Shark That Ate 600 US Sailors

 

The whitetip shark is notorious for targeting shipwreck survivors
As the shark swam closer to the boat, seasoned skipper David Bond noticed the beast was about 14ft long and probably weighed more than 1,000lb.Then, just as silently as it had appeared, the giant predator sank slowly back into the deep.

The close encounter happened on Wednesday near Looe, off the southern coast of Cornwall. It was just one of a number of sightings last week that has prompted fears a great white shark may be ­lurking off the south-west tip of Britain.

While one maneater is enough to chill the bones of even the saltiest ­seadog, on Monday the respected Angling Times reported that a 10ft ­oceanic whitetip is also patrolling our waters.

The whitetip is notorious for targeting shipwreck survivors, most notably the unfortunate ­sailors who clung to wreckage of the USS Indianapolis after it was torpedoed during the Second World War in the Pacific Ocean.

In the hit 1975 film Jaws, ­Robert Shaw’s character Quint famously reveals he survived the USS ­Indianapolis frenzy and had hated sharks ever since.

Terrorising the shores of Cornwall, fishermen say this is the largest they’ve seen
Angling Times said scientists in the UK and US had studied a ­photograph of bite marks on a blue shark caught off Falmouth and concluded a whitetip was the culprit.Shark expert David Turner believes the warm summer has attracted sharks not normally seen in British seas. He said: “The water temperature is higher than it normally is on account of the decent weather we have had this year. That could have attracted large predatory sharks that are not usually found off our coast.

“This summer has definitely seen more shark sightings than previous years but we are not quite sure why.”

The first of the latest sightings this summer of a suspected great white came on Tuesday when a giant shark swam alongside a ­lobster boat for a few seconds.

It was the briefest of glimpses but the fisherman on board said he had never seen a shark that size before.

A day later, Mr Bond and Ian Harbage aboard the shark fishing boat Mystique were scanning the sea when the giant fin broke the water. An ominous dark shape appeared twice, about 75 yards from the boat, before slipping away. By the time Mr Harbage had gone to fetch a camera, it was too late.

Later that afternoon a third fishing crew were stunned to see a huge fish breach the water and as they got closer they ­estimated the fin to be easily six or seven feet away from the tip of the tail.

In all three cases, the skippers discounted a harmless plankton-eating basking shark, regular giants off Cornwall in summer. They all believe a great white is a possibility yet, perhaps worried about being teased back in the pub, will not say so.

The only other explanation is that it could be a big porbeagle or a mako, relatives of the great white, but they very rarely exceed 10ft on this side of the Atlantic.

Mr Turner, 66, said: “A great white has to be a serious ­contender. David and Ian said they got the impression from the fin that what they saw could have been an enormous porbeagle but they didn’t see the fin in profile only at an angle and, to me, it sounds far too big to be a porgie or a mako shark.