Whale Wars: Japanese Whalers Slice Sea Shepherd Boat in Half (Video)

7 by Timothy Hurst on January 6, 2010

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's new speedboat, the Ady Gil, shows front end damage after Wednesday's collision with a Japanese whaling vessel. (Photo: JoAnne McArthur/Sea Shepherd)

A collision between a Japanese whaling vessel and an anti-whaling boat off the coast of Antarctica has resulted in the destruction of a $2 million high-speed boat recently added to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's renegade environmentalist flotilla.

Video of the collision was shot from three vantage points. The following video, taken while on board the Japanese harpoon vessel and released by the Japanese Institute of Cetacean Research, clearly shows the Ady Gil before, during and after the collision in the Southern Ocean. In the video, the Ady Gil, which flies under the New Zealand flag, is struck as it appears to come to a stop in front of the Japanese harpoon vessel, the Shonan Maru 2. Watch it:

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The Ady Gil and its six-person crew was rescued by another Sea Shepherd vessel, the Bob Barker, which filmed the collision from a distance.

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Cardinal
Whalers should be shot on sight.
likwidshoe
Anti-whalers aren’t looking too bright here. Someone should send them to a remedial physics course where that they can learn what happens when superior mass and speed collides into something of smaller mass and slower speed.

Chris
Interestingly, the video shows the Adi Gale dead in the water, with the Shonan Muru heading on a course that would easily clear the smaller vessel.
The reason for the collision was not ignorance of the physics, but the rapid course change by the Shonan towards the smaller boat – which again is DIW at the time.
I spent 13 years at sea as a US Navy surface warfare officer, and any court that does not find the Shonan’s captain guilty of reckless endangerment is clearly being paid off by the whaling industry.
Previous harassment by the Sea Sheppard vessel nothwithstanding, the Shonan appears to have intentionally destroyed a vessel with 6 crew members in the Antarctic. This was a malicious and irresponsible act on the part of the Japanese, that could have easily resulted in the death of that crew.

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Mimim
You can clealy see the whalers boat turn towards the smaller boat just before it struck it.
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