The high speed, high-tech Gojira, a sleek replacement for the ill fated Ady Gil, is in hot pursuit of the Nisshin Maru factory whaling ship in the icy Southern Whale Sanctuary. To facilitate locating the whalers in the vast ocean, the crew are releasing balloons with cameras that will enable Gojira to see up to 150 miles. Meanwhile, the Steve Irwin and the Bob Barker continue to tie up the harpoon ships necessary for killing whales.
The whaling fleet now has a big problem. If they take their harpoon boats off the tail of the Bob Barker and the Steve Irwin, both Sea Shepherd ships will be free to hunt down the Nisshin Maru without a tail constantly forwarding our position. If they don’t take off their tailing ships, they are without two killing boats for the duration of the season which will cost them a great deal of money.
Evidence of the whaling fleet’s poor financial condition is that they have been forced to deploy harpooners as tailing vessels whereas in the past, they employed a specific security ship such as the Shonan Maru No. 2 or the Fukuyoshi No. 68 leaving the harpooners free to slaughter whales. The whaling fleet loses either way; by tailing us they lose, and by removing their tails they lose.
Meanwhile, the Gojira is free of a tail and therefore able to search out the Nisshin Maru using radar and eye in the sky weather balloons.
This is the ninth day since Sea Shepherd’s ships first encountered the Japanese whaling fleet. The Japanese whalers are quickly running out of time to secure their kill quota. I think we can confidently say that this will be a financially disastrous year for the whalers, and a humiliating year for the Japanese government for failing to remove Sea Shepherd as the thorn in the side of their despicable whaling industry.
