Buccaneer a badge of honour for whaling opponent

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Buccaneer a badge of honour for whaling opponent

Andrew Darby

Sydney Morning Herald

January 6, 2007

 

FOR years the hardline anti-whaling activists of Sea Shepherd have played the

buccaneer, to the point of carrying a brass cannon and painting their version of

the skull and crossbones on the black flagship, Farley Mowat.

 

Now as they sail into the Southern Ocean with the means to confront and damage

the Japanese whaling fleet their leader, Paul Watson, has admitted that for the

first time they may truly be regarded as pirates.

 

After struggling with authorities in six countries over the ship's papers,

Farley Mowat has been stripped of its latest flag, from Belize, only hours after

Captain Watson decided it was time to get out of Australia.

 

According to a maritime law specialist this in effect makes the converted

fisheries research vessel a pirate ship.

 

It can be arrested by any naval or other official ship - just as it attempts to

take on a whaling fleet whose ownership recently shifted to a Japanese

Government agency.

 

" Pirates we may be, " Captain Watson told the Herald.

 

" But if so we are pirates of compassion in opposition to ruthless whale-killing

pirates profiteering off the illegal exploitation of whales.

 

" I say in absolute seriousness at the risk of sounding dramatic, but my crew and

I are prepared to die for these whales if need be. "

 

In the past six months Farley Mowat has had to flee South Africa after being

detained over irregularities in its master's qualifications, and was struck off

the register in Canada, where it had been registered since 2002.

 

The International Merchant Marine Registry of Belize is reported to have found

that instead of being a pleasure craft researching the Belize Barrier Reef,

Farley Mowat was in Australia about to embark on a mission to ram and otherwise

interfere with ships engaged in whaling.

 

It said that although Belize voted with the anti-whaling bloc at the

International Whaling Commission, it could not condone acts that threatened life

and property at sea.

 

An email sent by a registry official to Captain Watson said port authorities in

Hobart, where Farley Mowat was docked, would be asked to ensure the ship did not

leave port with Belizean registration. But Captain Watson said he had left hours

earlier. " My instincts told me that we had better 'get out of Dodge'. "

 

A lecturer in maritime law at Monash University, Eric Wilson, said that by

sailing without a flag Farley Mowat could be considered legally to be a pirate

vessel.

 

Captain Watson said any attempt to send a naval vessel into Antarctic waters

would violate the Antarctic Treaty and would be resisted.

 

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