Captain Peter Hammarstedt described today's confrontation with
Japanese whaling vessel the Nisshin Maru as the most violent act he's
seen on the water. "These guys just don't give a damn, these guys are
violent thugs and they're willing to kill people down here, to kill
whales illegally in Australia's waters and the government really needs
to do something about it," he told 702 ABC Sydney's Richard Glover.
Japanese whaling vessel the Nisshin Maru as the most violent act he's
seen on the water. "These guys just don't give a damn, these guys are
violent thugs and they're willing to kill people down here, to kill
whales illegally in Australia's waters and the government really needs
to do something about it," he told 702 ABC Sydney's Richard Glover.
The violent exchange happened when the Bob Barker tried to intervene in the Japanese factory ships refuelling attempt.
"The factory ship is 5 times my size. They collided four times with
the tanker and more times than I can count with my ship and when it
reached its climax they almost rolled us over which would have resulted
in loss of life on my ship if they'd been successful.
"To give you an idea of how close they got - the anchor of the japans
ship collided with my wheel house and caused damage to some of my
communication equipment and my radar so we're lucky to be even having
this call," he said.
Asked if the crew on the Japanese vessel were close enough to see
Peter replied, "Oh they can absolutely see us! I told the Captain
several times that I had right of way under international maritime law, I
just didn't expect them to come that close to risking my ship. We're
lucky we're afloat."
When asked what action he'd like to see taken Peter spoke about his desire to protect his crew."I
have 35 souls on board several of whom are Australian citizens and I'd
like to see them charged with 35 counts of attempted murder."
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