They say that whenever a Great White attacks a person it is a case of mistaken identify. This is obviously a mature White shark, and by circling the boat its almost as though it is associating the big floaty thing with food. What are the chances this shark has learned to like the taste of people?
Boo
With great whites, if it
thinks you're food and is
hungry enough to desire wasting the energy to attempt the kill (keep in mind these things are the size of a small bus, and capable of bursting up to speeds nature tooled capable of ambushing large agile and swift seals/fish), they lurk below in the darker depths waiting to ambush and 1-shot their prey. This is why great whites are usually so terrifying when they're a threat. And as a surfer, you're advised to never hangout near areas with seals or areas with rocky/dark bottoms in areas of ~20-70ft depth (the proverbial silver platter). Add a jet-black swimsuit and some surface flopping/smacking/swimming and you get people that get ambushed by a pure-muscle bus at 50mph with razor teeth - most get "lucky" and the shark realises what it has in its mouth isn't a tasty seal or fish so it stops after one chomp/strike, but depending on the size of the shark and the side of the bed the victim woke up on that morning ,that can be a toe or torso. There are of course exceptions to the norm, some sharks get sick, some sharks get desperate/hungry enough... and some can get used to human if conditions are plentiful/right enough to support a sustainable diet (most famous case was the south pacific in WWII - human casualties became an available and regular staple of the diet to many sharks in the region).
Likely in this case, and as is common with fishermen, they were big-fish hunting and most big fish are predators, so they were chumming/baiting the waters. This shark might not of been hungry enough to hunt, but could of been close enough that it still came over to checkout its neighbor stinking up the neighborhood with the irresistible aroma. It's thought over here in the Pacific, if something massive like a whale dies at sea (making a huge stink in the waters), it likely triggers a spawning/mating session of great whites. Besides every great white within smelling distance coming to the casual gorge feast, it's thought during these relatively docile gatherings is where the normally nomadic individuals temporarily pair up and mate....
So, what I would personally be even more concerned of in those fishermen's situation - being lord knows when the last time that great white saw another great white of the same or opposite sex and it being so docile - is what is this 25' shark thinking/doing when as it's stroking up against MY 30' boat!!! ewww.... I hope he cleaned it thoroughly after getting back to the dock...
