collision video: Ady Gil vs Japanese vessel

The Ady Gil is the smaller vessel, therefore they are required to give way. (I'm guessing nobody at Sea Shepherd thought that a copy of Chapman's Piloting was worth the investment.) At first I thought that the whaling vessel was turning toward the Ady Gil but then I saw no evidence to that effect from the its wake at the end of the video. (A vessel that size has a considerable turning radius.) It's a tough call but based on this video alone I have to place blame squarely on the shoulders of the Ady Gil's captain. If he was at all interested in safety then he should have been well clear.

Now I'll leave the topic of whaling to a different thread.

 

I'd say firing a high pressure water stream at a holed vessel is an international crime on the high seas, or should be, as is done in the last seconds of the video. I also think firing a high pressure water stream at even an intact vessel would be criminal, as is done at the beginning of the video, as it may cause damage, injure passengers or crew, or disorient the crew or impair their ability to properly navigate, which is probably why the collision occurred.

 

Harumph. While I in no way advocate the taking of whales for commercial purposes, it's obvious from this video that the Sea Shepard people intentionally put their smaller vessel into a position to be rammed by the larger ship. I've seen the continuing series on this topic on the Animal Channel in the US and the Sea Shepard organization continuously harasses the Japanese ships by throwing chemicals at the Japanese crew members, plays chicken with the ships trying to get them to change course, and other harassing tactics. To their credit, the Japanese try to protect themselves only with fire hoses. There are two hoses evident in the video, the forward one was trying to protect the larger ship before the collision, the aft one was still going after the collision, the operator probably didn't realize the smaller boat had been damaged at this point.

OP is right. The wind in the flag and the wake clearly indicate that the collision was staged and timed by the Sea Shepard people. They were obviously willing to sacrifice their boat for the good of the cause. Note that the crew was wearing SCUBA gear, not the normal thing you'd wear when taking a boat ride! Also note that the wake of the larger vessel curves to the right (in the video), indicating that the ship was in a port turn, trying to turn away from the Ady Gil. Sea Shepard is definitely guilty on this one.

 

Before making any assumptions, its important to understand what was the cause of all this.

BBC News - Australia, NZ to probe Sea Shepherd collision

Sea Shepard have been aggressively trying to stop the whaling and this is not the first time a collision has occurred. I have seen videos of molotov cocktails and chemical grenades flung from the Sea Shepard vessel on the news injuring the whalers.

I am totally against whaling and it should be stopped. I don't understand why international rules allow whaling for "research purposes". The captain of Ady Gill was probably thinking of ramming the boat into the whaler to pierce its hull but the pointed composite bow smashed instead. I would go back to the drawing board and redesign the hull so it can be used as intended.

 

I thought it was done to "push" it away to avoid collision. I agree it isn't necessary after the collision.

Edit: I just watched it again. The rear water was not aiming toward the Ady as it did not move (other than from the ship rocking due to the wave). Ady just got in the way of it.

 

After watching multiple videos, it is clear the Sea Shepperd and the smaller speed boat are harassing the whaler.
The intention of the speed boat is to cross in front of the whaler to prevent the whaler from firing the harpoon at the whales.
The videos are clear that the speed boat had done this many times.
This is like committing piracy to stop a vessel to continuing its intend course in the high sea.

 

The Ady was responsible for the collision. The damage they got was not as bad as it could have been had the whaler ridden over it from bow to stern.

 

well you can clearly see that the whale killers ship made a turn towards the ady gil to ram it.

 

Totally agree.

This is basically the same thing as anti-abortion people kill doctors who do abortions.

 

After seeing the second video Ken posted I think the whaling ship turned into the smaller vessel and the captain of the smaller vessel applied forward power to attempt to cross in front of the larger whale murdering ship to avoid being run over. To apply reverse power with the larger vessel in a starboard turn as it was, before turning sharply to port, would only have resulted in the smaller vessel being more in the expected course of the whale murder ship.

I don't believe the skipper of the whale murder ship intention was to collide with the smaller vessel, but to intimidate the crew.

The skipper of the whale murder ship was at fault for 2 reasons, firstly it deliberately turned sharply toward the smaller vessel and secondly it shouldn't have been engaged in commercial whaling because commercial whaling is banned globally and calling it research doesn't make it right. The only research is the tasting at people's dining tables.
Can anyone name one thing that Japanese whale research has discovered that couldn't have been discovered without killing whales?

Whaling must end now.

To compare these actions of Greenpeace to people who kill doctors who perform abortions is totally ridiculous. The crew on a small composite vessel are not placing the lives of the crew of a larger steel vessel in any danger what so ever. In both videos you can clearly see that the crew of the large whale murder vessel are spraying water which is inhibiting the skipper of the smaller vessel's ability to see the approaching larger vessel.

It's time for the crews of these whaling ships to find new careers.

I bet you can't work out where my heart lies on this issue.

 

In this video of Feb '07 the Sea Shepherd vessel with pirate flag clearly rams the whaler but runs on top of an iceberg

and another one where they shoot something after the contact

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFGmR99-D0k&NR=1]YouTube - Raw Video: Ships Collide in Whaling Clash[/ame]

The whaling must be stopped and just ramming your boat isn't going to do it.

 

The second video of the ramming shows quite a different perspective. I rather doubt Paul Watson would intentionally ruin his fragile runabout so carelessly. Composites are no match for steel hulls, and there's a huge size discrepancy. Torpedoes and floating mines would be far more effective, and much cheaper.

 

I agree, the whaler was clearly turning starboard toward the Ady Gil before the collision. The Ady's surge forward, seen in the first video, could be interpreted as their trying to get out of way in the second video. They're lucky they weren't sunk on the spot!

I don't understand this whole thing. If it's illegal to hunt whales, except for research purposes, and the Japanese are actually selling the meat from 1,000 animals per year, why aren't there legal remedies? No one needs three whales per day for research!

 

They seem to need to keep checking that the flavour of whale meat still appeals to the Japanese palate. Is that scientific research? They may be conducting a scientific study into the whale meat market.

 

Did the ship that struck the Ady Gil stop to render assistance?

Whaling won't stop until customer demand dries up. I think the utter failure of "drug wars" to interdict the traffic rather than staunch demand proves that, as does every black market since the dawn of time. If there's a dollar to be made, someone will make that dollar, risking all to do it if they see that dollar as worth that much.

Most of the world seems to have lost its taste for whale products - we would do well to find out why and apply those lessons to the remaining contingent of demand. Trying to resolve the issue by ramming boats at sea is attacking a gross stupidity by committing an even greater one. Comical, except for the consequences.

 

Wikipedia has an update on the Ady Gil (formerly known as[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthrace"]Wikipedia has an update[/ame] )
It was a biodiesel-fueled, one-of-a-kind craft worth well over a million dollars. I say was because it sank while being towed to port.

 

those aholes put themselves in harms way and got what they deserved.






and if your'e going to ram somebody make sure you have the bigger ship

 

I might be mistaken, but I think that the Japanese ship involved in the collision was not a whaling ship, but a 'security' ship sent by the Japanese government to protect the whalers. Just as the Sea Shepard boats try to harass the whaling ships, the 'security' ships try to harass the Sea Shepard boats.

Ken: The Sea Shepard people are courageous, not suicidal.

Personally, I find the Japanese government's support of the whaling industry appalling. Perhaps letters from consumers of Japanese products to the companies that make them urging pressure to stop whaling is in order ?