it’s my boat!”. Boat people are cool. Yacht people, not so much.
Now yacht rock however…
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Which is why I don’t like it when people do it in this context. Sailing is fun, and about the most sustainable way you can get around on the water. It’s hard enough to get into as it is if you haven’t grown up with it. We shouldn’t make it harder by associating it with the rich only.
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Yachts have sails. Billionaire marine playthings are boats or ships. I wish the world would stop calling those monstrosities ‘yachts’.
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Maybe it’s more of a lamentation. Like “Not whales! How could they turn on us like this? What did we ever do to…oh right.”
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Language is a slippery thing. The word “yacht” has been applied to powered pleasure vessels for many decades. Today, the classification is generally based on size and function (most commonly, a pleasure or racing craft at least 33 feet in length).
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Yacht:Sails::Whales:Toothed
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When Earth’s creatures turn on humanity… sooner than expected. 
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Yeah, but I was not really being a language pedant. I was expressing a personal prejudice.
(My Dad used to have a 30ft yacht. Five berths, with sails.)
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[Cetacean needed]
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