Antarctica: Sea Shepherd Ship Holed during Collision with Whaling Ship

12.02.2007

The Sea Shep­herd ship, Robert Hunter, has been holed in its star­board bow, and its port stern sec­tion above the water­line, dur­ing a col­li­sion with the whale spot­ter ship Kaiko Maru , accord­ing to Sea Shep­herd’s pres­i­dent Paul Wat­son. No injuries have been incurred by crew on both ships, and nei­ther ship is in dan­ger of sink­ing. A pod of whales being chased by the Japan­ese ship escaped.

Farley Mowat holed12.02.2007

The Sea Shep­herd ship, Robert Hunter, has been holed in its star­board bow, and its port stern sec­tion above the water­line, dur­ing a col­li­sion with the whale spot­ter ship Kaiko Maru , accord­ing to Sea Shep­herd’s pres­i­dent Paul Wat­son. No injuries have been incurred by crew on both ships, and nei­ther ship is in dan­ger of sink­ing. A pod of whales being chased by the Japan­ese ship escaped.

Exact details of the col­li­sion are still con­fus­ing. It appears the two Sea Shep­herd ships caught the Kaiko Maru chas­ing a pod of whales near the Bal­leny Islands in Antarc­ti­ca, south of New Zealand. Attempts were made by Sea Shep­herd activists to dis­able the pro­pel­lor of the Kaiko Maru, it appears with some suc­cess. Sea Shep­herd say on their web­site “At one point dur­ing the con­fronta­tion, the Kaiko Maru turned to star­board and struck the Robert Hunter.” Accord­ing to Dr Hiroshi Hatana­ka from the ICR on their web­site “The Robert Hunter rammed the Kaiko Maru.”

“Sea Shep­herd threw smoke pots onto the Kaiko Maru and released ropes and nets to entan­gle her screw. Its pro­peller has been dam­aged by them. The ves­sel is strand­ed at the moment and has already put out sev­er­al dis­tress calls.” said Dr Hiroshi Hatana­ka, the Direc­tor Gen­er­al of the Insti­tute of Cetacean Research on the ICR web­site.

After the col­li­sion between the Robert Hunter and Kaiko Maru, the Japan­ese ves­sel was effec­tive­ly block­ad­ed against sea ice.

The Japan­ese ves­sel issued a mar­itime dis­tress call say­ing that it was under attack and in imme­di­ate dan­ger. Accord­ing to the Sea Shep­herd web­site “Sea Shep­herd acknowl­edged this dis­tress sig­nal, but they Japan­ese ves­sel refused to say what dis­tress they were in.”

The Green­peace ship also respond­ed to the dis­tress call, offer­ing imme­di­ate assis­tance, head­ing at full speed to their posi­tion. Accord­ing to Dave on the Green­peace weblog “Accord­ing to the Res­cue Coor­di­na­tion Cen­tre of New Zealand, first reports stat­ed the Kaiko Maru was ‘under attack.’ Lat­er reports claimed a col­li­sion between the Sea Shep­herd ves­sel Robert Hunter and the Kaiko Maru, with the Robert Hunter receiv­ing a hole in the hull above the water line and the Kaiko Maru suf­fer­ing unspec­i­fied dam­age to its pro­peller.”

“At approx­i­mate­ly 18.15, the Res­cue Coor­di­na­tion Cen­tre of New Zealand request­ed that the Esper­an­za ‘stand down’. We informed the Res­cue Cen­tre that we would remain with­in VHF range in case assis­tance was need­ed. At 20:15 we received what’s known as a ‘Seelonce Fee­nee’, which means that the dis­tress call is now over.” con­clud­ed Dave from Green­peace.

Jon­ny Vasic, Inter­na­tion­al direc­tor of Sea Shep­herd, on board the Robert Hunter described the col­li­sion in a Syd­ney Morn­ing Her­ald report “It was a loud noise — a big bang. I actu­al­ly shud­dered a bit. The ships col­lid­ed two times, once side by side, and once when they rammed into us. I haven’t inspect­ed it yet, but they did some dam­age to our hull. … We are here to keep those guys out of the whale sanc­tu­ary. We are not dam­aged beyond repair. We are still sea­wor­thy,” Vasic said.

Both Sea Shep­herd ships have been away from port for sev­er­al weeks and are run­ning low on fuel. Cap­tain Wat­son said “We’re only prob­a­bly good for the next few days,”

Accord­ing to a report in The Age news­pa­per Cap­tain Wat­son warned that unless anti-whal­ing gov­ern­ments such as Aus­tralia took stronger action, he might try to ram the stern of the Nis­shin Maru.

“Do whale defend­ers have to die down here for the world to notice and take action against the crim­i­nal activ­i­ties of the Japan­ese whalers?” he said. “For this rea­son it has been decid­ed to stop the oper­a­tions of the Japan­ese float­ing slaugh­ter­house, the Nis­shin Maru, by ram­ming one of the ships up the slip­way of that foul, sadis­tic piece of killing machin­ery.” he told a reporter for the Age.

Cap­tain Wat­son has appealed to the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment to enforce its ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters in the Antarc­tic against whal­ing, just as it has enforced laws against fish poach­ing in its ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters.

Both Sea Shep­herd ves­sels do not have any cur­rent reg­is­tra­tion from a State, and have been labelled as ‘pirate ships’. Japan has pres­sured both the UK and Belize to can­cel mar­itime reg­is­tra­tion of the two Sea Shep­herd ves­sels.

Back­ground:
* SF Indy­bay IMC — Antarc­tic Direct Action: Japan­ese Claims of Injuries are Bogus says Sea Shep­herd
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/02/09/18360001.php
* SF Indy­bay IMC — US Gov­ern­ment Refus­es to Act against Japan on Whal­ing
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/02/09/18360043.php
* SF Indy­bay IMC — Sea Shep­herd crew miss­ing in Antarc­tic waters
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/02/08/18359650.php

Sources:
1. The Age — Whal­ing pro­test­ers threat­en Japan­ese ship
http://tinyurl.com/2tnceo
2. Sea Shep­herd — Sea Shep­herd Saves Whale Pod from Whalers
http://www.seashepherd.org/news/media_070211_2.html
3. ICR — RESEARCH VESSEL DAMAGED IN SEA SHEPHERD ATTACK
http://www.icrwhale.org/070212Release.htm
4. Green­peace — We con­demn vio­lence in the South­ern Ocean
http://weblog.greenpeace.org/oceandefenders/archive/2007/02/we_condemn_violence_in_th.html
5. Syd­ney Morn­ing Her­ald — ‘Pirate’ ship col­lides with whaler
http://tinyurl.com/34uhf3