Posted on 03/31/2008 9:14:32 AM PDT by Clive
HALIFAX - A coast guard icebreaker and a ship owned by a militant conservation group collided in the Gulf of St. Lawrence on Sunday as tension mounts over the annual seal hunt off Canada's East Coast.
A spokesman for the federal Fisheries Department said Monday that the icebreaker was "grazed" twice by the Farley Mowat, a 54-metre vessel owned by the U.S.-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
But the conservation group countered, saying its ship was rammed twice by the 98-metre icebreaker Des Groseilliers about 60 kilometres north of Cape Breton.
"It rammed the stern end of the Farley Mowat and when the Farley Mowat was stopped, it came back and hit them again," Paul Watson, head of the society, said from Los Angeles. "It was twice so it was intentional."
Department spokesman Phil Jenkins quickly denounced the claims, calling them "absolutely false" and part of a strategy by the international conservation group to besmirch the coast guard.
"We completely reject these allegations - they are fiction," Jenkins said from Charlottetown.
"The Farley Mowat approached the Des Groseilliers and brushed up against the side of the vessel."
The crew aboard the Farley Mowat said they were told by the coast guard not to approach an ice-covered area where seals were being slaughtered on the third day of the hunt.
Watson's group, which is monitoring and videotaping the hunt, said the coast guard ship rammed its vessel twice when the Farley Mowat did not comply.
The assertions come just days after four sealers were killed when their small boat capsized as they were being towed by the coast guard icebreaker Sir William Alexander.
One of the two survivors from the L'Acadien II, the ill-fated fishing vessel out of Iles-de-la-Madeleine, said the coast guard pulled the 12-metre boat up onto the ice early Saturday, flipping the vessel into icy waters of the gulf.
Witnesses have said the crew aboard the Alexander weren't monitoring the tow as they plowed through thick ice floes north of Cape Breton at 1:30 a.m.
Several agencies, including the RCMP, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada and Transport Canada, have said they will investigate the incident.
The captain of the overturned fishing boat, Bruno Bourque, and sealers Gilles Leblanc and Marc-Andre Deraspe died in the accident.
The coast guard ended the active search for the missing man, Carl Aucoin, saying there was no hope of finding him alive.
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With a bit more Global Warming we could get rid of icebreakers and then these tragedies would end.
Oh geez. I am related to Farley Mowat.
It’s not just an icebreaker. It’s a hippiebreaker.
}:-)4
ping
That thing needs to take a page from one of Farley’s books.
Hmmm... I guess it does take balls to ram an icebreaker that’s almost twice your size with an old freighter.
Funny thing about icebreakers, they tend to be built a lot tougher than other ships. I wonder if they sank they would ask the coast guard for help in pulling their people out of the water?
She looks to be riding high, in that ice it’s a good way to lose your prop. I would love to see the coast guard demand an apology from them first if they are disabled and need a tow to port.
The Farley Mowat? If it sinks don’t look for Gordon Lightfoot to make up a song about a boat with a name like that.
Do me a favour?
The next time you see him, tell him his name made my Mother dyslexic.
She could never remember if he was Marley Fowat, or Farley Mowat.
Does anyone believe the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s version of events?
Any vessel that intentionally rams another on the high seas, especially by these eco-nazis, should be sent straight to Davy Jones’ Locker.
Never met him. My grandmother conversed with him. Last I heard he could not enter the country.
Hey, I think I recognize that guy! Isn’t he a member of Greenpeace??
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