(sperm whale sinks yacht) Why is this trending now

This is trending because of a real-life, dramatic maritime rescue in the South Pacific after a 52-foot yacht named Tai Tam was struck and sunk by a pod of sperm whales.

CBS News

Here are the key details of the incident driving the headlines:

• The Collision: While sailing about 250 nautical miles north of Norfolk Island, the yacht collided with a pod of 6 to 8 sperm whales. The massive blow cracked the vessel’s fiberglass hull, destroyed the steering gear, and caused immediate flooding.

  CBS News+ 1

• The Sinking: The four crew members (from Australia, New Zealand, and France) spent hours frantically pumping out seawater, but the boat began slipping under. By midnight, they abandoned the yacht for a life raft and had to cut the tether line so the sinking boat would not pull their raft under.

  CBS News

• The Rescue: After an intense 18-hour ordeal adrift on the open sea, an international rescue effort involving a New Zealand Air Force patrol plane and a commercial container ship (MV Sofrana Surville) reached the life raft and safely hoisted all four crew members aboard, unharmed.

  Clarin.com

The story captured global attention both because collisions causing an entire vessel to sink are remarkably rareevoking real-life Moby-Dick parallelsand because the crew survived against the odds in remote waters.