A yacht club commodore watched in horror as a great white shark attacked and appeared to devour a 77-year-old swimmer, Tyna Webb.

Paul Bennet, commodore of the False Bay Yacht Club near Cape Town in South Africa, who saw the attack from his home thought he was watching a seal being ‘shaken violently’, then he realised it was a body: ‘It left the woman and swam away a short distance, turned,came back at great speed and hit her. Its whole mouth came out of the water and took her down. I never saw her again. All that was left was a little red bathing hat.’

The crew of a rescue helicopter saw the shark and described it as being bigger than their craft – over 20 feet long.