Posted on 01/07/2010 6:52:08 PM PST by myknowledge
The Sea Shepherd's anti-whaling speedboat Ady Gill 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 Gill went down shortly before 3:30am AEDT while it was being towed to a French research base by the group's Bob Barker boat.
"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 high-tech Ady Gill on Wednesday.
Both the Japanese whalers and the Sea Shepherd crew blame each other for the incident, which happened in Antarctic waters.
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."
'Harassment and attack'
But Glenn Inwood from Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research says Mr Watson has a dangerous attitude.
"Paul Watson has said before that he's willing to give any Japanese vessel what he calls a steel enema by ramming his ship into the stern of any Japanese vessel," Mr Inwood said.
"He also proudly displays the number of vessels he's sunk on the side of the Steve Irwin.
"You can understand why the Japanese have put security vessels down there.
"To say Japan has broken maritime laws can't be justified in this instance when you're under constant harassment and constant attack from these ships."
Mr Inwood says Japan's whaling program is internationally recognised as legal.
"The International Whaling Commission (IWC) have sanctioned it. The New Zealand government recognises its legality, and many members of the IWC do as well," he said.
"Sea Shepherd is trying to prevent Japan from conducting what is a legal operation under the rules of the IWC."
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 Gill 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 says two Japanese harpoon ships were nearby but did not offer any help after the incident.
"They were responsible, they destroyed the vessel ... I think they should have offered some sort of assistance but they refused to acknowledge any distress signal," he said.
Mr Watson says they were able to remove all the fuel from the speedboat to prevent any pollution.
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.
By Maritime law how can the eco-dinks be considered anything other than pirates? They should expect to be sent to the bottom of the sea.
Here is one site that shows several schools offering MBAs in Finance. If you're going to try and scold folks, at least get your facts straight!
http://www.mbaprograms.org/finance/
Nor are the whales they were taking.
Few things bother me more than folks using the WRONG word! For example, "decimate" means REDUCE by one tenth (think LATIN, FCOL!), yet ignorant people including some FReepers think it's a synonym for DESTROY.
Yearrgh! Rant over, for now...
What you fail to understand, is that the whale population is healthy and the harvest does not hurt the population by taking a little surplus from a sustainable population. Please study up on the concept of carrying capacity and get back to me.....
I was waiting for someone to say it tasted like chicken...
Next time send the algorejr., we’ll hopefully be able to stop paying his pension.
That gun needs a good telescopic sight.
I hate to agree with you but I concur... Whaling is sick. We have so much technology now adays they can use for the whale materiel they take...
The hit was only four feet from the bow. If the Ady Gill had NOT accelerated, there would have been no collision.
Another freeper on another thread made the point that the Japanese ship appeared first to turn away from the oncoming bat-boat and then realized the bat-boat was committed to crossing her bow and that her present course would effectively chase and catch (collide with) the bat-boat (which was most likely dragging a prop fouling line). So the Japanese ship then turn back in the direction of the bat-boat to get ‘behind’ the speedboat as it crossed.
In other words - to avoid colliding with a person crossing a hallway in front of you, you may choose to turn toward their point of origin so that they pass in front of you instead of turning in the direction they are already moving which is more likely to result in collision.
I watched a vid and it seemed to me that the claim the bat-boat staff made initially, that it was innocently drifting and suddenly rammed, is a bald faced lie intended to provide cover when they KNEW they were in the wrong. If the Japanese ship did turn toward the bat-boat in pure aggression, I can kind of see why it did because those who operate the bat-boat had publicly bragged of their intention to ram and sink other whaling vessels as their entire purpose and pursuit/interception of the Japanese boat was pure aggression in sub zero waters.
It's clear that the Japanese only hit the very front of the smaller boat. If the smaller boat had NOT intentionally accelerated into the path of the whaler, it would NOT have been hit.
The Ady Gil was a whole lot more maneuverable than the Japanese ship. From the looks of it, the Ady Gil was crossing under the bow of the Japanese ship not the other way around.
Sunk, huh? That’s a shame.
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