Terror On the High Seas
September 10th, 2008
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According to Greenpeace, their ship was “rammed” directly in the bow by a whaling ship. Yes, that’s right, it was a Japanese ship which somehow managed to ram their starboard braodside directly into the bow of the Greenpeace ship. That makes about as much sense to me as claiming someone ran into a bullet. Or saying “I he attacked my knife with his chest.”
Here’s a video of what happened on one of the occasions, which apparently was not the worst of them.
The crew of the Japanese ship said that they were trying to take evasive action to get away from the Greenpeace vessel and put more distance between the ships. It is noted that the large slow Japanese vessel does not have the ability to make rapid maneuvers and has so much weight that it takes a lot of space to slow down and speed up. As such, it is generally unsafe to operate very close to these kind of ships while they are under way. The crew of the Japanese vessel had reported harassment by Greenpeace for a long time before this incident and had been trying to avoid them for some time.
Judge for yourself who is telling the truth:
This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 10th, 2008 at 1:52 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Enviornment, Misc, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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September 10th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
The Japanese sailors just need to explain to Greenpeace that those whales just keep inexplicably ramming their harpoons.
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September 10th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
If the Japanese have worked out how to sail at speed while facing broadside, I suspect there are many, many navies who would like to learn their secret.
Why is it that everything Greenpeace claims ends up boiling down to bad physics?
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September 10th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
The rule of the sea is based on the principle that the more manouvrable vessel has the prime responsiblity for collision avoidance. Greenpeace rely on people’s ignorance of reality in this as in many things.
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September 10th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
I have a feeling that if I ever meet any of these idiots they may end up punching me in the fist with their face.
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September 10th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
I suggest this clip as well, taken on the Greenpeace ship. At the end they blame the Japanese for making a “dangerous maneuver”
In the video you can see the Japanese ship is clearly moving at the beginning and therefore would not be able to change course. they didn’t start up but they were already under way and could not be expected to be able to slow down or change course given the size of the ship.
The Greenpeace ship starts off a good few hundred feet away and makes no apparent attempt to turn or reverse. They continue going dead on toward the Japanese ship. You hear one say “This is going to hurt” so they know the collision is coming but they don’t make any attempt to avoid it. Remember this ship is not that huge and it has two enormous engines so it could have at least attempted to make the collision less direct and hard. The tape is very damning in my opinion. Their spin at the end does little to change the obvious conclusion.
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September 10th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
mlp said:
Well there are sideways facing thrusters on the bows and occasionally the sterns of vessels and there are also fully steerable “azipod” propulsion systems that could be rotated all the way to the side. That would give a ship full sideways thrust.
How to move it at speed? Put a really really really big freakin engine in it. You can always overcome air or fluid resistance with a sufficient amount of brute force.
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September 10th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Gordon said:
There’s a corollary to that. If brute force isn’t working you’re not using enough of it.
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September 10th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
On another depressing tail, the Greenpeace ****es have been aquitted of responsibility for £30k of damage to a power station.
English law is a common law system, which is based on precedents. The jury have no set a precedent that vigilanteism is acceptable if you have a point that the government does not accept. Therefore, an Englishman is within his rights to attack Greenpeace whereever they may be found. They are criminals, which the government has refused to curb. We are entitled to take the law into our own hands.
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September 10th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
The worse part is that to keep he attention of the press, Greenpee has to keep raising the bar on these antics, and one day somebody is going to die. Probably one of them, but it’s going to cause grief and damage to some innocent people, whose only crime is being around when it happens.
Frankly I think it’s time to give these idiots another ‘French lesson.’
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September 10th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Greenpeace is smart to go after Japanese ships. After all the Japanese have very strict laws governing weapon ownership( as in none allowed). Try playing this game with the Chinese or someone who’s not gonna take their crap.
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September 10th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
I’m wondering about what the background of the ship’s registry is here. This is very clearly a violation of numerous codes and international laws if they are prone to doing this. The most appropriate action for a vessel engaged in this kind of activity is to engage the sovereign state of registry for enforcement. They are responsible for the enforcement of the vessels activities when in international waters. In some occasions the port nation will not enforce or is unable to, such as pirates who are ported in Somalia which is not capable of being called to enforcement. If this is the case, the country of the ship’s owners can also be called on to take action or the country where the individuals responsible have citizenship. Baring this, such as in the case of a ship from a country that cannot take action or if the ship is not registered (black flagged or false flagged) then Japan can file a warrant for criminal charges of the crew and put a seizure order on the ship and they can call for international enforcement. Japan has a good standing in the world so they should not have issue with extradition or jurisdiction under treaty.
I’m just saying from having been in the US Navy for 10+ this is very serious, but it is unusual to have these kind of issues come up with a crew of apparently well off white Europeans from countries which can be addressed diplomatically. Normally this kind of criminal activity is not allowed by most first world nations and it is probably best to have them take action. Enforcement becomes more difficult when the port or nationality is not clear or not friendly and competent.
Has their port nation been notified of this?
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September 10th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
The Netherlands. The ships Dutch in registry. They fly the Dutch flag. GP is based in Amsterdam but it’s incorporated in many other countries their main operation is Greenpeace Int’l in the Netherlands. Their crews come from the Netherlands as well as other European countries mostly as well as Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Canada. Maybe some other places too, but mostly Europe, North America based. Rich white westerners in general.
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September 11th, 2008 at 2:53 am
By the way, the Dutch don’t do anything about this and sure don’t prosecute. They are very pro Greenpee and they even partially fund the group with direct subsidy handouts to them as a political group. They were going to cut the subsidies when GP started dumping boulders offshore because they disagreed with the quotas on fishing and therefore tried to snag the trawler nets and possibly capsize the fishing boats. They didn’t end up doing it though.
The Netherlands is very very progressive and liberal/tolerant to a weird degree and I guess that’s fine if that is their culture, but the way they treat GP like heros when they do this is beyond me.
The Dutch will never prosecute GP.
Also their ships are welcome in most other countries. I don’t know about the US but certainly Australia and Europe.
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September 11th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
So once again, the Dutch condone and reward piracy.
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September 11th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
I do not understand how the Dutch could get away without enforcing the law on any ships that engage in this. If it were an isolated incident and the explanation that the crew was inexperienced and they accidentally came too close when they had intended to come along sides, then it might be something that could be dismissed with an apology, but if, as it seems, it is something that is common for them to pull this ****, then it’s the obligation of the Dutch to stop them, or perhaps of another country if they come into port to arrest them. The Dutch have some explaining to do if they don’t step in here and I don’t understand why they’re not getting heat on this from the IMO or other countries. If this goes far enough then it could get to the point where another country decides to take this into their own hands and confront them at sea, which would be within their rights if they see this as a threat or piracy. They’re playing with fire.
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September 12th, 2008 at 2:56 am
Yes the Dutch have a responsibility here and I think it is Greenpeace’s positive image and the fact that everyone seems to buy into them being the goodguy that lets them get away with this. Do the dutch have an international obligation to stop this? I think so. It was discussed that if they support this it could be considered an act of war on Japan or whoever else the GP ships attack, is that true? I can see how it could be?
Is it possible that the Greenpeace actions could be considered an attack at sea and responded with deadly force? You know that would be a huge political incident but I can see it happen if they keep pushing it.
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