Fisherman receive huge fright as a great white tries to make a meal of their boat

This scene would terrify even the bravest. During a trip at sea off Tasmania (Australia), towards the island of Tenth, a father and his son filmed the moment when their boat was attacked by agreat white shark. Fearing that the boat might capsize, Sean Vinar, the father, accelerated in order to distract the predator.

'I can see a massive big, great white shark has come out of the water...'

As he explained to ABC News, Sean had decided to take his son James out to sea on July 29 to observe the seal colony on the island of Tenth:

We'd never been to the island before and we thought we'll go and have a look and film some seals.

But suddenly, a great white shark came and collided with the boat. ‘All of a sudden, we just had this mighty thump on the side of the boat, water flying through the air,’ Sean recalls. Immediately, his son James pulled out his phone to film the scene.

In a bit of shock, I've looked up towards the front of the boat and there I can see a massive big, great white shark has come out of the water and opened its mouth and latched on to the front of boat where the anchor is (...) It's completely engulfed the anchor we've got on the front of the boat.

‘He was trying to get in the back of the boat’

Faced with the damage caused by the animal, and in fear that the situation might get worse, Sean decided to accelerate. But the shark wasn't finished with them yet:

The shark's let go, gone under the boat, hit the back of the boat and then done a massive tail flip right next to the back of the boat,’ says Sean, ‘I thought at that stage that he was trying to get into the back of the boat.

Thankfully, more fear than harm for the father and son, who finally managed to get away from the predator, Sean concluded:

We were in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's a sharks domain, around a seal colony, but we just were not expecting that reaction.

According to Sean's estimates, the sharkwas probably between 10 and 13 feet long. A rough measurement confirmed by Chris Black, a shark specialist interviewed by ABC News.