The Ady Gil: Who was in the wrong

[Madhatter]

I respect your opinion, but my opinion is that if you are dead in the water and a ship bears down on you, changing direction as it does some way off before the final change, you cannot be blamed for being hit when you cannot see because of the water being thrown at you and the limited visibility to the rear from inside.

Hardly dead in the water !
Can't see a ship that size !
And how long does a ship of that size take to maneuver into such a close proximity !
And the Ady Gil purposely put its self in that part of the sea at that particular time and date with the intention of some sort of confrontation with a ship of that flotilla knowing that no good would come of it unless an incident took place END OF !!!!

 

[Major Catastrophe]

And the Ady Gil purposely put its self in that part of the sea at that particular time and date with the intention of some sort of confrontation with a ship of that flotilla knowing that no good would come of it unless an incident took place END OF !!!!

Yes, if you say so.

 

[armchairsailor]

Has anyone scanned the Sea Shepherd website and read their history? They are simply a bunch of direct action activists who aren't scared of shedloads of controversy. They regularly get arrested, sink boats less so and some consider them to be terrorists.

I've not seen the vid (company laptop blocking streaming sites...) but no good was going to come of this encounter, and Sea Shepherd have managed to succeed in their aims - getting as much publicity as possible with the ultimate goal of stopping whaling altogether.

I'm not necessarily agin them or Greenpeace (who they split from becuase GP were too soft!) but there were going to be tears in that particular encounter, one way or the other.

 

[Madhatter]

Yes, if you say so.

No I don't say so, they do by their press release and the fact that they were there !

 

[Major Catastrophe]

No I don't say so, they do by their press release and the fact that they were there !

Yes, if you say so.

 

[robin_99]

<snip> and Sea Shepherd have managed to succeed in their aims </snip>

Actually, I think their aim is to save as many whales as possible. And they are committed to using non-violent means.

Best regards,
Robin

 

[robin_99]

Sea Shepherd were threatening the lives of the japanese Whaling fleet who were 'legally' hunting whales for research purposes in the Southern Ocean.

LOL!!! Whew, that was a good one! That is some research project they've got going there. Not.

Best regards,
Robin

 

[Cruiser2B]

Actually, I think their aim is to save as many whales as possible. And they are committed to using non-violent means.

Best regards,
Robin

Actually Paul Watson has admitted spiking trees, an act which can have deadly consequences for loggers. He also favours mass-genocide to protect the Earth from humankind. And closer to the point, does disabling ships and lobbing mason jars filled with noxious acid at their crew sound "non-violent" to you?

 

[Major Catastrophe]

Actually, I think their aim is to save as many whales as possible. And they are committed to using non-violent means.

Best regards,
Robin

On the contrary, they are quite committed to 'violent' action.

Their mission statement reads:

Sea Shepherd's Mission Statement

Established in 1977, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) is an international non-profit, marine wildlife conservation organization. Our mission is to end the destruction of habitat and slaughter of wildlife in the world's oceans in order to conserve and protect ecosystems and species.

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. By safeguarding the biodiversity of our delicately-balanced ocean ecosystems, Sea Shepherd works to ensure their survival for future generations.

Also, from their website:

Highlights from our past three decades include:

Ramming and disabling the notorious pirate whaler, the Sierra
Shutting down half of the Spanish whaling fleet
Documentation of whaling activities in the Faeroe Islands chronicled in the BBC documentary Black Harvest
Scuttling half of the Icelandic whaling fleet and whale processing station
Scuttling half of the Icelandic whaling fleet and whale processing station
Scuttling of the Norwegian whaling vessels Nybraena and Senet
Confronting and opposing Japan's illegal whaling in Antarctica

 

[robin_99]

Actually Paul Watson has admitted spiking trees, an act which can have deadly consequences for loggers. He also favours mass-genocide to protect the Earth from humankind. And closer to the point, does disabling ships and lobbing mason jars filled with noxious acid at their crew sound "non-violent" to you?

I don't know about the tree spiking and I don't think mass genocide is in the Sea Shepherd manifesto, but which ships have they disabled at sea? None as far as I know. Their "prop foulers" never work. As for the acid, they have explained many times that they throw rotten butter (butyric acid) which stinks like h*ll but is less "acidic" than orange juice.

 

[robin_99]

On the contrary, they are quite committed to 'violent' action.

Someone said (Martin Luther King?) that you cannot commit an act of violence against an inanimate object. So sinking a ship in port with nobody on board is not an act of "violence".

 

[Madhatter]

On the contrary, they are quite committed to 'violent' action.

Their mission statement reads:

Sea Shepherd's Mission Statement

Established in 1977, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) is an international non-profit, marine wildlife conservation organization. Our mission is to end the destruction of habitat and slaughter of wildlife in the world's oceans in order to conserve and protect ecosystems and species.

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. By safeguarding the biodiversity of our delicately-balanced ocean ecosystems, Sea Shepherd works to ensure their survival for future generations.

Also, from their website:

Highlights from our past three decades include:

Ramming and disabling the notorious pirate whaler, the Sierra
Shutting down half of the Spanish whaling fleet
Documentation of whaling activities in the Faeroe Islands chronicled in the BBC documentary Black Harvest
Scuttling half of the Icelandic whaling fleet and whale processing station
Scuttling half of the Icelandic whaling fleet and whale processing station
Scuttling of the Norwegian whaling vessels Nybraena and Senet
Confronting and opposing Japan's illegal whaling in Antarctica

M C , I am trying to understand your rejection of my post bearing in mind the above quotes you have posted

 

[Madhatter]

Someone said (Martin Luther King?) that you cannot commit an act of violence against an inanimate object. So sinking a ship in port with nobody on board is not an act of "violence".

" Ghost ships ??"

 

[Major Catastrophe]

M C , I am trying to understand your rejection of my post bearing in mind the above quotes you have posted

Because I maintain they were dead in the water of the time of the ramming and not engaged in violent action at the time.

I posted the above because the poster said that Sea Shepherd did not engage in violent action. They do, but not at the time they were rammed by the Shonan Maru 2, which is a guard/attack ship and not a whaler.

I am trying to clarify facts as I see them. To me the Ady Gill was not moving until the last moment and the Shonan Maru 2 made several course changes that resulted in a collision, aided by the very last minute very slow forward motion, which I put down to the fact the helmsman could not see a thing through the screen because of the water cannon, which unsportingly the Japanese continued using after the Ady Gill was holed.

 

[robin_99]

" Ghost ships ??"

The ships were in port. The whalers were all down the pub.

The French government tried the same thing with the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior by the way, but they got it wrong. A person was still on board and he was killed. Now that is what I call violence. Sea Shepherd has not seriously injured anyone in 30 years of action.

 

[30boat]

Whales must be saved by almost any means.Human stupidity knows no bounds and can come from anywhere even from the most civilized countries.All in all I must say I'm with the Sea Shepherds .If they did motor into the bows of the Japanese ship that means they made a mistake.Who doesn't?

 

[Cruiser2B]

I don't know about the tree spiking and I don't think mass genocide is in the Sea Shepherd manifesto, but which ships have they disabled at sea? None as far as I know. Their "prop foulers" never work. As for the acid, they have explained many times that they throw rotten butter (butyric acid) which stinks like h*ll but is less "acidic" than orange juice.

Before you start singing Watson's praise, just be aware he's a nutter; he didn't quit Greenpeace - he was kicked out. Based on Major C's list, the Sierra was disabled. The very act of attempting such action is violent, so it doesn't matter they're failures at it. I didn't know that butter turned into white powder when it rotted - and of course, there's nothing violent about being hit with a glass jar.

Scuttled ships leak oil - not very environmentally-friendly.

 

[toad_oftoadhall]

Before you start singing Watson's praise, just be aware he's a nutter

After a closer look I've had a 100pc change of opinion on this one.

IMHO the best video to get a sense of what happened is the Bob Barker vid.

You can see the Ady Gil had perfectly clear visibility right up to the last minute. The ship was going to pass ahead of them. They seem to forward almost three boat lengths.

They've cunningly put text bubble over the AG's transom at 1:20 to hide the fact the AG is moving forward for 10 seconds also I think the Bob Barker may have been moving to the right which makes it look like Shonan Maru 2 turns more at the last minute than she did.

The IRPCS don't allow that. They could have legitimately reversed avoid the situation or remained still. The one thing they couldn't do was go forward.

So in my view plenty of blame on both sides - there always is in a collision IME.

Given we know that the Ady Gill was there to try to create close quarter situations and the Whalers are there to Whale I know where I reckon 90 per cent of the moral blame lies.

I'd question if application of the IRPCS has any meaning where vessels are *trying* to create close quarters situations.

 

[dulcibella]

People and governments that behave in an environmentally destructive way in the face of almost world-wide opinion can't expect to hide behind ColRegs when an incident occurs between them and a protest vessel. I didn't hear anyone talking about ColReg aspects of trawler protection manoeuvres by UK warships during the "cod war" with Iceland, presumably because most sailors in the UK considered that the Icelandic gunboats had acted in a way that forfeited their rights under collision avoidance rules. Sea Shepherd's methods are arguably counterproductive because they alienate public opinion, but the obscenity of continued Japanese whaling is the "elephant in the room" (or possibly the whale) so chit-chat about ColRegs becomes of pretty marginal interest regardless of who was technically in the wrong.

 

[TradewindSailor]

It is quite obvious that the reseach vessel was passing parallel to the smaller boat (Ady Gil?) at the start of this video. It was clear on the smaller boat's side.

At the time of the collision the Ady Gil had turned to port and rammed the research vessel.

Anyone who thinks that that Research Ship turned into the Ady Gil has no comprehension of how ships handle at sea.

This is an act of publicity and it shows the operator of the Ady Gil to be guilty of endangering lives at sea.

I am not a supporter of whaling, or of Sea Shepherd, the owner of Ady Gil.