Japanese whale whores

Yes. As far as I am concerned it’s the fault of the pilot of the Ady Gil. They simply should not have ever been idle in the path of their adversary. Though while Inty is a good example, Orca only works because of the name. It was more like Inty vs Cruiser.

Back in school some clever person came up with the brilliant idea of throwing a container of butyric acid from chemistry class into the corridor or onto some lockers. That place stank like rancid butter for days and some classes had to be moved to other classrooms. I remember this happening at least twice. Ugh, it’s not pleasant :).

That isn’t a result of incompetence. A slingshot is a fire-arm and as such can be construed as piracy in a way throwing the butyric acid isn’t. They could be using air cannons too. Which they did one time when Watson fired air-propelled signal flares at a boat they thought was trying to ram them. But the reason for not mechanically aiding the propulsion of the weapons is to skirt piracy laws, not because they are too stupid to think of mounting a ballista on the deck.

Size wise maybe but an Orca is an Industrial ship which these are. Figured it was close enough with the spin on the name. :slight_smile:

I was trying to find an article in a Japanese newspaper. I found this one from Japan Times, if anyone’s interested.

As far as our Aussie buddies are concerned:

The Orca would be the Nisshin Maru. Which is unironically, the factory ship that these spotter ships are trying to protect. The goal of every season is to get on the Nisshin Maru and stay on the Nisshin Maru for as long as they are able. I highly recommend watching at least Season 2 of the show for you specifically. There is a lot of maneuvering done, and it’s interesting to see how the amateur crew reacts to the maneuvers by the professional fleet. The whalers adapted to their tactics so that they were then able to whale right in front of the Sea Shepherds.

To put it in perspective the fleet is organized like this:

Nisshin Maru = Orca
Yushin Maru 1, 2, and 3 = Mining Barge (The Harpoon Ships)
Then there were spotter ships, I think Isshin Maru, there were I think two of these, can’t remember their title designations though. Now it seems like the Shonan Maru is a new ship, but maybe it’s one of the old spotter ships. As it has a designation of 2, maybe there are two of them, and they have upgraded to have ships meant to confront Sea Shepherds directly. This is what I was unsure of. So the Shonan Maru, as a ‘security’ vessel would be like the Thorax/Vexor that specifically defends the Orca and the Mining fleet.

I just watched the South Park ep, Whale Whores for free on their site. It’s pretty funny.

Prepare to have your desk rammed by mine, damn hippie!

Am I the only one who – without even being stoned at the time – looked at the thread title and was whimsically amused at the reminder that the “wh” formation in English orthography has two different and equally correct pronunciations? Or experimented with alternatives? (“wale wars” . . . “hale hores” . . .)

Not really germane to the point I was making, but, what the hell, why let that stop you?

Try saying “Cool Whip.”

In Maori the “Wh” formation is prounounced like the letter “F”- Which makes the title read like “Japanese Fale Fores”, perhaps implying that Japan won’t be making a showing at the PGA this year. :stuck_out_tongue:

I also don’t like that this reality show is de facto encouraging this behavior. “Direct action” isn’t the way to stop whaling, its the way to get people killed.

It looks like the Japanese ship intended to come extreamly close to the Ady Gil. If you have ever been Gutman lake at Panama then you would not think it would be hard for a pilot to think he could do that. I have seen 20,000 ton ships manuver around other ships with just a few feet clearance at around 20 knotts.

But if I was sitting in the Ady Gil looking at the stem of a ship comming strait onto me, I would try to move as fast as I could. I would not be brave enough to think, no at the last moment he is going to turn away. I would hit the throttles past the stops to try and clear.

They both were playing dangerous games and both dodged in the same direction.

I find the notion of a 20,000 ton ship moving at 20 knots intentionally skirting other ships by mere feet to be a bit much to swallow. If such a thing happened it was a mistake and they got lucky. A ship like that would have a momentum of 205,600,000 kg*m/s. Not what you would call amenable to superfine control.

Add in for the Japanese case the ship was in high seas and high winds thus substantially complicating trying to pull off a near miss in a ship that big.

Further, if the Japanese pilot was indeed so awesome with maneuvering his ship then surely he had to correctly expect the response of the other ship which would be to clear itself to avoid the collision. The only reasonable supposition of what the other guy would do, seeing the other ship turning in and bearing down on it, would be to go forward. So, reversing the turn in fact cut off that retreat rather than helped.

Different degrees and levels of danger, though. One is risking legal action, the other is playing with his life and that of a bunch of others who trusted him with their lives and clearly never expected he would fuck up like that. Playing chicken is not the same as playing chicken-rhino.

Ever go through the Panama Canal? The pilots do. That is one of two locations where the pilot has sole responsibility for conning a ship. It is somethng to see.

I’ve been through the Panama Canal and they use these big trolley thingies and lots of belaying lines for big ships. I’m not sure how applicable that is to a really big ship in heavy seas. Even crossing the big ass lake in the middle it seemed really calm to me…

-XT

the donkeys are used only at the locks. In the canal and the lakes the ships are controled by the pilots. When you were in the lakes did you notice how close the pilots will come to another ship.

Sure…but it was calm waters and no one was deliberately trying to cut in front of another with inches to spare. We even went out on smaller boats because one of the customers I had was doing underwater logging in the region, so we got to go out and see some of their facilities.

-XT