Greenpeace activists boat capsizes off Barra 11/11/10
Pix: Pierre Gleizes / Greenpeace
Greenpeace protesters were thrown into the seas when their campaign boat overturned while trying to stop a French trawler from fishing in the Atlantic Ocean.
It appears the rigid inflatable boat (RIB), which was darting around the large fishing vessel, the Pierre Jacques Matigny, got too close.
The accident occurred in rough seas about 60 miles south west of Barra in the Western Isles on Wednesday.
The craft, which has a rigid fibreglass hull and rubber tubes and has a powerful outboard motor, belonged to a Greenpeace “mother ship,” the MV Arctic Sunrise.
The RIB flipped over as activists grabbed hold of trawl cables leading from the trawler’s stern in a strong swell. They were apparently trying to fit a device to kept the large net closed.
Four campaigners ended up in the water and were soon rescued by another craft launched from the Greenpeace ship MV Arctic Sunrise. They were not harmed but refused assistance from the French fishermen.
Four swimmers had also manoeuvred themselves and placed floating banners in front of the trawler.
The Pierre Jacques Matigny’s home port is Lorient and she is run by the giant French supermarket chain, Intermarche. Greenpeace is currently campaigning against deep water trawlers taking hauls of other species and damaging the seabed with heavy nets and wires.
The MV Artic Sunrise headed for Stornoway after incident.
David Ritter, Oceans Campaign of Greenpeace UK, said: “The Arctic Sunrise is in the area monitoring the Spanish and French deep sea fishing fleets. These fleets engage in deep sea bottom trawling, which is one of the most wasteful and destructive forms of fishing..“
He added: “These fleets are only economically viable because they are heavily supported by EU taxpayer subsidies under the disastrous Common Fisheries Policy.”
“On Wednesday morning, one of the inflatable boats carried by the Arctic Sunrise tipped over in rough seas whilst trying to prevent a French deep sea bottom trawler from fishing by attaching a device to her nets which prevents them from opening.
“The crew were unharmed, and were picked up by their crewmates in another inflatable boat.”
Greenpeace are presently monitoring French and Spanish fishing boats which trawl along the seabed west of the Hebrides.
Greenpeace has denounced the deep sea fishery as “particularly destructive” and the result of “bad fisheries management” allowed by the Common Fisheries Policy.
Both ships were previously deployed against the Japanese whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean
The 950 tonne MV Arctic Sunrise was built as an icebreaker and ironically was used for seal hunting under previous operators. She had previously been confronted by activists when she was delivering equipment for the French government to build an airstrip through a penguin habitat in the Antarctic.
Since 1995, she has been engaged in environmental work and was first chartered by Greenpeace for the North Sea Brent Spar campaign, in the fight against dumping oil installations at sea. More recently she has opposed BP’s new offshore oil developments in Alaska.