Environmental group's powerboat destroyed by Japanese whalers
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Environmental group's powerboat destroyed by Japanese whalers
By Amy Coopes, Agence France-PresseJanuary 6, 2010
This handout photo received and taken on January 6, 2010 from the Sea Shepherd
Conservation Society shows the Sea Shepherd's ship Ady Gil, a wave-piercing
boat formerly known as "Earthrace", after it was rammed by Japanese whaling
vessel Shonan Maru No. 2 (background) in Antarctic waters. The space-age
powerboat sent to harass Japanese whalers was rammed and sliced in two in its
very first clash, activists said, dramatically escalating hostilities in icy
Antarctic seas. All six crew on the Ady Gil trimaran, which holds the round-
the-world record, were rescued unharmed, the Sea Shepherd animal rights group
said in a statement.
Photograph by: JoAnne McArthur, AFP/Getty Images
SYDNEY � A space-age powerboat sent to harass Japanese whalers was rammed and
sliced in two in its very first clash on Wednesday, activists said,
dramatically escalating hostilities in icy Antarctic seas.
The futuristic Ady Gil trimaran, which holds the round-the-world record and
was enlisted by militant activists from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
for this whaling season, received "catastrophic damage" and was sinking, they
said.
All six crew, who earlier hurled stink bombs at the whalers to disrupt their
annual hunt, were rescued unharmed by Sea Shepherd's Bob Barker ship.
Activists described the attack as unprovoked and said it was captured on film.
"The Shonan Maru No. 2 suddenly started up and deliberately rammed the Ady Gil
ripping eight feet (2.4 metres) of the bow of the vessel completely off," a
Sea Shepherd statement said.
"The Ady Gil is believed to be sinking and chances of salvage are very grim,"
it added.
The whalers accused the Ady Gil's five New Zealand and one Dutch crew of
trying to tangle the Nisshin Maru's rudder and propeller with rope, and aiming
a "green laser device" at its sailors, as well as launching stink bombs.
"The Sea Shepherd extremism is becoming more violent . . . Their actions are
nothing but felonious behaviour," Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research said
in a statement.
Paul Watson, captain of Sea Shepherd's Steve Irwin ship and a spokesman for
the group, said the annual pursuit had now turned into a "real whale war".
"The Japanese whalers have now escalated this conflict very violently," he
said.
"If they think that our remaining two ships will retreat from the Southern
Ocean Whale Sanctuary in the face of their extremism, they will be mistaken.
"We now have a real whale war on our hands now and we have no intention of
retreating."
Australia said it had no plans to send a vessel to monitor the escalating
situation some 1,300 nautical miles south of the Tasmanian capital Hobart as
it urged both sides to show restraint.
"It's critical for safety at sea to be the highest priority and for absolute
and utmost restraint to be exercised by all parties in this very remote and
inhospitable region," Environment Minister Peter Garrett said.
The wave-piercing, carbon-and-kevlar Ady Gil, bankrolled by a Hollywood
businessman, was one of the world's most celebrated vessels. In 2008, under
its former name Earthrace, it smashed the world circumnavigation record by two
weeks.
"This is a substantial loss for our organization," said Watson. "The Ady Gil,
the former Earthrace, represents a loss of almost two million dollars.
"However the loss of a single whale is of more importance to us and we will
not lose the Ady Gil in vain. This blow simply strengthens our resolve, it
does not weaken our spirit."
Watson also accused the Japanese of using surveillance flights to pinpoint the
anti-whaling vessels and send pursuing ships, setting back their campaign by
weeks.
The activists, who set off from Australia a month ago, finally caught up with
the whalers before dawn near Antarctica's Commonwealth Bay.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is a small but militant environmentalist
group which specialises in "direct action" to halt marine environmental
destruction.
Its activists have harassed the Japanese fleet over the past six hunting
seasons, including ramming a whaling vessel, and claim to have saved the lives
of hundreds of whales.
"When people call us pirates I don't really have a problem with that � we're
pirates of compassion in pursuit of pirates of profit," Watson told AFP in
2007.
An international moratorium on commercial whaling was imposed in 1986 but
Japan kills hundreds each year using a loophole that allows "lethal research"
on the animals.