sharks eat catamaran

How a 40cm cookiecutter shark deflated a 9-metre catamaran off the coast of Cairns

How can a 40-centimetre shark deflate a 9-metre catamaran?

On Wednesday at 1:30am three sailors attempting a round-the-world voyage activated their emergency beacon after their boat was attacked by sharks 800 kilometres off the coast of Cairns, and began to sink. 

The craft left St Petersburg on July 1, 2021, in a bid to break the world record for cruising distance in an inflatable sailing trimaran. 

The crew — Russians Evgeny Kovalevsky and Stanislav Beryozkin, and Vincent Thomas Garate from France — were rescued by a cargo ship and arrived at Mooloolaba Harbour, on the Sunshine Coast, today. 

It's suspected their craft was set upon by cookiecutter sharks. 

It's the second catamaran to be used in the attempt, after the first vessel — Russian Ocean Way — was punctured by sharks in Tahiti in June. 

The trio had also made an earlier attempt in March on a trimaran but the trip was abandoned for other reasons.

What are cookiecutter sharks?

Cookiecutter sharks are little, but their prey is not. 

"Cookiecutter sharks are unique in that they're very small, usually around 40 centimetres," Daryl McPhee, an associate professor of environmental science at Bond University, said. 

"They generally feed on large prey including whales and large fish."

The sharks have an "odd and somewhat frightening array of teeth they use to grab their prey and twist to bite a circular piece off," he said. 

They can do this to an animal several times, slowly eating their prey.

Are they a threat to humans?

It is very rare for a cookiecutter shark to attack a human, and of the small number of attacks recorded, none were fatal, Dr McPhee said. 

The first reported cookiecutter shark attack was in Hawaii in 2011, when the victim was swimming in deep water late at night.

The most recent attack was on a 7-year-old boy on Magnetic Island in 2017.

Why did the boat fall prey?

Cookiecutters are opportunistic feeders – they aren't fussy, Dr McPhee said. 

Unlike most other breeds of shark who feed at dusk and dawn, cookiecutter sharks are night-time feeders and prefer tropical waters.

It's not unheard of for them to attack inanimate objects, with reports of attacks on submarines and underwater cables, Dr McPhee said.

It is likely that the sharks mistook the inflatable catamaran for a whale or dolphin carcass, causing punctures to two out of its three hulls, he said. 

The small sharks can make "short work of inflatable boats", Dr McPhee said. 

Should we be worried?

Dr McPhee said this attack was likely an isolated one. 

"I don't suspect we're going to see a global spate of cookiecutter shark bites anytime soon," he said. 

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Pencils with teeth: meet the tiny cookiecutter shark that attacked a catamaran off Cairns

These parasitic sharks glow in the dark and are known to have a go at anything they come across, despite their small size

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The small sharks that damaged a catamaran off the coast of Cairns have been described as “pencils with teeth” and they have a history of trying to eat inanimate objects, including submarines.

Three people were rescued from the inflatable vessel and the Russian Geographic Society – which was involved with the sailors’ round-the-world expedition – confirmed the hull was attacked by cookiecutter sharks in the Coral Sea.

Marine biologists believe the attack was “a classic case of mistaken identity” from a “supercool” little shark that glows in the dark and has a very big attitude, despite its size.

What is that?

It’s not pretty, is it? Daryl McPhee, an associate professor of environmental science at Bond University, said cookiecutters are usually about 15-20cm long but can reach 50cm. He said they “really just look like a pencil with teeth”.

“They’ll find a large animal like a whale or a dolphin, living or dead, and attach themselves to it. They’ll twist and literally pull out a biscuit-sized chunks of flesh. They can do that repeatedly,” McPhee said.

Prof Jodie Rummer, a marine biologist at James Cook University, said the cookiecutter was technically a parasite and behaved very differently to other sharks.

“They’re called the cookiecutter shark because they don’t actually swallow their prey,” Rummer said. “They just take little bite-size morsels out of the side of them.

“They’re bioluminescent too, they glow. They’re a really cool species of shark. This unfortunate incident has given us an opportunity to learn about them.”

Will this thing kill me?

No. But an encounter wouldn’t exactly be a pleasant experience.

There’s no record of cookiecutters killing people but they have tasted human flesh before. In 2017, one swam through a swimming enclosure on Magnetic Island and bit a seven-year-old on the leg.

Rummer said cookiecutters were opportunistic feeders with limited vision that will have a go at anything they comes across. They can cause larger animals problems by leaving them with open wounds.

“That’s an entry point for infection so the whale is also immune compromised as well,” Rummer said. “It would evoke an immune response in the whale and probably cause that whale to expend a lot of energy fighting off infection.”

So you don’t need to freak out when swimming at the beach. Just think of all those other bigger, more terrifying sharks instead.

Has this happened before?

Sometimes, yes. McPhee said cookiecutters are known to bite inanimate objects and have attempted to eat submarines and undersea cables.

National Geographic has reported cookiecutters caused some damage to a nuclear submarine, attacking “ exposed soft areas including electrical cables and rubber sonar domes ”. You’d hope that’s not a problem with Australia’s future submarine fleet for which the government is paying up to $368bn .

Rummer said the sharks likely mistook the catamaran for a large carcass. She said the sharks spend most of the day in deep waters and surface from dusk to dawn looking for “cookies”.

“If you can imagine, they’ve got limited vision and it’s dark. They see an inflatable catamaran with a big surface area that is soft and flat. ‘Is it a whale? Let’s have a look. Oh, yep, that tastes like rubber. It’s not for me.’

“The other aspect is this species does often travel in schools and if they’re all going at this inflatable thinking it’s a potential food item, that’s where you damage as there are multiple bites.”

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Sailors rescued after several shark attacks damage inflatable catamaran in Coral Sea: Video

Under the cover of night Wednesday, maritime authorities in Australia recued a sailing party after several shark attacks damaged their sinking catamaran drifting in the Coral Sea, officials said.

An alert from a radio beacon led rescue crews to a 29-foot inflatable catamaran about 1:30 a.m. local time after someone on board the vessel sent a distress signal out, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority reported.

The vessel, named Tion, departed from Vanuatu in the South Pacific and was en route to Cairns in Queensland, Australia when contact was established, maritime officials wrote in a release. The Coral Sea, located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, extends east of Australia and New Guinea and south of the Solomon Islands.

Watch the sailors get rescued after several sharks damaged their inflatable catamaran.

Australian surfer attacked by shark: Surfer attacked in Australia by suspected great white shark hospitalized, clinging to life

A ping and 'several shark attacks'

After reviving the distress alert, officials dispatched a Cairns-based Challenger Rescue Aircraft to the catamaran's location. A large vehicle carrier sailing under a Panama-flag also assisted in the mission.

Rescue crews said the vessel was damaged from several shark attacks and found three people on board − two Russians and one French citizen.

Crews rescued all three people, officials said.

Victims expected to arrive on land Thursday

No injuries were reported and the trio was expected to arrive in Brisbane, Australia Thursday morning.

Maritime officials reminded boaters to always bring a registered beacon when out on the water.

"It could help save your life," officials said in the release.

Natalie Neysa Alund is a senior correspondent for USA TODAY. Reach her at [email protected] and follow her on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter @nataliealund.

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World news | israel dismisses 2 officers over deadly drone strikes on aid workers in gaza, world news | fierce little cookiecutter sharks behind the dramatic sinking of a boat at sea.

The dramatic ocean saga that led to three men being rescued this week from a sinking inflatable catamaran off the Australian coast has been pinned on an unusual culprit: a footlong shark that leaves such perfectly round wounds it’s called the cookiecutter.

The sailors, two Russians and one French national, were pulled from the sea on Wednesday on their way to the northeastern Australian city of Cairns from the remote Pacific nation Vanuatu, authorities said.

In an Instagram post after the rescue, the group said the attacks were by cookiecutter sharks, which damaged the rear left balloon of the boat on Monday and left it “completely submerged underwater.” The group lasted another day – until the cookiecutters attacked again late Tuesday, this time biting through the right balloon.

The attacks left their inflatable boat partly sunken, prompting them to issue a distress call to nearby vessels in the early hours of Wednesday. The crew and their belongings were rescued by cargo ship the Dugong Ace, and the sinking catamaran was abandoned in the ocean, the Instagram post said.

“They hunt inflatable boats, and (our vessel) just had many many holes and started to go down,” one of the sailors, Evgeny Kovalevskiy, told CNN affiliate Nine News in a video after the rescue.

The crew was attempting to become the first to circumnavigate the world on an inflatable boat and they’d assess how to continue that journey after arriving in Brisbane later Thursday, Kovalevskiy added.

Unlike great whites or hammerheads, cookiecutter sharks are not usually associated with attacks in the open ocean. The cookiecutter — also known as the cigar shark, for its tubular shape — is barely 18 inches long but it has an appetite for large prey – usually targeting seals, whales and dolphins, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History .

Its unique feeding method is how it got its name. First, the shark entices prey with its glowing underside, which can deceptively look like small fish in the deep ocean. When the prey is close, the shark then uses its sucking lips and sharp upper teeth to attach itself to the larger animal. Then, it spins its body around – using its larger serrated bottom teeth to cut a cookie-shaped chunk of flesh, leaving a circular wound in the prey’s body, according to the museum.

Even submarines have come under attack before, with round chunks torn off their sonar domes.

The museum added that because of its size and deep water habits, the cookiecutter is not considered a threat to humans. Cookiecutter sharks have only been involved in four confirmed, unprovoked bites, which all happened in Hawaii, it said, citing the International Shark Attack File.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said in a statement Wednesday that “a large section” of the inflatable vessel’s hull was missing when it was found.

“There’s many reasons that vessels are attacked by sharks. However, the motivations of these sharks is unclear,” said AMSA duty manager Joe Zeller.

The catamaran’s crew “were very happy to be rescued and they are all healthy and well,” he added.

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Three sailors rescued from shark-bitten catamaran off Australia

Officials said sharks attacked the inflatable catamaran and tore off large chunks of the vessel’s hull.

Three men on board a catamaran off the northeastern coast of Australia have been rescued after sharks tore off sections from the hull of their inflatable vessel, according to officials.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said the three sailors – two Russian and one French citizen – were rescued early on Wednesday.

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They were picked up by a Panama-flagged vehicle carrier – the Dugong Ace – while floating in the Coral Sea, some 835km (519 miles) southeast of Cairns in Australia.

Satellite photos and a video on the AMSA website showed a large part of the stern of the nine-metre (30-foot) yacht torn away.

“Both hulls of the vessel have been damaged following several shark attacks,” AMSA said in a statement.

The authority said the sailors, aged between 28 and 64, had planned to sail from the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu to Cairns, a distance of more than 2,000km (1,200 miles). They activated an emergency distress beacon in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

The three sailors are due to arrive in Brisbane on Thursday, AMSA said.

“There’s many reasons why vessels are attacked by sharks. However, the motivations of these sharks are unclear,” said Joe Zeller, the acting manager of the AMSA Response Centre. The three sailors “were very happy to be rescued and they are all healthy and well and aboard the Dugong Ace,” he added.

The Coral Sea where the men were found is brimming with reef sharks.

According to the Australian government, it is home to more sharks “than almost any other survey site in the world”.

3 people had to be rescued from their 30-foot inflatable catamaran after sharks attacked the boat, officials say

• Three people were rescued from their inflatable vessel after sharks attacked its hull, officials said.
• The trio were around 510 miles off Australia's northeastern coast, according to rescue authorities.
• When found, the 30-foot catamaran was missing large portions of its hull, rescuers reported.

Three men on board an inflatable catamaran were rescued off Australia's northeastern coast on Wednesday after their vessel was attacked several times by sharks.

The trio — two Russians and one French citizen — were about 510 miles from shore when Australian authorities picked up their distress alert in the early morning, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said in a statement.

The Russian vessel had departed from the Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu and was heading to the city of Cairns in Queensland, the AMSA said.

Both hulls of their 30-foot catamaran "have been damaged following several shark attacks," authorities added.

Officials said they asked a nearby Panama-flagged ship, the Dugong Ace, to help rescue the three people. A Challenger rescue aircraft was also sent to assist from Cairns.

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When found, the catamaran had "large sections of its hull missing," AMSA Response Centre manager Joe Zeller said.

"There's many reasons that vessels are attacked by sharks. However, the motivations of these sharks is unclear," Zeller said. 

Footage shot by a Challenger rescue plane shows the state of the vessel when rescuers arrived.

—Matthew Loh (@ma2loh) September 6, 2023

The three sailors are aged between 28 and 64, in healthy condition, and on board the Dugong Ace on their way to Brisbane, Zeller said. Their full trip would likely have taken between two to three weeks, he said.

"The emergency beacon absolutely saved their lives," Zeller added. "It enabled the rescue coordination center to identify their precise location and empower the most appropriate and quickest response to rescue them."

The trio are expected to arrive in Brisbane on Thursday, the AMSA said in its statement.

Sharks and orcas have been making headlines this summer amid a rising number of reports documenting attacks on vessels . But it's still unclear what causes these encounters , or if they are related at all.

Watch: Deep-sea explorers discovered creatures at the bottom of the ocean feasting on decaying whales

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Three sailors on an around-the-world journey were rescued from a sinking inflatable catamaran after it came under repeated attack by sharks more than 500 miles off the Australian coast. Sept. 6, 2023

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A Single Orca Killed and Ate a Great White Shark, Video Reveals

The newly observed solo behavior suggests killer whales are adept at preying on one of the oceans' most maligned characters..

Researchers studying orcas off the coast of South Africa recently observed one of the whales consuming a great white shark alone, in just two minutes.

Since 2017, two orcas in particular have been wreaking havoc on the great whites off South Africa’s Mossel Bay. Dubbed Port and Starboard (cute!), the apex predators have developed a taste for the massive sharks’ nutrient-rich livers (less cute). Haunting video of the whales actively feeding on a great white was captured in October 2022, confirming that the cetaceans were responsible for the great white carcasses found half-eaten on the South African shores.

Orcas’ predilection for great white sharks is well-documented; the whales can weigh up to 22,000 pounds (9,980 kilograms) and are great at ganging up on the sharks, which only (in comparison) weigh up to 5,000 pounds. But never before have searchers found a single orca dining on great white; previously, the animals have only been observed hunting and feeding in groups, or pods. The team’s analysis of the recent meal was published in the African Journal of Marine Science.

“Again, as previously in South Africa, the orcas are exhibiting a strong preference for extracting and consuming the lipid-rich livers of white sharks—a specialized feeding behavior,” said Alison Towner, a marine biologist at Rhodes University and lead author of the new research, in a Taylor & Francis release , “This sighting revealed evidence of solitary hunting by at least one killer whale, challenging conventional cooperative hunting behaviors known in the region.”

The solitary hunter (and diner) was Starboard, a male orca with a collapsed dorsal fin. The researchers watched Starboard incapacitate and eat a juvenile great white shark in two minutes. The unfortunate shark was 8.2 feet long (2.5 meters); the team also watched as Starboard carried the shark’s liver in its mouth.

“Over two decades of annual visits to South Africa, I’ve observed the profound impact these killer whales have on the local white shark population,” said study co-author Primo Micarelli, a researcher at the Shark Studies Centre and Siena University, in the same release. “Seeing Starboard carry a white shark’s liver past our vessel is unforgettable.”

A short video of the encounter was taken by members of the team aboard Shark Warrior, a catamaran about 330 feet (100 meters) from the encounter. The video shows Starboard splashing off Mossel Bay, apparently preying on the shark. The researchers aboard Shark Warrior later snapped a photo of Starboard with the shark liver in his mouth.

“Despite my awe for these predators, I’m increasingly concerned about the coastal marine ecology balance,” Micarelli added. Tagging and sighting data previously taken on the habitat suggested great white sharks stopped visiting certain areas along the coast due to the presence of orcas. In other words, the orca’s hunger seemed to be impacting the food chain in the ecosystem.

Late last year, a liver-less great white washed up on the Australian coast , indicating that orcas beyond the group operating off South Africa had learned how to prey on the fearsome fish. Orcas also feed on blue whales (the largest animal ever known), may kidnap other species of whale , and were responsible for a spate of attacks on human vessels last year—even managing to sink a yacht off the coast of Gibraltar.

Orcas are cunning predators with an evident nasty streak. While they probably won’t evolve to hunt on land anytime soon, their presence could disrupt the hierarchy of the South African coastal ecosystem.

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Great-grandfather goes viral for reading 'Baby Shark' to great-granddaughter

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A great-grandfather is going viral for his rendition of "Baby Shark," the wildly popular children's song that first debuted back in 2016.

Cristalena Potvin shared a TikTok clip of her father reading a "Baby Shark" book to his great-granddaughter that has since racked up over 10 million views.

"Daddy Shark. Do, do, do, do, do," he reads in the video, looking at the pages before adding, "They all say the same thing."

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"We asked him to read 'Baby Shark' and he has never heard of it," Potvin wrote in her TikTok caption. "We were laughing so hard 😂 #babyshark #babysharkdoodoo."

Potvin told Storyful her father simply read the book at face value and didn't realize it was based on the earworm from Pinkfong, the South Korean educational brand, whose "Baby Shark" song has amassed over 14 billion views on YouTube in the last seven years.

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"He's never heard of 'Baby Shark.' He read it and didn't know there is an actual tune to it," Potvin told Storyful. "Of course he was WAY off."

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Potvin's March 24 video has also been a hit with TikTok users, racking up over 10 million views.

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