Terrifying footage shows the moment a huge shark attacks a man’s boat while travelling around the coast of New Zealand.
Colin MacRae, from Auckland, New Zealand was sailing near Stewart Island when five great white sharks started circling his small boat. One of the sharks, believed to weigh upwards of 1100kg (173st), launched itself out of the water a number of times as it proceeded to bite part of the boat.
Mr MacRae was left astonished as the shark's huge jaws came within metres of his face. And shocking camera footage taken by a GoPro on a stick shows the shark swimming under water and biting the back of the white boat. The captain of the boat was left distressed and worried following the shark attack but no one on the boat suffered any injuries. Mr MacRae uploaded the video to Instagram and it has been viewed more than 900,000 times.
"Hands down the craziest thing I’ve seen on my boat. 5 great white sharks circling and biting the boat off Stewart island, New Zealand," he wrote. "A local wants to take us diving for Pāua tomorrow, which is disconcerting after seeing these monsters. But I heard they are friendly as long as you don’t touch their private parts…"
During the video itself Mr MacRae says: "Oh my God. We've just sailed to Stewart Island and we just had a great white shark bite the back of Parlay." Some people on the boat can be heard screaming as the great white launches the attack while someone can be heard saying: "Look out girls. Watch your feet." This is unbelievable." A number of people took to the comments to express their shock. One person said: "Woah! Just another day on the sea huh?!" A second commented: "Wow! Um think I would pass on the dive!"
'I ventured into Alcatraz after dark and was terrified by what I saw and heard'According to Mr MacRae's YouTube channel, Sailing Parlay Revival, he previously worked on super yachts as a chief engineer. He used his life savings to buy a Lagoon 450 catamaran damaged by Hurricane Irma and recently sailed through the Caribbean. The shark attack comes after a 21-year-old woman was bitten by a shark while "walking in knee-deep water" in an estuary in Riverton, New Zealand last December.
The woman suffered a "significant laceration to her leg" and received treatment from emergency responders, police said. A diver was also attacked by a great white off the Wairarapa coast last November, with the shark reportedly shredding the man's wetsuit. The diver, who was shaken but uninjured, was part of a commercial crew collecting pāua east of the small fishing village of Ngawi, near Cape Palliser, reports RNZ.