The unnamed Brits, aged 41 to 61, immediately called the coast guard to say the hull was punctured and they were about to abandon ship.
‘Their life was in danger… They reported it would sink imminently,’ said Cruz Martins, Captain of Ponta Delgada Port where the rescue operation was coordinated from.
Portuguese rescuers mobilized two military planes to pick up the Brits after the collision around 356 miles north-west of the Azores island Terceira.
They were later brought to safety on board a merchant vessel and taken to the northern Spanish port city of Aviles.
Captain Martins confirmed the British-flagged yacht ‘suffered damage caused by a collision with a whale’, which he said was a ‘rare occurrence’.
He went on: ‘They were in international waters, open waters. Whales travel everywhere.
‘They were the ones who told us about hitting a whale in a second communication.
‘For us, as they were out of our jurisdiction, our only concern was preserving lives and rescuing them. We didn’t open any kind of inquiry to investigate the circumstances.’
