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| The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said the Brigitte Bardot's hull split when it was struck by a "rogue wave." (Agency Photo) |
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Sydney.Anti-whaling activists chasing the Japanese harpoon fleet suffered a majorsetback on Thursday when the hull of one of their ships cracked in massiveseas, forcing a second to divert to its rescue.
The SeaShepherd Conservation Society said the Brigitte Bardot’s hull split when it wasstruck by a “rogue wave” as it tailed the Japanese factory ship Nisshin Maru insix meter swells some 2,400 kilometers southwest of Australia.
“The crackhas been getting wider as the seas continue to pound the vessel,” the activistgroup said.
SeaShepherd spokesman Paul Watson said lead vessel the Steve Irwin was en route tothe troubled Brigitte Bardot, which has also suffered severe damage to one ofits pontoons, but warned it would take 20 hours to get there.
TheBardot’s captain, South African-born Jonathan Miles Renecle, was “confidentthat the ship will stay afloat until the Steve Irwin arrives” he added.
“This isdisappointing but these are hostile seas and we have always been prepared forsituations like this,” Watson said.
“Right nowthe safety of my crew on the Brigitte Bardot is our priority and we intend toreach the crew and then do what we can to save our ship.”
Theincident means just one Sea Shepherd vessel, the Bob Barker, is now tailing theJapanese fleet, which it intercepted on Sunday with the help of amilitary-style drone.
Watson saidall the crew were safe and uninjured and the Bardot, Sea Shepherd’s scoutvessel, was “repairable.”
“We’ll bebringing it back to Fremantle and then the Steve Irwin will return to supportthe Bob Barker,” he told Sky News via satellite phone from the Southern Ocean,estimating that it would be a five-day trip.
“It’s asetback, but you know, when you come down here you’re facing a number ofdangers, not just the Japanese whaling fleet but also the very remote area,it’s a hostile area weather-wise with ice,” he added.
Watson saidit was Sea Shepherd’s eighth season pursuing the whalers and it was “inevitablesomething (like this) is going to happen sometime, we’ll just deal with it andcarry on.
“I’m stillconfident that we’ll be able to intervene against the Japanese whalingoperations,” he said.
Australia’sMaritime Safety Authority said it had been monitoring the situation but therewas no active rescue afoot because Sea Shepherd was managing the situation.
“We wereaware of it, but it was really a monitoring brief for us because it was a SeaShepherd vessel to which another Sea Shepherd vessel was going to the aid,” aspokesman told AFP.
“We were incommunication with them but they’ve got it under control themselves now.”
Japan’sFisheries Agency, which commissions the annual whale hunt, routinely refuses tocomment on the issue and declined to be drawn on the damaged boat Thursday.
“I cannotmake any comment related to the (whaling) mission,” an agency official said.
SeaShepherd purchased the Australian-flagged Brigitte Bardot, a high-speed100-foot monohull racer, to replace the futuristic speedboat Ady Gil, whichsank during a fierce clash with the harpooners in January 2010.
Watson saidthere were 10 crew on board the stricken Bardot — three Britons, threeAmericans, an Australian, a Canadian, a Belgian and its South African captainRenecle.
Commercialwhaling is banned under an international treaty but Japan has since 1987 used aloophole to carry out “lethal research” in the name of science — a practicecondemned by environmentalists and anti-whaling nations.
Confrontationsbetween the whalers and increasingly sophisticated activists have escalated inrecent years and the Japanese cut their hunt short last season due to SeaShepherd harassment.
Japan’scoastguard has deployed an unspecified number of vessels to protect the whalingships, using some tsunami reconstruction funds, and the whalers are also suingthe activists in Washington seeking an injunction against what they say is a“life-threatening” campaign.
