Posted on 01/06/2010 12:42:29 AM PST by bruinbirdman
Japanese whalers have sliced in half a high-tech anti-whaling boat in a dramatic escalation of the annual battle between the whaling fleet and environmental activists
Activist on the Ady Gil aims a projectile launcher at a Japanese whaler
The $1.5 million, 79 foot long 'stealth' boat Ady Gil sank after the attack in Southern Ocean but its six man cew was rescued uninjured, said Captain Paul Watson, founder of the radical environmental group Sea Shepherd.
Captain Watson said the Ady Gil, a light weight vessel that resembles Batman's spacecraft more than a conventional boat, was idling in waters near Commonwealth Bay in the Antarctic when it was suddenly rammed by the Japanese ship Shonan Maru, which was providing security to Japan's whaling fleet.
"This seriously escalates the whole situation," said Captain Watson. Speaking from on board the Steve Irwin mother-ship, which was 500 miles away from the collision, Captain Watson added: "According to the (Japanese) Institute of Cetacean Research, the Ady Gil's crew were launching projectiles at the Nisshin Maru and attempted to entangle its propellers with rope."
Australia director for Sea Shepherd Jeff Hansen said the Ady Gil was at a standstill when it was rammed..
"They (the crew) saw the Shonan Maru approaching and tried to back away but they couldn't get out of way in time and were T-boned by the Shonan," said Mr Hansen.
"The Shonan put a hole in the Ady Gil and the nose has clean broken off," he said.
Mr Hansen said the Ady Gil issued mayday call that was not answered by the Japanese whaling fleet. The crew were now on the fleet's third boat, the Bob Barker, he said, but wee unsure if the Ady Gil could be salvaged..
The Ady Gil, a biodiesel
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
The environazis started a fight and the Japanese whalers finished it. The MSM thinks I should feel bad for the punk pirates?!?!? Sorry, I don’t.
Environmental terrorists!!!
The writer is an idiot. Everyone knows Batman does not own a spacecraft.
I have no love for whalers, but the video at this link
seems to show the protest boat speeding up along the port side of the Japanese ship and then attempting to cut across its bow. Granted it does not show the actual collision, but that’s only because of the camera angle.
Apparently, the helmsman of the protest boat tried to cut it too fine in order to make the Japanese change course, and didn’t judge the numbers right — or was hoping to get hit.
The idea that the Japanese intentionally rammed the boat is as ludicrous as the Chinese claim that the P-3 rammed their fighter.
Does anyone really believe that the Shonan Maru could possibly sneak up on a boat that is at least five times as large and three times as fast as it is and T-bone it?
If those of us who oppose abortion put the same kind of effort into disrupting the operation of abortionists, wouldn’t we then go to jail? And have every left winger cheering over our imprisonment? Regardless of how many of our tools of disruption might be destroyed?
Save the whales or terrorize radical environmentalists. Like their ship, I’m truly torn.
Maybe they were hoping that they would sink the Shonan Maru. Looks like they got their collision, and their desserts.
They played chicken with a big boat and lost. What idiots. Luckily for them, none of them ended up with the Darwin award.
Send the pirates to Davy Jones’ locker.
Good for the Japanese. The eviro wackcos get all the good PR. If they were doing what the Japanese said—they deserve to be sunk.
Don’t bring a toy boat to a game of naval chicken.
What unmitigated BS! Anyone who watched the Sea Shepherd TV series knows that the Sea Shepherd vessel was doing one of its standard “chicken” maneuvers to harass the Japanese vessel, and towing a prop-fouling line across its bow. Unprovoked attack? I think not!
I hope this puts him and his band of miscreants out of business.
Well, the Japanese have the video and you can hear them sound their horn to warn of impending collision. It is laughable that the batmo-boat crew is claiming that it was ‘idling’ and was ‘suddenly rammed’. The video shows it racing along, overtaking the Japanese boat, in an intercept course and cutting across the bow - the degree of lies about what happened should embarrass the eco-terrorists, but won’t.
It’s a little odd that the Japanese didn’t respond to the mayday but they may have stood off to watch - if this very odd looking batmo-boat sits so high out of the water, it may not have looked like it needed immediate rescue. Indeed, the article says all crew were rescued by another eco-terrorist ship so that meant a ship farther away then that of the Japanese had time to arrive and rescue all hands.
If I were the Japanese I’d be a little wary of trying to assist a boat that was provoking or displaying aggression because, well, try to help them and they’ll claim you ‘came back to finish the job’, tried to poison, threatened to throw them over the side etc. Their story would now claim they were rammed, boarded, and taken hostage. International incident - hmmmm.........they might actually like that part.
HUGE risk the batmo-boat took though - in icy waters like that. I think they were trying to force the Japanese boat to make a hard course correction. No matter what face they show to the world (VICTIM STATUS), I believe those who foot the bill for the 1.5million dollar batmo-boat will want to talk to the person responsible for cutting across the bow of the Japanese boat like that - it didn’t look feasible at all.
Ah yes...that would explain the crazy maneuver.
It cost $2.5 million, which was mostly funded by sponsors. It broke the world record for circumnavigating the globe in a motorized boat. It set the record in 60 days 23 hours and 49 minutes. On Friday June 27, 2008 Earthrace set a new powered circumnavigation of the globe world record when it crossed the finish line at 14:24 CET at Sagunto, Spain.
http://www.popularmechanics.co.za/content/outside/singlepage.asp?fid=871&pno=1
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