Film backs Ady Gil claims

[Junkdrawer]

Source: TheMercury.com (Australia)

FRESH footage of the collision between protest boat Ady Gil and a Japanese whaling ship in the Southern Ocean appears to back protesters' claims they were rammed.

Doubts have been raised over who was responsible for Wednesday's collision.

On Friday, retired naval commander Norman MacMillan supported Japanese claims the Ady Gil deliberately put itself in the path of the Shonan Maru 2.

But the three-minute, 20-second unedited video clip shot aboard the Ady Gil and posted on YouTube shows crew members relaxing and joking on the roof of the boat until moments before the collision with the Shonan Maru 2.



Read more: http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2010/01/11/120771_tasmania-news.html

---

The video may be seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfgPgnyX0ak

[FreakinDJ]

1. I think "Save the Whales" took a Hit on that 1

[mn9driver]

2. The footage clearly shows that Ady Gil was pursued and attacked.

Hopefully they go after these murderous assholes with every legal option available.

[Junkdrawer]

3. The difficulty is that Japanese money speaks loudly....

both in the governments of down under nations, but also with copious Netvocate activity on the web.

But the people of Australia and New Zealand overwhelmingly oppose Japanese whaling and this YouTube was #1 in views in both countries - hence the newspapers having to confirm the videos contents.

[marshall]

4. What is involved in "a day of clashes" with the whaling fleet?

It sounds like they were in some kind of duel--like a scene from a Horatio Hornblower novel. I look forward to a full investigation.

[Igel]

5. They spent the day, at the minimum,

making the ship zig and zag and slowing it down. That's from what the lounging crew bragged about. Now, I ask, how do you get a whaler to zig and zag?

You make it avoid you. You harrass it. You use a smaller ship to get between it and what it would be going after--whales.

So the AG goes for a ways and then idles--this is from the Youtube footage linked to above. It's within view of the mother ship, the BB. It stops. The people on the AG wave at the mother ship. I wonder why it stopped where it did. I wonder if they had any goals for that stop. Surely not to save fuel. In other footage it shows that the boat was idling. Idling takes fuel without moving the boat very much. Nobody's said they were waiting for pickup by the BB--useful information, if true. The whaler wasn't headed to the AG at first, but shortly came around and headed generally in its direction. I wonder if the whaler targetted the AG, as Watson says. I doubt that the captain would have wanted to waste time, having been slowed down. Perhaps he was furious. No information, just rhetoric from somebody neither on the AG nor on the whaler.

One interpretation is that the AG crew positioned themselves near where the whaler would be going. The whaler apparently played the game--it was used to being harrassed. While I doubt the captain would go out of his way to nail the AG, I would, if I were the captain, prefer to deny the AG first strike. Water cannons, ahoy. For that purpose I would probably veer towards the AG to make sure I'd get a good shot before they could approach and harrass me. If I were aiming to ram her, I wouldn't have bothered ordering the water cannons into operation.

This video doesn't show what another does: That in the few seconds in that "split second" prior to the impact the AG accelerated forward only to have the front 10 feet or so of the AG sheared off. No acceleration forward, probably no shearing, and certainly no grounds for the suspicion that the pilot's panic sunk his boat (I'm not so mercenary as to accuse the pilot of risking his own life and boat for some PR). Of course, the acceleration would have been enough to knock a lounging videographer off balance so the acceleration wouldn't have been included--instead I'd expect rapidly moving shots of the boat, sky, crew, and deck as the cameraman swung the camera in an attempt to restore his balance.

It's also no "fresh" video. I distinctly remembering writing this 2, perhaps 3 days ago.

[tekisui]

6. AG did good.

They got to the whalers. Whether or not the ram was intentional, the whalers were obviously tired of being careful. That is what AG's objective was. Shut down the hunt. And, with the collision and media, they significantly disrupted the hunt.

Good on AG!

[dysfunctional press]

8. two million well spent and at the bottom of the sea.

:woohoo:

[tekisui]

10. It was worth it, especially if ther whalers get convicted on

any charges.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

34. Never going to happen...no controlling authority

[dysfunctional press]

71. next time, they should sink a $4million boat...

by rights- it should be twice as effective as sinking a $2million boat...:think:

[dysfunctional press]

7. there are people who refuse to believe their own lying eyes on both sides of the aisle...

from what i've seen, the whaling ship will, and should, be totally exonerated of any responsibility for the impact.

[Gman2]

12. That is an idiotic stance. The whaler obstructed the AG's vision. On purpose.

He turned into the AG. For some time, to have brought it that far around. And it was leaning, as it would, turning for all it's worth. They used that bigger vessel thing, to play chicken with AG. And the attack was too blinding. And then YOU blame the AG captain, for pannicking. As a huge vessel is on you. And what is the starting procedure for moving? It was IDLING, or off? Can you just gun it? Is the boat meant to have a reverse, hydrodynamically? Will it duck dive in reverse? Possibly running over his crew on top of vessel? This thing is gonna go down bad, for the whalers. After investigation. And their desperate bit about the AG being a big bunch of polluters, dumping diesel, is just like repukes calling Harry Reid a racist. Desperate. Your siding with the whalers, shows a predilection against Watson.

[dysfunctional press]

18. it's silly to argue about it here in the first place...there will be an inquest-

and blame will be assigned where blame is due.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

37. Probably several, and none with all available data

There is no controlling authority and each party will most likely come to their own conclusion.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

36. Any maritime board of inquiry will find for the Japanese

Its not just the last 30 seconds, its that the AG's master started a game of maritime chicken, complete with the stop and squat. He will own primary responsibility for the collision.

When this first started here, a number of people discussed relative motion and how it impacts perceived events. Look it up.

The AG's motors were running, she was making steerage possible a bit more. Clue: A ship that is not moving has no wake, and the Ady Gil clearly had some. Yes you can gun a jet boat...the AG is no different that an jet ski in that regards.

The ONLY PRACTICAL way to figure out what the physical relationships were is an analytical model. Use all available footage AND the data from the vessels (location, vector, etc. That gets rid of the relative motion issues and can address other issues, such as if the there was line of sight prior to the collision between the bridge of the security vessel and the AG. Its a very legitimate question that knowledgeable people are asking.

Finally there is no controlling authoring. It was in international waters. AUS is the designation nation for SAR in that area, and they are going to do one. It will most likely be ignored. NZ and Japan have some standing since they each had a flagged vessel in the collision, but neither will probably acknowledge or support the others. There will be no definite investigation. The only real victims will be those convinced to send more money to SSCS because of this "terrible action by the whalers".

Many people do not support whaling but are convinced that Watson is a total ass who is HURTING the anti whaling cause. That includes Greenpeace and the anti whaling members of the IWC. I am one as well.

[baldguy]

51. Many people thought John Brown was a dangerous anti-slavery terrorist, too.

But he was ultimately vindicated.



Unless you think the Civil War was a waste of time, resources & lives?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

55. Comparing Watson to John Brown, now that is a stretch

He is more like Professor Harold Hill in the Music Man

[Gman2]

14. Lets test your facts.

A larger ship gets most right of way, usually. Why? Cuz they cant maneuver as well. Well, the AG cant maneuver in reverse likely, as I eye the design. So, you block the forward quadrant, and they are pinned. When they used water cannons, and threatened to blow crew into antarctic drink, that is aggressive. This was calculated.

[dysfunctional press]

16. if you can't play with the big dogs...stay on the porch.

hopefully somebody has learned their lesson.

[Gman2]

19. So, you back might makes right? On an international stage?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

38. No maritime law does, and the Ady Gil was in the wrong

[dysfunctional press]

45. no- it's more like right makes right. and in this case the ady gil was in the wrong.

and they paid the price for it.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

56. Disagree, law of gross tonnage (and there are regs that approach that) will not be the issue

The only way to get an honest assessment is a validated analytical model based on all or at least enough data so that it minimizes ambiguity.

While it is my belief that the Ady Gil's master will get the lion's share of the blames due to prior actions, the end game has a lot of fuzz on it due to things like relative motion. I want to see that kind of model built (its not all that hard with automated tools) and let the chips fall where they may. That kind of tool would also expose tampering with data or video from ANY source.

Unfortunately without a clear controlling authority, I really doubt that is going to happen.

[roguevalley]

25. W? is that you?

[Dead_Parrot]

27. And if a woman goes out and gets raped, it's her fault for being in the wrong bar

That what you're saying?

[dysfunctional press]

47. yeah that's exactly what i'm saying...

:eyes:

[Dead_Parrot]

64. Well, put down your bush phrasebook and switch your brain back on

"Can't play with the big dogs". FFS.

[dysfunctional press]

70. i got it from a t-shirt i have from the 'big dogs' clothing line...ffs.

http://www.bigdogs.com/

[flvegan]

31. At least you've finally pulled back the curtain and shown your true colors on this topic. n/t

[dysfunctional press]

48. yes- i don't let my own preferences cloud my judgement on the issue.

not a lot of people on this thread can honestly say that.

[flvegan]

49. Oh, yes you do. n/t

[dysfunctional press]

53. oh, no i don't.

:eyes:

[tekisui]

35. Lesson learned: Don't bully smaller boats, especially if you want to

avoid bad PR.

The whalers are taking another hit on this. Did they learn the lesson? Time will tell. Sea Shepard will be back, no question.

[dysfunctional press]

52. paul's gonna do the math, and figure that if they sink their own $5million-boat...

next time, they'll do even that much better.


'we're bad-asses'

[jmowreader]

69. Ady Gil didn't need to "maneuver" in reverse

All she needed to do was go straight back. That boat could go 50 knots--far faster than anything the Japanese whale fleet has, which (as I have pointed out) is why Sea Shepherd wanted her.

[baldguy]

20. Bullshit.

Nothing Sea Shepherd has ever done has done has intentionally threatened human life. The Shonan Maru did exactly that - they tried to murder thew crew of the Ady Gil.

[SidDithers]

21. Here's the Steve Irwin ramming a whaler in February...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1gr6cI4Ndk

Care to rethink your statement?

Sid

[baldguy]

23. Two very large ships bumping into one another.

If you'll take note: The Steve Irwin was in the process of being attacked, and was in no danger of splitting the illegal whaler in two & sinking her.

[SidDithers]

30. One very large shipping deliberately turning into another very large ship...

puts a lie to the statement "Nothing Sea Shepherd has ever done has done has intentionally threatened human life"

Sid

[baldguy]

33. Japanese whaling ships weigh up to 8000 tons

are designed to plow through sea ice & process and store many thousands of tons of whale flesh.

I didn't know they were so fragile.

:sarcasm:

[ProgressiveProfessor]

39. Only the mother ship. The harpoon vessels are on the order of 500 tons IIRC

[baldguy]

65. The ship in the video is still larger than the Steve Irwin.

[SidDithers]

68. For the record, the Steve Irwin is 885 gross register tons...

and the Yushin Maru No. 3 is approximately the same size as the Yushin Maru No. 2, which is 747 gross register tons.

Sid

[roguevalley]

24. really? Ady was not aggressing when the whaling ship struck them

and left six people to drown. year, they had no responsibility. :sarcasm:

[ProgressiveProfessor]

40. Prior actions matter under maritime law, not the last 30 seconds.

Another vessel was in the immediate area and commenced rescue.

[Forkboy]

9. Personally, I didn't have any doubts over which side was telling the truth.

K&R

[ProgressiveProfessor]

42. Watson would not know the truth even if it sank the Steve Irwin

Whalers are not choirboys but Watson lies as he breathes...

[Forkboy]

50. I'll be thinking about this post all weekend.

I mean that in a good way, trust me. :)

[flvegan]

11. Considering the entire whaling premise is built on a lie, why would the whalers be honest

about anything else? The obviousness of what's on the video aside.

The whalers deliberately rammed the Ady Gil in an attempt to kill the crew on board. End of story.

[Gman2]

13. That is jumping the gun. They could have been harrasssing. playing

enemy grabass. And misjudged the amount of turn they would achieve. That ship looks high performance.

[flvegan]

15. ...and after ramming her, aimed the water cannons at the crew to finish them off.

No gun jumped here.

[Gman2]

17. Not necessarily in that order.

[baldguy]

22. Watch the video.

The Ady Gil was stationary in the water. The Shonan Maru stalked the Ady Gil, intercepted them, attacked them, rammed them, then attacked them again.

In that order.

[roguevalley]

28. and they left the crew in the drink. such a bunch of humanitarians,

these people. So innocent, doing their 'research' so innocently.

[Junkdrawer]

29. But if we restrict the time frame to just 1 second before impact...

we can make it seem as if both are at fault. And that was the the way the debate was framed before this video was released. The whaling defenders want to move the conversation back to those grounds.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

43. Read prior threads about relative motion...

Its not nearly as cut an dried as you state

[Junkdrawer]

44. Lay out your scenario....n/t

[ProgressiveProfessor]

41. Not true

The water cannon were at fixed elevation and azimuth for some time. The did not change during the footage released so far.

[flvegan]

46. Jesus, you again.

Watch the fucking video, they aren't stationary.

Fucking apologists.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

54. Watch others and they are

Its most likely relative motion thing. Immediately prior and after the collision. they were not changing.

I am not Jesus...not would I want to be, too many people wondering what I would do the asinine situations they get themselves into.

[flvegan]

57. No, they aren't.

They set them low to deliberately strafe the target as it passed. Kind of like throwing a football at an intended target.

Jesus also probably wouldn't PM my girlfriend and ask her to tell me to back off, creep.

[roguevalley]

26. agreed. if they didn't live and breathe lies, they would just admit to

whaling and not hide behind the LIE that this is research. Fuckers.

[TexasObserver]

32. Recommend

[1]

58. and the ady gil lays on the bottom of the ocean. glub, glub, glub... and the whalers keep whaling...

but it will make for an exciting new season of "whale wars."

so sad...

[TreasonousBastard]

59. Here we go again...

amazng how the people who seem to actually know something about navigation and collisions at sea lean toward saying the AG was at fault.

Everyone else hates whaling, so the whaler MUST have been at fault.

Well, I'm not the expert at navigation or collisions, but did read through a bunch of Coast Guard findings and other accident reports as part of my job a while back, and I'd suggest looking at the the bow waves and the wakes of both vessels. Big clues there.

Far more important, I'd suggest that playing chicken with a much larger vessel isn't such a good idea. Things can go wrong real fast out there even if someone isn't trying to run you down.

But, hey, there's plenty of suc... er, true believers out there who can fork over a few bucks for the millions for the next hotshot boat to piss off the whalers while not actually stopping any whaling.

(Whaling will be stopped, but only two things can stop it-- sinking all the whaling vessels or market forces and viable international pressure on the whaling nations. Japan is ripe to stop it since the taste for whale meat is fading and the fleet is essentially subsidized.)

[1]

60. or maybe... instead of spending millions replacing the ady gil, they should just give the money to..

the whalers. to stop whaling.

how much do you think they make harvesting and selling whale meat? all that effort and expense. is it that profitable?

i was down at the piggly wiggly just today, and i saw no whale steaks in the seafood bin.

perhaps bob barker was wrong. maybe paul watson is approaching this from the wrong perspective. if someone would come up with a plan to stop whaling through cash donations to the whalers, i would paypal that.


come on, paul... think outside the box, bud!

[TreasonousBastard]

61. Japan could do that, but it won't. I'm not sure why there is such...

a powerful pro-whaling lobby there, but the Japanese government seems to be promoting whale meat. It's mostly older Japanese who eat it, remembering postwar years when that was pretty much all the meat they had. The government and whaling groups have been promoting the meat to younger Japanese, even though most of them aren't interested.

We've fooled around with buying out fishermen here, but the programs weren't great successes. Perhaps they could have been, if taken more seriously.

[1]

62. i was suggesting that paul do that. i'm a business hippie, i always look at the bottom line...

and i just can't believe there is all that much profit in whale meat sales.

shit, here we fooled most americans about scallops. and most people worldwide have no idea exactly what they are eating when they order or purchase seafood. (except perhaps for lutefisk. that is something you can't fake, those fucking norwegians...)

if whaling is all that hated, worldwide, as everyone here thinks it is, then this is just a simple economic problem.

make it more profitable not to whale.

simple.

yo, paul! you listening?

[TreasonousBastard]

63. Yeah, I realize what you were saying, and I should have made it...

clearer that I don't think anybody from the outside would have a chance of buying out the whaling business. And there are those shops and restaurants that specialize in the stuff, too.

The industry and the government are in bed with each other and defiantly want to keep on whaling. One argument they use is that minke whales are in such good supply that they're eating all the cod we want to fish for.

I think it's around 6,000 tons of whale meat a year that are harvested. Say the boat clears 2 bucks a pound (retail is about 12 bucks a pound, but may have fallen even further by now) that's 6,000x2,0000x$2=$24 million a year the whalers clear. Not so easy to come up with that kind of money even if the whalers go along.

[jmowreader]

76. Paul Watson will never do that

This is the guy who was thrown out of Greenpeace because they were sick of his shit. Greenpeace will no longer have anything to do with him.

He was thrown out of Earth First! because they wanted to work with the loggers to attain their goals, and Watson wanted to kill loggers and sawmill operators by spiking trees, a tactic he claims to have invented.

In Watson's book "Earthforce!" he advocates lying through your teeth if it will get you on the front page of the newspaper. (Keep this in mind as Paul Watson, the man who runs an organization whose logo is the Jolly Roger, calls the Japanese whalers pirates for running his boat over.)

The guy is responsible for the sinkings of three ships. He's been declared Persona Non Grata in Iceland, the Labrador province of Canada, and Australia, and the Japanese government's called him a terrorist. Oh, and the Costa Rican police are looking for his ass.

So why would Paul Watson do something simple and possibly effective like paying the Japanese not to whale? It's more fun to ram whaling ships on television.

[baldguy]

66. Did you even watch the video in the OP?

The Ady Gil was stationary. The crew was kicking back, relaxing & joking around.

They were not even paying attention to the ship you claim they were "playing chicken" with - the Shonan Maru stalked the Ady Gil, intercepted it, attacked it, rammed it, then attacked it again.

What the Japanese whaling fleet is doing is illegal. You would have concerned parties do nothing to them but mail them a strongly worded letter. Again. That will certainly get their attention!

The simple fact is that anti-whaling activities up until now have NOT been effective, and the only reason the Ady Gil was attacked is because the Sea Shepherd's tactics & activities - including the publicity - have been.

[Junkdrawer]

67. But that's just it. They want to resurrect the narrative that the videos in the MSM....

have been promoting.

Don't hold your breath waiting for this video to appear on CNN. So the hope is that the casual DU browser will pass on the video and simply read the thread with only the memory of the videos that were broadcast on cable.

What I'd like to know is what has made it to New Zealand and Australian TV.

[TreasonousBastard]

73. Actually, I did watch it, and saw no convincing evidence that...

either ship turned. The attitudes of the vessels toward each other seemed to change a little, but there were no reference points to use to see what really happened.

Perhaps someone more experienced than me could show how this video proves that the ramming was deliberate. And explain to us why, when a collision course was apparent, nobody on the AG thought to change course. Kidding around when you're harassing a much bigger ship is a good idea?

The only thing the Sea Shepherd has been doing is pissing off the Japanese. Hardly anyone actually eats whale meat any more but the Japanese have been heavily subsidizing the whaling fleet for some curious reason I can't fathom, and has shown little interest in giving it up. They still fight the ban on whaling every time they can, and might even get it overturned. There is a domestic Japanese movement against whaling, and supporting that just might be more effective.

Illegal? Yeah, thousands of tons of minke meat going into storage for "research" isn't fooling anyone, but who's gonna stop it? One trick boat in the middle of the ocean sure isn't.

[baldguy]

75. Look at the footage from Bob Barker.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bbuq0YEIPNU

The Shonan Maru makes a huge turn toward the Ady Gil. Now, that might be due to a change in Bob Barker's position - but if it was you'd expect to see an identical change in the apparent course of the Ady Gil.

You don't.

[TreasonousBastard]

77. Now, THAT video should be hidden in...

a deep, dark place.

The giggling girl and incredulous guy sounding stoned when watching the maru "change course" doesn't speak well for the entire operation. It's as bad as the one with the guys on the AG laughing it up when the collision alarm goes off.

The maru may have changed course, or it may not have. Draw a diagram of the BB sailing parallel to the AG and the maru coming at an angle. Better yet, line up some toy boats on a table and see what happens. It's not that clear.

Even if the maru did change course, which would have been stupid, there's nothing apparent that it had any intent of hitting the AG any more than just scaring it off. If the AG had acted evasively, like any sentient sailor would have been expected to act, there would have been no collision.

Looks to me like the maru was playing games with them (admittedly not a good idea) and the AG people were not only too stupid to get out of the way but accelerated right into the maru.

Nobody's the good guy here-- just a whole bunch of assholes and this time somebody got hurt.

[baldguy]

78. So, you've gone from "no way in hell" it turned to "might have".

And decide that the Bob Barker video should be buried because it provides conclusive evidence of the Shonan Maru's unprovoked attack.

I'm sure the ICR is working hard to bury the evidence, too.

[Robb]

72. The whole thing is a "means justifies the ends" deal, as I think about it.

We support not killing whales, so we cheer Watson.

But if an anti-choice wingnut sat down in traffic to stop a car carrying a woman to an abortion, and was hit, we'd talk about how the guy was asking to get hit.

Food for thought.

[SidDithers]

74. +1...

One can be critical of the SSCS without being a defender of the whalers, even though many here don't seem to recognize that distinction.

Sid