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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| Whale protest boat 'cut in half' (rammed and sunk by Japanese whalers) |
| 2010-01-06 |
| Heart-warming pictures at link: the eco-pirate about to be run down and then video of the Japanese sailors pulling the soaked and terrified eco-terrorists aboard their own vessel. The crew of the New Zealand trimaran harassing Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean had to be rescued after their boat was rammed and sunk by a Japanese ship, anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society says. How unfortunate. The confrontation is thought to have happened early today in the area of Commonwealth Bay off the Adelie Coast of Antarctica. The former Earthrace boat - now known as the Ady Gil - was captained by Aucklander Pete Bethune and had four other New Zealanders and a Dutchman crewing it. Mr Bethune said before his departure he would not follow previous Sea Shepherd tactics and try to ram Japanese whalers. Sea Shepherd leader Paul Watson told theage.com.au the Ady Gill had been cut in half by the Japanese whaler acting as a security vessel for the Japanese fleet. The $1.5 million high-tech vessel's remains were sinking, but its six-man crew had been rescued and was uninjured, Mr Watson told The Age. He said it was idling in waters near Commonwealth Bay when it was suddenly approached and rammed by the Japanese ship Shonan Maru. Earlier in the day the fleet was contacted for the first time by the Ady Gil and Sea Shepherd's third vessel, the Bob Barker. Mr Watson, aboard the society's bigger, but slower ship Steve Irwin, said he was still 500 nautical miles from the scene. "This seriously escalates the whole situation," he said of the collision. No, Captain Kidstuff, you and your media pirates escalated it when you started attacking lawful commerce on the high seas. The Institute of Cetacean Research, which has previously fronted for the whalers, claimed the Ady Gil's crew were launching projectiles at a ship in the fleet, the Nisshin Maru, and attempted to entangle its propellers with rope. Unlike Sea Shepherd's numerous media and high-society supporters, the ICR is fronting for a legal activity. "The research-base vessel Nisshin Maru, currently engaged in the Japanese whale research programme in the Antarctic ... was subject to attack today for about two hours by the New Zealand-registered watercraft Ady Gil," the institute said. "In a manner similar to their 23 December attack on the Shonan Maru No. 2, at about (7am NZDT) the Ady Gil came to collision distance directly in front of the Nisshin Maru bow repeatedly deploying and towing a rope from its stern with the intent to entangle the Japanese vessel's rudder and propeller." It said the crew of the New Zealand boat were also shining a green laser light and launching stinkbombs that smelled of rancid butter. The Nisshin Maru started its water cannons "and proceeded to prevent the Ady Gil coming closer". The institute claimed the activists' actions were "nothing but felonious behaviour" and potentially threatened the safety of Japanese sailors. "In addition, their repeated deploying and abandonment of ropes designed to entangle the propeller of our navigating vessels ultimately ends up litter spoiling the Antarctic marine environment." Now that the pirates are in Japanese hands they need to be taken to Japan and tossed in jail. More comments here Many nautical types had serious doubts that Sea Shepherd could operate a vessel like this (a former Earthrace boat) and expressed surprise that it did not sink before the Japanese got a crack at it. |
| Posted by:Atomic Conspiracy |
| #19 Does anyone have a non-YouTube link to the video? YouTube has dumped it. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2010-01-06 23:09 |
| #18 Thing is, whale populations in many areas have rebounded to nearly pre commercial hunting numbers. Hunting of the larger, older individuals can make for a healthier population of the rest. Whales have no predators once they are adults. If left on their own, they will expand their population to the limits of the food supply and then their health suffers from malnutrition. There needs to be a cull of the oldest members of the herd of the population is to remain healthy. |
| Posted by: crosspatch 2010-01-06 22:11 |
| #17 I just pointed out a Australian news site that the Japanese eat whales for religious reasons. They are traditionally classified as fish and therefore OK for non-meat eating Buddhists. Clearly a few Japanese suicide bombers are required in order for (some of) us to take Japanese religious beliefs seriously. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2010-01-06 19:57 |
| #16 I have watched whale wars once and I swear that they are engaging in piracy on the high seas. I am not a lawyer but at times there are clearly endangering the Japanese vessels and at the very least interfering with LEGAL commerce. After only 5 minutes I was rooting for the Japanese to ram the eviro-wacko boat. At one point they were explaining how they were getting in position to cut the line on a whale carcass, how does that not amount to piracy? |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge 2010-01-06 17:09 |
| #15 I still don't understand why those people want to go to all that trouble to shave the whales. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2010-01-06 16:00 |
| #14 Mojo - damn clever those Japanese. |
| Posted by: GORT 2010-01-06 15:49 |
| #13 So - lemme get this straight - a 45-knot speedboat was chased down, rammed and sunk by a whaler capable of 12 knots max? That's a hell of a trick. |
| Posted by: mojo 2010-01-06 14:53 |
| #12 This boat is a turkey and they are trying to sell it to the insurance company. Mechanically, structurally, it is a mess that was bought by eco-suckers for $2.5M, which the owner will get if the insurance company pays off. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ady_Gil Look at the history of this Edsel. No maritime underwriter in his right mind would touch it. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2010-01-06 13:05 |
| #11 Construction: Carbon fibre foam sandwich with Kevlar armour. Crunches nicely. No, I have NO respect for the speedboat's Pirate crew, they asked for it, then they got it, Japanese eat whales, would you think the pirates "Noble" if they went into supermarkets and splashed turpentine on all the meat in the coolers? Hell NO. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2010-01-06 12:58 |
| #10 Contrary to much eco-wackie and pop-culture dogma, whales are stupid. High energy technology, in the form of power vessels and harpoon guns, was not introduced into whaling until late in the 19th century. Before that, whales held a massive physical and tactical advantage over the puny harpoon tossers. If the whales had truly been intelligent, sentient beings, they could easily have exterminated every human marauder who put to sea looking for them. Such a course would have been both logical and moral, the first and most necessary signs of true intelligence. Instead, even Stone Age humans had little trouble hunting the whales and putting them to good use. |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2010-01-06 12:22 |
| #9 Ever watch that show? The pirates do not seem to be career or natural sailors. There was an episode where the show's hook was them deploying one of their propeller entanglers. They don't seem to realize that perhaps knowing this technique, the Japanese may have fitted protection from these devices to the underside of their hull so it would make sense to me that the pirates were attempting to deploy closer as strategy and just lacked the experience to perform the maneuver, "Its a racing boat, it should accelerate like a race car." The video didn't play for me, so if I'm wrong according to video evidence I apologize - just making a possible conclusion based on the high seas clownary showcased by their own propaganda. - My wife was letting me watch her shows one night and this one was on, after watching them ram willy nilly through a ice field in hopeless persuit of a Japanese vessel, with their boarding craft and crew lost, I said to my wife, "Hell, I think this flatlander Kansan right here could skipper better than this, and I sure as hell wouldn't have crew lost in killer sea conditions." |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2010-01-06 12:08 |
| #8 Isnt' the general rule that the lesser-manuverable vessel always have the right-of-way? The money shot: "In addition, their repeated deploying and abandonment of ropes designed to entangle the propeller of our navigating vessels ultimately ends up litter spoiling the Antarctic marine environment." |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2010-01-06 11:33 |
| #7 A 40k high tech ocean racing boat could not get out of the way of a 12 kt fishing boat? Lets be real. There is no way the slow boat can ram the fast one unless the fast one was deliberately crossing the bow at such a rate that the slow boat could not avoid the collision. It would be like a sail boat trying to ram a jet ski. IOW the enviro-thuns are lying. |
| Posted by: Jeager Panda5130 2010-01-06 11:26 |
| #6 In the video on the BBC website, you can see the protest boat going from idle to FULL ahead just before the Japanese ship hits it. They claim they were trying to back up, but if you watch the stern, it's accelerating obviously into the path of the ship, not backing away. |
| Posted by: Silentbrick 2010-01-06 11:13 |
| #5 It said the crew of the New Zealand boat were also shining a green laser light and launching stinkbombs that smelled of rancid butter. So they're not only pirates but also war criminals. Why aren't these people at least being investigated by authorities in among other countries New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the US, all signatories of the Laser Weapons Protocol? Where's the ICC? |
| Posted by: Captain Unish7062 2010-01-06 11:09 |
| #4 If you play "chicken" with large steel objects while driving around in a small fiberglass object, you must be prepared for the prospect of losing. |
| Posted by: Mike 2010-01-06 11:08 |
| #3 In early 1985 the Rainbow Warrior had never looked better. It had a fresh coat of paint, a new radio and radar, and a complete engine overhaul. The crew remarked on how well the ship sailed. The ship was in Auckland, New Zealand, preparing to visit Moruroa Atoll for a major campaign against French nuclear testing. But the voyage was not to be. But then suddenly during noon mess.... Kaboom! Kaboom! Smiling Greenpeace 'volunteer' Chris Cabon aka Frederique Bonlieu downs her coffee, grabs her beret, bottle of Beaujolais, a baquette, and unasses the sinking vessel. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2010-01-06 10:59 |
| #2 We could offer the whaling team a job protecting shipping in the Gulf of Aden |
| Posted by: Oscar 2010-01-06 10:54 |
| #1 Too bad they didn't drown. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2010-01-06 10:45 |