Japanese whaler ship rams conservationist boat
 

Looks like deliberate and unprovoked. What is with whaling? Is it very lucrative or what?

Japanese Whalers Ram Sea Shepherd Ship Ady Gil - Sea Shepherd

YouTube - Ady Gil rammed by Shonan Maru No. 2, view from MV Bob Barker

How about posting a less one-sided source?

Ady Gil sinks after whaling skirmish - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Whaling war turns violent

There are always two sides to every story.

How can you say it is deliberate and unprovoked. Who knows what happened in the moments before this very short video. I am not saying the Japanese ship is right, I am saying there is more to the story we don't know.

I'm only talking about what that particular video shows. I obviously left it up to others to post "fair and balanced" links full of backstory opinion quotes. But the events in the incident are obvious; who is to blame is another story. But for example, you see that video, then some are trying to say that it's obvious the batman boat got in the bigger ship's way, when no such thing is so. That sort of argumentation makes that side look very weak.

My main question remains, is whaling lucrative enough to spit in the face of conservationist efforts? Does it compare to the oil and coal industries or is it an isolated case of a little town somewhere making a living? Wouldn't it be easier enough (or at least less violent) for a whaling industry to spin out some pseudo-science a la climate denial?

I'd hardly use the word "unprovoked". The Sea Shepherd's other ships have rammed, and even sunk other ships in the past (they've rammed Japanese boats, and both rammed and sunk Norwegian vessels). So finally they get hit back and apparently it's all the whalers' fault?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not exactly for whaling, but Paul Watson is both a danger to his cause and his own crew; the stunts he has pulled with his crew of inexperienced volunteers on the high seas is absurd.

I find the difference between the video shown in Japan and elsewhere quite interesting.

The Japanese video shows the SMALLER, much more maneuverable boat coming up and basically stopping in the way of the LARGER, much less maneuverable ship... And surprise surprise, the Japanese ship is unable to swerve out of the way in time.

Really, it looks more like a ploy that a real crash. Like someone stopping a car in front of a train, and then throwing a fit that the train deliberately "rammed" them. Like it could turn or avoid it.

Ask anyone who actually owns a ship - the smaller vessel is responsible for moving out of the way. There is just TOO much time and distance required for a large ship to do so.

Of course, I`m not at all surprised that Sea Shepard would do this. I`m surprised they didn`t let someone on their ship die so that they could jump and call the other ship murderer too...

So you are saying that a first person downward scope pointing only at the water proves the smaller boat moved in front of it? It's relative motion, and smells like nationalist delusion to me; I can recognize it well being so familiar with the US. The other video from a 3rd spot, which seems stationary, clearly shows who's moving and turning where based on the sky. Now, I'm not saying that is for sure, but to deny that with the certainty that the opposite actually occurred is not so much interesting as it is droll. But I digress. My main point remains in the air.

These whalers are ignoring international discourse and are not in waters they have dominion over. The conservationists believe they're protecting something. So is it a free for all? Because to argue the security boat was provoked by preceding incidents certainly isn't citing a case of innocent party vs attack.

So you purposely posted a one-sided link? I am a little lost.

Nothing about the event is obvious to me. Including who is to blame.

If you saw in my second link there are pics of people from the "Batman" boat holding bazooka looking projectile devices. The Japanese boat said it was being attacked. If that were to be true, are their actions not merited?

I wish I knew the answers to these questions.

Do you have a link to the Japanese video?

Interesting you use the word "discourse" rather than "law".

I really do feel for the little whales,

not only do they get grenades detonated inside thier body and then have to deal with an increadible cruel and painfull death
(make no mistake if you killed a single cow in the same manner in any normal country - including Japan - you would end up in prison under animal cruelty laws)

but the only people they have protecting them are peace-nick hippies who have no clue about what they are doing!

(i mean your gonna spend a couple of mill on shiny boats, and not spend a couple of hundered dollars on some RPG's and Semtex?? (current blackmarket prices - of course that may upset the french [ for some reason] - RE: rainbow warrior)

not to mention the plethora of hi teck sollutions (GPS scramble, electromagnetic compas confusion, sonar scramble, radar jamming etc.)
all legal in international waters too (or rather not illigal :cool: )

and the wide range of low tech sollutions, one could simply be infornt of a large vessel trailing a floated steel cable/net, that gets wrapped in the prop.......bye bye ship not moving, also engines/gearbox need overhaul.

although Japan is only whaling for "scientific" purposes right?
so how can they be allowed to sell the meat?

if i were to care enough about this issue to take direct action i would personally do the following.

1. buy a nippy sea worthy boat with a machine gun (lsw type), and a sonar speaker.
then go find pods of whales, transmitting your unique sonar beacon the whole time, pepper the pods with some bullets (this will hurt but not kill the whales), keep doing this, eventually (and it wont take long) the whales will assosiate your sonar noise with getting machine gunned and pain. thus will keep away and avoid this noise.

then all you have to do is have boats shadow the whalling boat transmitting this noise, whales know where the threat is and stay away.

or 2.
Japan says they whale for science but we all know that bollards. its for profit. thus shadow the whaling ship, wait till the have harpooned the whale, and inject the dying whale with a dangerous and highly toxic compound (or perhaps enzyme/virus/bacteria) that would render the meat unfit for human consumption. (even better a virus that would be very harmfull to humans - though i would not go as far as any pathogen capable of aerosol infection - i'm not too up on WMD legislation but pretty sure thats gonna upset someone somewhere :P )

lets see how long they can keep whaling if they are unable to sell the meat.

or 3 the russian aproach,

blackmail

4. the chinese apraoch

make a friend on the whaling ship, and have him commit sabotage. (there are so many ways this can be done without the operative being caught)


ultimatly

you dont need to stop the whaling ships, you just got to stop them making a profit, once that is done. it will stop.

and it really should.

if someone can invent a way to shoot the whale and kill it dead, then go right ahead, but as it stands, the current method of killing a whale is very cruel.

According to a statement from the skipper of the Steve Irwin, the Ady Gil (little speed boat) was deliberately rammed by the Japanese whaling ship. The statement said that the Ady Gil was trying to back out of path of the ship when it was hit.

Unfortunately for the Steve Irwin and the Ady Gil, the video shot from the Japanese ship shows that the Ady Gil was not backing up, and was in fact accelerating into the path of the ship. The video proves the skippers of both the Steve Irwin and the Ady Gil are liars, and deliberately ran their boat in front of the whaling ship to provoke an incident.

Such an action is inexcusable, and it shows that the Sea Shepherd group is dishonest and without integrity.

just looked at the ABC video.

the Japanese ship is entirely to blame and was clearly ramming the small boat.

please do look at this video again and observe the following.

1. the angle of the gil in relation to the whalling ship at the start of the video
(its about 45 deg)
2. the angle of the gil in relation to the whalling ship upon impact
(almost 90 deg)

you can see from the waters behind the boat that
a. the gill is NOT TURNING
b. the engines are on very low (ticking over)

the whalling boat sprays the crew so they cannot see, as a precaution they town down engines and maintain course and heading.


as there is a difference in relative angle between the start and impact, and as the gill is clearly not turning or using any real engine thrust.
the only explination that remains is that the "security" ship must have been turning.

but thier plan has backfired,
because now we are talking about it again

Japan security ship = fail :D


=========================
having viewed the youtube video its even more obvious.

when boat move though the ocean they create bow waves. (waves that splash forward from the front of the ship - the bow)

the andy gill is not making any bow waves,

the whaller is,
also you can see that the whaller at one point clearly leans accors to its left hand side, with bow waves matching indicating that its not just turning right, but turning hard right.

YouTube - Ady Gil Rammed (Synched PiP)

This video is clearly on the side of the anti-whaling side, but I cannot help bit notice that the Ady Gil revved its motors seconds before impact with the Japanese ship...an action that put it into the path of of the Japanese boat. Look at the top video right before impact. That is not clear from the bottom video.

EDIT: Actually, it is. Looking at the top video, and then the bottom video, the Ady Gil clearly was not at a full stop, and put themselves in the path of the Japanese ship, and therefore was struck.

I am not a boating expert, but a small speed boat should be more maneuverable than a much larger fishing boat...so why would they rev their motors into the path of the larger boat? And on the original video by the OP why are the videographers of the incident laughing?

WRONG - YOU DONT KNOW BOATS

a boat is not a car. if you stop the engines, it wont just stop,

if you hit reverse it wont just reverse,
the wake indicates the direction of travel and thrust vecters only!

it shows the boat (gil) was traveling forward, at a Very low speed and was probably deccelerating and certainly was not turning.

i will say however that the gil's engines were not in "Full Reverse" but there are reasons for this, because you loose 90% control if you go from forward velocity and hit full reverse, (not a problem in open waters/ricvers,) but if you have another vessel nearby not reccomended

Look at the video I posted. The Ady Gil clearly accelerated into the path of the Japanese ship.

with a boat, again its not a car, the rudder does nothing unless there is thrust, so to turn hard the engines must be up.

its hard to make out from the whalling ship POV but it looks asif the gil is infact attempting to turn, (thrust spray apears to be towards the right - which would turn the gil so it was alongside the whaller)

the crew were blinded with the water cannon until it was too late, at which point the skipper of the gill attempted to take evasive action,

again, you cannot turn without engines on,
and the harder the engines are pushing, the more you turn

So it is arguable that the Ady Gil put itself in a pretty dangerous situation as it was positioned in the path of a ship much larger than itself, and not in a way it could escape with any ease, as revving the engines would only put it in more danger.

if you look at eh video taken from the 3rd point of view.

you see the maru bearing down towards the gil,

it goes up on a wave, and when it comes down the dow wave is on the left hand side of the boat.

this is a clear indication that the maru is engaged in a hard right turn

also again the water cannon (from maru video) you can see that the crew of the gil were afforded almost 0 visability, were on a straight course. and again

look at the angles from the maru vid.

at the biggening there was a 45 deg angle (the gil with no vis. and engines idle was thus not turning)

upon impact the angle is almost 90deg.

the only way this can happen is if one of the two boats is turning.

gil with no thrust - not turning,
maru proven to be turning, its pretty open and shut for me

well its up against a large armed (with water cannons) ship that tried and suceeded in ramming it out of the ocean

so yea.

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

==================

Interesting how the different videos give such different perspectives- in some it appears certain that the Shonan Maru rammed the Ady Gil, in others quite the opposite.

perhaps it was all just revenge for the countless whalling ships sunk by sea shepherd

YouTube - Sea Shepherd

I am sorry I don`t have a link to the Japanese video - I have seen it about 50 times on television news though.

I personally disagree with whaling, but I don`t particularly feel that people need to DIE over this - a sentiment that clearly differs from that of Sea Shepard. They have stated MANY times that they think the whalers should die, their ships should sink, etc etc. There is a REASON there was a defense ship out there to begin with - Sea Shepard is little above a pirating operation. There are lots of things that I disagree with in this world, but attacking people who go against that is no way to actually forward those beliefs.

I also am familiar with ships. My husband`s family has a whole fleet. If the ships are moving, it IS the responsibility of the smaller ship to move out of the way. If the smaller ship is CAPABLE of moving out of the way, it is still responsible as depending on the conditions it can be much harder for the larger ship to see the smaller with enough time left to change course not to hit it.

It is being said in here that it could not see the approaching ship due to the water cannons. If it was close enough to be hit by the cannons, THAT alone is a huge issue. They don`t reach that far. They`re basically a final resort to keep a ship away - not something you shoot from far away to incapacitate another ship. It`s basically an anti-boarding device to stop people from hopping over to the other ship. You`d think if they were close enough to be hit by the cannon they`d have NOTICED the other ship bearing down on them.

If Sea Shepard had been a perfectly peaceful group up until this point, maybe I would be willing to question my own judgement looking at the video - but nope. Just because they want to say "We were rammed! It`s all those crazy whalers` fault!!", I`m not going to doubt the opinion of family who have been fishing for 30+ years. The smaller ship basically put itself into the path of a larger ship that didn`t have the time or space to get out of the way. Whether that was deliberate or just pure stupidity / inexperience... That is the part that I would like to know the answer to.

Your other post was removed and you were pmed about it.

This is not a war. These are not enemies attacking a country. Human lives are not at stake here. Fishermen do not deserve to die or lose property for doing the job they are being paid to do. It`s fine to disagree with whaling - but go after those who permit it, at the top.

You were right about one thing though - that sort of action would be pure terrorism. Attacking and driving fear into the hearts of people who are doing something you disagree with.

ETA; And... your edit earned you a ban.

What the hell was Ady Gill doing there so close in the first place?

again sorta not
 

for all you 'JF wanna-be skippers' there is no 'turning left' or 'turning right' when it comes to boats? Left is known as 'port' and your right side is known as the 'starboard side'.

As for those who argue about 'piracy'-
International Laws and Charters Sea Shepherd campaigns are guided by the United Nations World Charter for Nature. Sections 21-24 of the Charter provides authority to individuals to act on behalf of and enforce international conservation laws.
Sea Shepherd uses innovative direct-action tactics to investigate, document, and take action when necessary to expose and confront illegal activities on the high seas.

Article 101 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea: “Piracy consists of . . . any illegal acts of violence or detention, or any act of depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or private aircraft and directed: (i) on the high seas, against another ship or aircraft or against persons or property on board such ship or aircraft.

NO ONE has ever been seriously hurt, nor killed, by sea shepherd. Ever. In their entire more than 30+ year history of operations! The Sea Sheppard has a clean marinetime record and the captain Paul Watson ( masters lic.) over 30yrs is also clean marinetime record.

for the record-
The Japanese through maritime ineptitude set their *own* ship on fire! (previously, in the antarctic). In another episode, the Japanese accidentally set off explosives on their own ship. Unlike Sea Shepherd ships which are Un-Armed, the Japanese vessels carry explosives, and they accidentally set some off and killed one of their own Japanese citizen.

That was previously, and in 2008' the Japanese lost a man overboard! So the Japanese are not only responsible for killing tens of thousands of whales illegally, and endangering more, the japanese are responsible for multiple loss of human life. And mind you, these they all did themselves. Sea Shepherd was no where near them when they did it.

-In another instance, the Japanese whaling fleet crippled one of their own vessels. It began to list. And it threatened to spill and leak thousands of gallons of fuel into New Zealand’s territorial waters, tainting a huge area of pristine antarctic ocean. New Zealand’s prime minister refused the japanese whaling fleet entry into new zealand port.

Sea Shepherd is the ONLY group actually taking action against Japans ILLEGAL whaling. Japanese whaling was found illegal in the Australian Federal courts and Sea Shepherd is enforcing that ruling. Australia can lawfully stop whaling within its Antarctic territory-Sea Shepherd also upholds the UN charter on wildlife.


Seamanship -Sea Shepherd versus Japans Whalers
Among above mentioned illegal acts Japanese whalers documented while throwing projectiles at Sea Shepherd crewmembers, hitting crewmembers with high powered water hoses, deploying fouling lines to damage ship’s propeller, using an acoustic weapon device against Sea Shepherd crewmembers and its helicopter while it was in the air.

I think this is the essential question.

I disagree with your assessment here. Basically you are saying that if whales get wiped off the face of the planet in a horrible manner thats no problem as long as no humans are hurt?! At some point the majority of humans will get on the same page about this issue. And it WILL be in favor of the whales. And people who think like you will be the first to go.

That's not what she is saying at all. WhoIsDaffy's posts were deleted, but he was advocating for the military destruction of the whaling ships and those aboard. Nyororin's point is, since the the whaler's are not engaging in acts that kill people, a terrorist strategy to kill and destroy isn't justifiable.

Oh. Sorry. I still think that at some point in the future (maybe beyond my lifetime) it may come to that though. A couple of generations from now the President might not even be elected without promising conservation of near extinct species.