Sea Shepherd FAIL

14 thoughts on “Sea Shepherd FAIL”

1. I especially enjoyed how Paul Watson just stared at them and didn’t make any attempt to offer assistance. He seems to care about his crew’s safety about as much as he cares about actual conservation.

2. Yes, and THIS is why the intersection of dead whales, conservation and mainstream media should never have happened.

   Where images of incompetent conservationists, dead and dying whales, are cut with commercials for SUV’s, big pharma and laundry detergent.

   Watson himself derided Greenpeace for their one off whale doco with an impossible name like “Battlestar Whale Guys” a few years ago.

   To hear him say it their crews were incompetent and the whole thing was a black eye to the movement.

   I hear tell there will be Sea Shepherd Action Dolls for sale this spring, now with 50% more action!

   Mind you Watson and company just pocketed another cool million this week from donors, so maybe there is something to the whole film and television business.

   For the whales who will be hunted again this season…no so much. This will make year number 10-15-25 for SSCS trying, yet again, to stop whaling.

3. Sorry guys, all I see is white space. Did something go wrong?

   Thanks,

4. works fine on the two computers I have in the office. Can you see other youtube clips?

5. Did you catch this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/27/shark-bites-shark-in-half_n_335346.html

   Orca?

   Also came across whysharksmatter.com. Only skimmed it but see what it’s about.

6. Not knowing anything about boats, much less launching little boats from big boats, I would love for an experienced sailor to help explain what exactly went wrong. Was that just a fluke, or were they doing something fundamentally wrong?

7. I believe the guys at Deep Sea News are preparing an in depth assessment, but in short, this was a completely avoidable accident. They are trying to launch a fast boat from a moving ship. This can be done, but requires a different set of gear.

   What they did wrong was lowering the boat into the bow wake, exposing the small boat to both the standing wave produced by the larger boat and the accelerated water coming off the bow. The small boat was immediately pushed broadside to the bow wake, and because it was still attached to the crane, the starboard side of the boat was lifted higher out of the water and the boat swamped.

   In an emergency situation, a fully loaded fast boat can be dropped from the side of a moving vessel, but the crane is situated further astern and is long enough to lower the boat far from the ship’s wake. The cable is released as soon as, if not before, the boat touches the water, so that when it hits the water, the fast boat is under power and not tethered to the mothership.

   But the biggest mistake being made is that they put people in the boat first. They aren’t in a emergency situation. They are trying to catch up to a whaling vessel for the purpose of disrupting it. Why they couldn’t have taken the extra 10 minutes to bring the mothership down to dead slow, lower an empty fast boat, and then board it, is beyond me.

8. Um, I’ve got the same problem as Sweetwater Tom, just a white space ! lol

9. I saw that too, but I never thought Orca would have a bite quite that big!…

10. Hmm, the code seems fine and I can’t replicate the problem.

    The original source is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_78o4RFwTM&feature=player_embedded

11. At least the hippies got a bath. You know that ship has to smell pretty bad after a few weeks…probably a gaggy mixture of patchouli and BO.

12. Very interesting, and it makes the video that much more hilarious! Thanks.

13. Launching a small boat in the manner used by the SEA Shepard is purly incompetence. When launching a small boat while the mother ship is under way requires that a bow line from the small boat be made fast forward from the launching point. when the small boat is in the water it falls slightly back which puts a strain on the bow line and forces the small boat to be pulled alongside tha mother ship. When the lifting penant is released the small boat puts forward power on which allows the bow line to become slack and can be released. The method the sea shepard boat used would be like holding a pie in the palm of your hand and sticking your hand out of a car window while driving 50 mph. They are very lucky no one was drowned. It didn’t apear that any effort was made to stop the ship while it was obvious what was going to take place.

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