The Gojira, Sea Shepherds multi-hull high speed scout ship caught up with the Nisshin Maru on February 9 flensing a whale. The whale wars saga has gotten rougher each year and the Japanese whaling fleet have become increasingly aggressive. Sea Shepherd believes it has reduced the kill rate significantly.
The Gojira was stopped in an area of growlers and floe ice as the Nisshin Maru proceeded to bear down on her. Despite several VHF calls to alter course, the Nisshin Maru closed in on the Gojira. When the Nisshin Maru was 40 meters away, Captain MacLean fired a flare to signal the Nisshin Maru to alter course. The Japanese factory ship altered course to starboard, as the Gojira slid 20 meters down her port side.
At 0220 on February 10th, the Nisshin Maru and one of the harpoon boats entered thick pack ice after several hours of zigzagging through loose floe ice. The Gojira kept up skirting the ice edge, meeting the Nisshin Maru on the far side of each floe using her speed advantage.
The Nisshin Maru proceeded to the south towards an area of pack ice. It appeared as if the Gojira was about to lose the factory ship in the thick ice when the Bob Barker arrived just in time to take over the pursuit.
At 0400 hours, the Bob Barker placed itself immediately aft to the stern slipway of the Nisshin Maru to block any further attempts to offload dead whales. The Bob Barker is now easily pursuing the Nisshin Maru through thick pack ice with the Gojira continuing to skirt around the ice looking for harpoon vessels.
Meanwhile, the Nisshin Maru and the Yushin Maru appear to be wandering aimlessly about the ocean. One can only hope they don’t have some other processing operation going on with the other harpoon ships while these two keep Sea Shepherd busy.
Both the whaling ships and the Sea Shepherd ships Bob Barker and the Gojira are now closer to South America than to New Zealand and Australia. This position is 3000 nautical miles southeast of Hobart, Australia and 1700 miles southwest of Patagonia, Argentina.
The Nisshin Maru is making erratic course changes. “It’s like they spin the bottle every watch to see what course to set,” said Captain of the Bob Barker Alex Cornelissen. “There is no rationality in these course changes. They go east, then south, then west, then north and then back east again. In short, they are burning quite a bit of fuel, going absolutely nowhere, and without being able to kill a single whale.”
