Whaling just got more difficult in the southern ocean whale sanctuary

[JohnnyCastaway]

for those who are familiar with the sea sheppard, they just added a new boat to the fleet.  a 78 foot Trimaran powered by Bio-Diesel that is able to make it half way around the world on a single tank of gas and hit a top speed of 40 knots!




whole story is at http://oceanicdefense.blogspot.com/2009/06/whaling-just-got-more-difficult-in.html

[mojitomiss_cuba]

Awesome looking vessel - just imagine how wicked it's going to look painted black
Woo-ee, Paul Watson's gonna have him some fun with that boat

John, there's some great articles in that link you provided too - thanks!

[Gambitt]

Japanese whaling boat clash likely to ignite row over activists' tactics

Sea Shepherd's Paul Watson locked in feud with Greenpeace, which has labelled him an eco-terrorist



The damaged Ady Gil following its confrontation with a Japanese whaling vessel.

The damage inflicted to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) boat the Ady Gil in a collision with a whaling ship is likely to reignite the row over the environmental group's tactics.

Paul Watson, who helped set up Greenpeace in 1972, and now heads the SSCS has been labelled an eco-terrorist and dangerous extremist by his former comrades, with whom he is locked in a long-running feud.

While both groups have targeted the Japanese whale hunts in the Southern Ocean, Greenpeace refuses to co-operate with SSCS by sharing information on the whereabouts of whaling fleets because it says SSCS uses violent tactics. Watson counters this, saying his methods yield results and SSCS has sunk 10 whaling ships, with no injuries caused.

Watson was membership number 008 in Greenpeace. He founded SSCS's forerunner, the Earth Force Society, in 1977, the same year he was voted off Greenpeace's board of directors. There were concerns within Greenpeace over his methods, including an incident when he pulled a club from a sealer's hand and threw it in the water, but Watson claims he left on good terms. However, his departure only highlighted the groups' ideological differences.

In 1986, on being asked what he thought of being labelled an eco-terrorist by Greenpeace, Watson responded by calling them "the Avon Ladies of the environmental movement", something he says they have never forgiven him for. Five years later they agreed to refrain from criticising each other but the truce failed to hold, with each blaming the other for violating it.

The gloves really came off towards the end of 2008. In November of that year, Watson labelled his former organisation "Yellowpeace" for deciding not to send a ship to counter the Japanese whaling fleet. Greenpeace said its campaign had reached the "endgame" and it would instead concentrate on changing public opinion in Japan.

The following month it published a 2,672-word missive on Watson entitled Paul Watson, Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace: Some Facts. The article noted that "stories of divisiveness within the ranks of environmental groups distract from the real issues," but then went on to attack Watson on a variety of fronts, even challenging the idea that he was a founding member of Greenpeace, describing him instead as an "early member".

Watson hit back by issuing an even longer rebuttal. In response to Greenpeace's analysis that Japanese whaling would be stopped "by a domestic decision within the Japanese government to do so", he compared the group's attitude to that of "Jewish leaders in the Warsaw ghetto that resulted in the Holocaust".

Before the Ady Gil set sail for Antarctica in December, Watson told the Guardian that Greenpeace's claim he was not a founder member was "Bolshevik revisionism" and said his old organisation was bitter about the success of SSCS. "I think they're angry with us because of the success of Whale Wars [the hit TV series following SSCS in its Antarctic campaign in 2008], because we have actually made a difference," he said.

"We're not a protest organisation … we intervene against illegal activities and as far as we're concerned Japanese whalers are poachers."

Despite – or perhaps because of – his outspoken opinions, Watson has won the support of luminaries including the Dalai Lama, Mick Jagger, Daryl Hannah and Uma Thurman. SSCS even earned the dubious honour of being parodied in the US animated comedy South Park in an episode entitled Whale Whores, where its activists were depicted as "vegan pussies" posing as pirates and Watson got a harpoon through the head. Nevertheless, he proclaimed himself happy with the publicity.

At the beginning of Operation Waltzing Matilda, Watson talked up the impact the Ady Gil, formerly known as Earthrace, would have in confronting whalers. He said the boat, with a top speed of up to 50 knots (58mph) and able to dive under waves completely, would "give us the speed we need to intercept the harpooners. This vessel is twice as fast as a harpoon vessel".

But instead the $1.5m biodiesel-fuelled boat has come a cropper and the incident is likely to provide ammunition for those who criticise his methods.

Too bad they didn't sink it!!!

[Gambitt]

Then again, Maybe they DID!!!

The Sea Shepherd speedboat Ady Gil has sunk after it was sliced in two by a Japanese whaling vessel during a clash in the Southern Ocean on Wednesday.

Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson told ABC News Breakfast the Ady Gil went down shortly before 8:30am AEDT today while it was being towed to an island.

"I think they were towing for about six or seven hours," he said.

"Even the act of towing was taking more water on. The Japanese vessel had cut the vessel completely in half and made it unseaworthy."

Six Sea Shepherd crew members were almost thrown overboard and one crew member suffered broken ribs when the Japanese whaling security ship, the Shonan Maru 2, ploughed through the bow of the Ady Gil on Wednesday.

Both the Japanese whalers and the Sea Shepherd crew blame each other for the incident, which happened in Antarctic waters. The waters lie within Australia's search and rescue territory but outside its economic zone.

But Mr Watson has defended his crew and says the risk of dying on the high seas is worth it if it allows the group to save whales.

"My crew are well aware of the risks that we have to take to protect whales down here. I think those risks are worth taking," he said.

"I can tell you now that if the oceans die, civilisations collapse and we all die.

"People die everyday to protect oil wells and real estate and we call them heroes and pin medals on them. I think protecting the diversity of oceans... is a far more noble cause."

Yesterday Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard asked the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) to investigate the incident and said the findings would be made public.

She says the Government reserves the right to take international legal action if diplomacy with Japanese officials fails, and has warned that evidence has already been collected to launch such action.

New Zealand is also investigating the incident because the Ady Gil was registered there.

'An act of war'

Mr Watson says an insurance payout on the Ady Gil is unlikely because the incident was a deliberate act.

"It's a $1.5 million loss for our organisation," he said.

"I think the Japanese deliberately took that vessel out; they saw it as a threat and they were under orders to take it out.

"It would be an act of war so there wouldn't be any insurance on it."

Mr Watson is urging the Federal Government to take a tougher action against Japanese whalers.

"In the six years that we've been doing this, we've never caused an injury to anyone, we've never broken a law... and now they have sunk one of our vessels," he said.

"[Federal Environment Minister] Peter Garrett has become the master of restraint. He made a campaign promise to end whaling; now let's see him [do something]."

Mr Watson says the Government should send a boat to Antarctic waters, where the Sea Shepherd's other boats - the Steve Irwin and Bob Barker - are continuing to pursue Japanese whalers.

Mr Watson says the boats are chasing the Japanese fleet and the whalers have not killed a whale in two days.

Diplomatic approach

Meanwhile, New Zealand officials have met with representatives from the Japanese embassy in Wellington to discuss the situation.

The ABC understands that at the Wellington meeting, Japan said it regarded the incident as "regrettable" but a "low-key event".

This morning a spokesman for the New Zealand Foreign Minister, Murray McCully, said contrary to media reports, Japan had not lodged a stern complaint with the New Zealand Government.

He said Japanese officials agreed with New Zealand that their citizens needed to have better regard for people on the high seas.

The spokesman said legal action over the collision had not been discussed, because it still had not been established who was at fault.

Maritime New Zealand has launched an investigation.

Paul Watson needs to be brought up on charges!  Terrorism is not the answer, and his tactics just cause more harm than good.

[Gambitt]

The Eco-Terrorists are at it again! 

SYDNEY, Australia — The anti-whaling ship the Bob Barker and a Japanese harpoon boat collided in the icy waters off Antarctica on Saturday -- the second major clash this year in the increasingly aggressive confrontations between the two sides.

No one was reportedly injured in the latest strike. The U.S.-based activist group Sea Shepherd, which sends vessels to confront the Japanese fleet each year, said a small hole was torn in the hull of its ship, but it was above the water line and the vessel was not in danger of sinking.

Sea Shepherd founder Captain Paul Watson said by satellite telephone that the Japanese ship rammed the Bob Barker -- named after the U.S. game show host who donated millions to buy it for Sea Shepherd -- as it blocked the slipway of the Japanese fleet's factory ship.

Watson's claim that the Bob Barker was deliberately hit could not be independently verified.

Japanese Fisheries Agency official Takashi Mori said officials were trying to confirm details of a reported clash.

Saturday's collision was the second this year between a Sea Shepherd boat and the Japanese fleet.

On Jan. 6, a Japanese whaler struck Sea Shepherd's high-tech speed boat Ady Gil and sheared off its nose. The Bob Barker then came to rescue the crew of the Ady Gil, which sank a day later.

Sea Shepherd and the whalers have faced off in Antarctic waters for the past few years over Japan's annual whale hunt, with each side accusing the other of acting in increasingly dangerous ways.

Sea Shepherd activists try to block the whalers from firing harpoons, and they dangle ropes in the water to try to snarl the Japanese ships' propellers. They also hurl packets of stinking rancid butter at their rivals. The whalers have responded by firing water cannons and sonar devices meant to disorient the activists. Collisions have occurred occasionally.

Japan aims to take hundreds of whales each year under a program that is allowed despite the international moratorium on killing whales because it is done in the name of science. Critics say the scientific program is a front for commercial whaling, and much of the meat is eaten.

On Saturday, the Bob Barker found the whaling fleet for the first time since the time of the Ady Gil clash, Watson said.

The Bob Barker took up a position behind the Nisshin Maru -- the Japanese factory ship where dead whales are hauled aboard and butchered -- so the four harpoon vessels could not reach it, he said.

"The harpoon ships started circling like sharks," Watson told The Associated Press from his ship, the Steve Irwin. "They were making near passes to the stern and the bow of the Bob Barker, then the Yushin Maru 3 intentionally rammed the Bob Barker."

The Bob Barker sustained a 1-metre long, 10-centimetre gash in its hull. Welders aboard the ship were already working on patching the hole, and the Bob Barker would resume its pursuit of the whalers, Watson said.

Video shot from the Bob Barker and released by Sea Shepherd shows the two ships side by side moving quickly through the water. The ships come closer together and the Japanese ship then appears to turn away, but its stern swings sharply toward the Bob Barker. The collision is obscured by spray, but a loud clanging noise can be heard before the vessels separate.

Watson said the Yushin Maru 3 appeared to stop moving after the collision and had not been seen by the Bob Barker's crew to have moved since, suggesting it also may have been damaged.

The governments of Australia and New Zealand, which have responsibility for maritime rescue in the area where the hunt is usually conducted, say the fight between the two sides is becoming increasingly dangerous and have repeatedly urged them to tone it down.

Too bad they didn't sink this one too. 

[Bigjohn]

for those who are familiar with the sea sheppard, they just added a new boat to the fleet.  a 78 foot Trimaran powered by Bio-Diesel that is able to make it half way around the world on a single tank of gas and hit a top speed of 40 knots!

If they run out of fuel, isn't blubber a form of Bio-Diesel?

[Gambitt]

 

Good One, Big John!!!