A Japanese whaling ship has reportedly crippled the New Zealand trimaran being used off the coast of Antarctica to protest the whaling in the Southern Ocean, cutting off its bow.
The 24m Ady Gil - formerly named Earthrace - was shadowing the Shonan Maru, which suddenly started its engines and hit the Sea Shepherd vessel, according to Paul Watson, the captain of Sea Shepherd flagship, the MV Steve Irwin.
Mr Watson, who was not at the scene, said the $2 million Ady Gil was paralysed and probably unable to be salvaged.
"It cut eight feet (2.4m) off the front of the vessel. There is a big gaping hole, so it can't go anywhere or it would fill up with water," he told the Herald-Sun newspaper in Melbourne.
The crew of six - including New Zealand skipper Pete Bethune from Auckland - have all been accounted for, Mr Watson said. Five are now on the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's new ship MV Bob Barker, with Mr Bethune staying on board the Ady Gil in a bid to rescue equipment before the water level in the boat rose too high.
"Thankfully no one was in the bow during the collision, or they would have been killed instantly. They're all OK - probably a little shaken, but doing just fine. They're switch[ing] gears into salvage mode and trying to get as much equipment off there as they can," Chris Aultman, helicopter pilot on the main protest vessel Steve Irwin, told 3News.
Japan's Fisheries Agency, which has no direct involvement in whaling but oversees the country's fishing operations, said it was still checking details about the clash.
"We have confirmed that there was a collision, but we have no other details. We have not heard that any boats have sank. We are now trying to confirm details of why the collision occurred," said Fisheries Agency spokesman Toshinori Uoya.
The confrontation happened early today in the area of Commonwealth Bay on the Adelie Coast of Antarctica.
The Ady Gil was captained by Aucklander Pete Bethune and had a crew including at least three other New Zealanders and a Dutchman, when it sailed from Hobart last month.
Mr Bethune said before his departure he would not follow previous Sea Shepherd tactics and try to ram Japanese whalers. Last year the Steve Irwin hit a Japanese trawler during its protests over whaling.
The Bob Barker only joined the protest today.
Earlier Mr Watson had accused the Japanese of chartering planes from Australia to pinpoint the location of Sea Shepherd ships.
"About six hours later the Shonan Maru was on our tail so we figured out that the planes had given the location so that the Japanese could tail us."
He said the Steve Irwin only shook off the ship - after skirmishes involving a water cannon, a laser-type device and a military-style sonar weapon - under low cloud cover, making air surveillance impossible.
The Ady Gil had been pursuing the whalers in Commonwealth Bay with the new protest ship, the MV Bob Barker, a 1200-tonne Norwegian-built Antarctic harpoon vessel.
Mr Watson, aboard the society's bigger, but slower ship Steve Irwin, said he was still 500 nautical miles from the scene.
"This seriously escalates the whole situation," he said of the collision.
The Institute of Cetacean Research, which has previously fronted for the whalers, claimed the Ady Gil's crew were launching projectiles at a ship in the fleet, the Nisshin Maru, and attempted to entangle its propellers with rope.
" The research-base vessel Nisshin Maru, currently engaged in the Japanese whale research program in the Antarctic ... was subject to attack today for about two hours by the New Zealand-registered watercraft Ady Gil," the institute said. "In a manner similar to their 23 December attack on the Shonan Maru No. 2, at about (7amNZDT) the Ady Gil came to collision distance directly in front of the Nisshin Maru bow repeatedly deploying and towing a rope from its stern with the intent to entangle the Japanese vessel's rudder and propeller".
The Nisshin Maru started its water cannons "and proceeded to prevent the Ady Gil coming closer".
The Ady Gil was donated to the protest lobby by a Hollywood businessman.
An international moratorium on commercial whaling was imposed in 1986 but Japan kills hundreds each year using a loophole that allows "lethal research" on the animals, which whale meat ending up on dinner tables.
NZPA