SYDNEY, Australia — A conservation group’s boat had its bow sheared off Wednesday after it was struck by a Japanese whaling ship in the frigid waters off Antarctica during ongoing confrontations over an annual whale hunt, the group said.
The boat’s six crew members were safely transferred to another of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s vessels, the newly commissioned Bob Barker. The boat is named for the American game show host who donated $5 million to buy it.
The clash was the most serious in the past several years, during which the Sea Shepherd has sent vessels into far-southern waters to try to harass the Japanese fleet into ceasing its annual whale hunt.
Clashes using hand-thrown stink bombs, ropes meant to tangle propellers and high-tech sound equipment have been common in recent years, and crashes between ships have sometimes occurred.
The society said its vessel Ady Gil — a high-tech trimaran that resembles a stealth bomber — was hit by the Japanese ship the Shonan Maru near Commonwealth Bay and had about 10 feet (three meters) of its bow knocked off.
Locky Maclean, the first mate of the society’s lead ship, said one crewman from New Zealand appeared to have suffered two cracked ribs, but the others were uninjured. The crew members were safely transferred to the group’s third vessel, though the Ady Gil’s captain remained on board to see what could be salvaged, he said.
The group accused the Japanese ship of deliberately ramming the Ady Gil.
The Ady Gil’s skipper, New Zealander Pete Bethune, said the trimaran was idled about 50 yards (meters) away from the Shonan Maru when the whaler suddenly turned and headed toward the protest boat.
“There’s no question they steered directly at us,” Bethune told New Zealand’s National Radio
“It was on the port side, which meant he didn’t have right of way, and we were stationary,” he said. “It’s totally absurd what the Japanese whalers have done, they’ve just deliberately gone in and tried to run us over.”
Glenn Inwood, a New Zealand-based spokesman for the Institute of Cetacean Research, the Japanese government-linked body that carries out the hunt, disputed Sea Shepherd’s account, saying video shot from the whaler showed the conservationists’ boat moving toward the whaler.
“The Shonan Maru steams to port to avoid a collision. I guess they, the Ady Gil, miscalculated,” Inwood said. “Sea Shepherd claims that the Shonan Maru has rammed the Ady Gil and cut it in half — its claim is just not vindicated by the video.”
Japan’s Fisheries Agency said it was still checking details about the clash. Spokesman Toshinori Uoya said there were no injuries on the Japanese side.
It was not immediately clear what would happen to the Ady Gil next. Sea Shepherd’s Bethune said it was still afloat, though heavily damaged.
“The boat is not going to sink even though the whole front end is missing. We’ve rigged it up to tow it but we haven’t yet decided where to take it,” he said.
Sea Shepherd sends boats to Antarctic waters each southern summer to try to stop the Japanese whaling fleet from killing whales under what it calls a scientific whaling program. Conservationists say the program is a front for commercial whaling.