WELLINGTON: A sperm whale cracked the hull of a yacht sailing in the remote South Pacific, forcing four sailors into a day-and-night fight for survival on the high seas.

Crew members on the 16-metre Tai Tam spoke on Thursday of their weekend encounter with a pod of sperm whales 250 nautical miles north of tiny 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 by the force of the blow.

Not knowing at first what had happened, she noticed a brown discolouration in the water and a sperm whale. “We looked out to our port side, and there were six to eight, a pod, of whales there. So then it became clear that that’s what it was,” she said.

Her husband Jeremy Cooper said he was sleeping below deck when the impact woke him. “It was pretty immediately evident it was very serious,” he said.

“All the steering gear was smashed on the starboard side, and there was a significant amount of water coming in,” Jeremy said. At 1pm New Zealand time — about 30 minutes after the whale collision — they activated an emergency beacon.

“We declared a full mayday,” said New Zealand crew member Terry Hetherington, adding they spent the next few hours bailing out as much water as they could.

Published in Dawn, October 2nd, 2026