a few points.

1. the maru should have immediatly come to all stop it did not.

2. it is the only way to turn unless you have bow thrusters which the gil does not have.

I too have quite a bit of experience with boats, on both calm rivers/lakes/canals and the open ocean.

what aplies on calm water has almost no bearing in open ocean

please refer to my previos post salv.

1. the crew could not see the maru because of the water cannons

2. they were not moving forward, even when engines are idle if the boat moves forward it will have a wake.

3. you cant just throw a boat into full reverse on open ocean when next to an obstacle, the maru could have engaged full reverse, but did not.

You are clearly a more experienced seaman than me, so I have to succeed to some of the things you say.

However, in the video you talk about I don't see the Maru "bearing down" on the Gil. I see it moving in chopping waters and the Gil positioned in a pretty dangerous location. (It would be nice to have video 5 minutes before this short video).

I see the Gil with two motors going straight ahead into the path of the Maru. If I am wrong, give me the time signature where the Gil is trying to turn out of the way.

I can understand blaming the water hoses, but picture show the Gil with weapons of their own, though we don't see them using them in this video.

So the larger ship has the responsibility to heed to the position of the smaller ship?

I don't know nautical law, but this seems backwards to me.

Irregardless of who attempted to hit who, the fact that in the vastness of the ocean, this Batmobile of a boat got struck by a huge, slow-moving whaling vessel shows either the complete incompetence of the person piloting the Ady Gil, or that the person piloting the Ady Gil purposely put his boat in harm's way. It would be ridiculous to try and argue that the Ady Gil could not have outmaneuvered the whaling vessel, so long as the person piloting the boat actually knew how to pilot it.

Also, I'm sure the Sea Shepherds took out a nice fat insurance policy on their new boat before launching it on any operations.

both ships have responsibility to ensure there is no collision.

a general rule of thumb on all water ways is that "working" vessels have priority of "lesuire" vessles.

however that is not a right to take no action or ram.

example:

a sailing boat and cargo ship are on collision course.

the cargo ship will hold its course as it has priority (right of way) over the lesuire craft.

however if it becomes clear that a collision is likely then the cargo vessel must take action to avoid the impact.

another point, the maru has bow thrusters, these were not engaged, were the captain of the maru doing everything to avoid a collision then they would be at full thrust.

what it comes down to is that the gil was obviosly "provoking" the whalling ship, the maru stepped in.
and got pissed off and thought to hell with it, lets take out the tiny boat.

its not the crime of the century, and if they were flitting around the bigger ships with water cannons being fired at them, they clearly knew they were taking a risk.

I doubt they were expecting the maru to ram them (which it did) but thats really neither here nor there when your in international waters

actually the maru is not huge at all,

it will have a high top speed (not much slower than the bat boat!)

it has a streamlined hull and will have a very high power to mass ratio.

all in all the maru is a high performance vessel.

its no oil tanker!

a little off topic sorry,but what is the meaning of this discussion?

i need to correct myself here,

or rather clarify

while working vessels do have priority over lesuire craft.

im just gonna copy paste here:

====quote=======
The Ady Gill absolutely had the right of way, a stationary vessel ALWAYS has the right of way. Furthermore, the Japanese ship went out of it's way to hit the Ady, you can see this very clearly if you watch the footage from the conservationists boat. As if that were not enough, the Ady is to the right off the bow of the whaler giving it right of way even if it were moving

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