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Hey Japan, F*** YOU! - I hope this helps stop the Japanese from whaling.
The 78 foot biodiesel powered wave piercing trimaran Earthrace holds the round the world powerboat speed record of a little over 60 days. Now she is headed off for a new adventure.
At a fundraising event in Los Angeles last week the anti-whaling Sea Shepherd Conservation Society unveiled their newest 'ocean defense' vessel: the Ady Gil. It is that same Earthrace, now renamed to honor the US benefactor who helped the anti-whaling group acquire the ship.
The transformation of the Earthrace/Gil from a world-record holding speedboat to an anti-whaling vessel has been significant.
The Ady Gil is 24-metres overall (78’) with an 8.0-metre (24’) beam. Her construction began back in February, 2005, from a design by the Craig Loomes Design Group with Auckland-based Calibre Boats undertaking the build.
She carries 12,000 liters (3000 gals) fuel, has a dry weight of 14 tonnes and a fully loaded weight of 26 tonnes. The boat is built from carbon and Kevlar sandwich composites, now reinforced at waterline level to prevent iceberg floater damage.
Power for ‘Earthrace/Gil’ comes from a pair of turbocharged and inter-cooled. Cummins MerCruiser Diesel engines, each developing 540hp.Gearboxes are 305A single speed units from ZF, with forward, neutral and reverse.
Four-bladed bronze propellers by Hy-Torque, give ‘Earthrace’ a top speed in the region of 40 knots at 3000rpm. Throttle back to a 25 knot cruise speed and the engines run at an easy 1950rpm.
With the new radar blocking black paint job and a few additional high-tech goodies now installed, it looks like the ship is ready to join the Irwin for Operation Waltzing Matilda this December.
'We’re very excited that the Ady Gil will be joining the Steve Irwin in Antarctica this campaign,' Captain Paul Watson said. 'With these two ships, we will mount the most ambitious and aggressive effort to date to obstruct the slaughter of the whales in the Southern Ocean.'
As expected, Watson made it clear that he intends to place the Gil in harms way — particularly as an 'intercept and blocking' weapon against the Japanese fleet. Sounds like a risky game of 'chicken' — but Ady Gil Captain New Zealander Pete Bethune is ready for the challenge.' If they ever hit us with an explosive harpoon it’ll be massive damage,' 'But certainly we’ll do our best to get in their way. If they hit us it will always be their guy that pulled the trigger — but hopefully things won’t come to that.
Time Life's pictures - http://www.life.com/image/first/in-...ng-stealth-boat
Another story:
Once famous as the fastest powerboat to circumnavigate the globe, the Earthrace has been transformed into a marine conservation warrior.
Anti-whaling is a new line of work for skipper Pete Bethune and he knows lives could be lost.
“We're not going down there to throw stink bombs, we're going down there to disrupt Japanese whalers and there will certainly be some risks involved and hopefully we will come back in one piece,” says Bethune.
The strategies Earthrace will use to fight the whalers are being kept a secret, but the crew says it won't be used as a confrontational vessel like the Steve Irwin, but as more of a secret weapon.
“It will make us a lot more flexible so the strategic options open quite a bit to have a second vessel there,” says Bill Watson of Sea Shepherd.
And while the boat isn't harpoon-proof - it has been strengthened with half a tonne of Kevlar to protect it from ice.
The black paint on the boat is part carbon and makes the vessel virtually invisible to other ships radar systems - allowing the crew to ‘sneak’ up on the Japanese.
Use of the powerboat means for the first time the conservation group will be able to keep up with the harpoon hunters.
“They will find it very hard to shoot the whales in the first place and they'll find it very hard to bring them in their vessels,” said Bethune.
Six volunteers will crew the mission to Antarctica, expecting seas up to 12 metres high as well the whalers' fury.
Watson says they are determined this will be the first year the Japanese will see a financial loss from whaling in Antarctica.
“What we want to do is make as much as an economic dent as we can and if we can prevent them from taking any whales - that's what we want to do”.
The Earthrace leaves for the battle zone in December.
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~ Under the spell of a 303 ~
All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be.
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