The USS (Useless Shitty Ship) Steve Irwin

     Friday marked the season finale of the Animal Planet show Whale Wars. For those of you unacquainted with the show, it chronicles the voyages of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a group opposed to whaling, as they confront Japanese whalers off the coast of Antarctica. While watching, I was amused by their total ineptitude in trying to stop the Japanese whalers and during the course of two episodes I filled a clipboard of examples of this total lack of professionalism and experience. I will begin by giving a summary of the involved parties and then delve into my own grievances.

     The Whale Wars website gives the following explanation of the controversy:

In 1986, Japan withdrew its opposition to the International Whaling Commission’s (IWC) moratorium on commercial whaling. The following year, Japan announced a large-scale scientific whaling program designed to assess whale stocks. Their goal? A resumption of commercial whaling with set, sustainable limits.

Many experts have questioned the scientific validity of this program, suggesting that Japan’s research is nothing more than a front for continued whaling.

Japan maintains that its methods are sound.

Japan’s scienfitic whaling program continues to this day; in fact, it has grown considerably. Activist groups like the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society claim that Japan’s whaling practices violate international law. Japan claims the direct-action tactics of Sea Shepherd are illegal, in essence a form of eco-terrorism.

     I suppose that that is a pretty unbiased view of the situation. (Even if they did spell scientific wrong in the last paragraph. Way to go Animal Planet.) The ship followed is called the Steve Irwin, named for a man who loved nature so much it killed him. If anyone is superstitious I would deem this an inappropriate title for a ship going into dangerous situations. The ship’s captain is Paul Watson, and his experience includes service in the Canadian Coast Guard, Greenpeace as well as being the founder of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. He has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to sacrifice his life for his causes. Not really the kind of person you want captaining a boat full of people around a fleet of whaling vessels. The rest of the crew are volunteers with varying levels of experience, but a common blind devotion to whales and Captain Paul Watson.

     Now on to the good stuff. I didn’t watch the first season, however there is an episode synopsis here. If you read it, you have an idea of the kind of recklessness to which I’m referring. I don’t really what they thought was gonna happen when they illegally boarded another vessel, but to me the result was pretty predictable. I won’t really be referring to anything in the first season so I’ll move on.

     I’m looking at my notes here and kind of giggling to myself because it’s all so ridiculous. I guess I’ll put my observances in list form, it’s funnier this way.

1. The Steve Irwin has a zero hull rating for ice. That’s the lowest rating possible and it basically means that if they run into a snowball, the ship is sinking. To take a ship like that into ANTARCTICA is plain irresponsible. Especially when they get trapped against an iceberg by an ice flow and have to try to push their way out. There were crew members below watching the hull get pushed in by ice and they were supposed to stay there in case a leak sprung. The camera guy wisely left the camera and got the hell out. It would be bad enough if you took a crew full of experienced seamen but you have a crew of untested volunteers.

2. Your 1st mate looks like the squeaky voiced teen.

Nice try on the facial hair. Try hitting puberty.

3. Half of the episodes are devoted to trying to actually find the whaling fleet, and usually failing.

4. Once you actually find a boat and are trying to attack them by throwing butyric acid, you get too close and accidentally hit the other boat. Considering the hull of that ship can rip through yours like a paper bag, maybe you should be a little more careful.

5. Your captain is a mouthbreather.

Not talking, just too fat to breathe through his nose.

6. You put in a small boat so it can race up to one of the Japanese whaling fleet vessels and attack, but it promptly flies off in the wrong direction. They don’t know how to use the GPS and there is no compass on board. I understand that you really don’t care about your crew, but guess what, you just lost a boat.

7. You accidentally overturn one of your small boats in the freezing Antarctic water. Crew inexperience is blamed. No shit.

8. They start shooting flares at the whaling fleet and almost hit their own helicopter. It’s a shame because the chopper pilot seems like the only one with a functioning brain. Also, you’re shooting flares and line throwing rockets. These are safety devices for your own ship and you’re on a ship that finds itself in trouble frequently. Maybe you shouldn’t use them up.

9. The crew argues CONSTANTLY about how things should be done on the ship.

10. They have these lines called prop foulers. The theory behind these things is that you take a small boat and run in front of one of the whaling fleet vessels, let it run out in front of the ship and when the ship runs it over, it gets tied into the propeller and stops it. Pretty effective in theory. In practice, the Sea Shepherds have no idea how to use one. They constantly deploy too early and the ship doesn’t even go over the line. One time, they actually got it in front of the ship, but the ship just stopped and pulled it out of the water. They only have a couple of these things and they’re expensive so losing one is significant. Another time, they thought they got one of the harpoon vessels, but the ship was back in action within an hour.

11. The crew whines when the whalers throw bolts at them, while they’re throwing glass bottles of butyric acid at the whalers. Oh yeah, and hitting them with their ship.

12. In the second to last episode, the captain is sleeping below when a harpoon vessel comes up to the factory ship. The crew on the bridge thinks that they see a whale attached to the side of the vessel and wake up the captain. The captain proclaims that there is no whale and goes back to sleep. Five minutes later they see a whale being loaded onto the factory ship. Good call Captain.

13. The crew is under the impression that while the Steve Irwin is chasing the whaling fleet, they can’t kill whales. Turns out they can and they do, so what are you really doing out there?

14. The Captain attempted to stop the whalers from transferring the whales to the factory ship three times without success. Also, the whales are already dead and the whalers have a specific quota. If you stop them from getting the already dead whale on board the factory ship, won’t they just kill another whale? If you’re really trying to save whales instead of just being grade A douches, ensuring that another whale dies probably isn’t the best way to do it.

15. In the final episode of the season, the Captain puts the Steve Irwin directly behind the factory ship in hopes that they won’t be able to load any whales while they’re there. Then the captain wisely puts someone else in charge while he goes to do a phone interview. When he comes back he finds that the crewman has predictably overshot the factory ship which is now off their port bow. To get back behind the factory vessel, the captain cuts directly in front of the factory ship, which misses the Steve Irwin by about ten feet. The Captain states that if the factory ship had hit them, it would have sheared off their back end. THEN WHY DID YOU DO THAT?? It turns out that a harpoon vessel is coming up behind the factory ship with a whale. The captain rushes at the harpoon vessel, fully intending to hit it if it doesn’t change course. It does and the crew claims victory. But wait! The harpoon vessel has made a U-turn and is now behind the Steve Irwin. It passes the Steve Irwin and gets into position behind the factory ship. The Captain attempts to get in between the two vessels but his ship isn’t fast enough. Instead he deliberately rams the harpoon ship. After grinding on the ship for a couple minutes, the captain backs off. The crew claims victory again, even though they don’t stop the whale from being harvested. Also, there is a hole in their hull near the water line. The engineers patch the hole, but the Captain could have easily sunk the boat. I know you don’t care whether you live or die, but maybe your crew does and they’re your responsibility.

16. Good news though, when they get back to Australia the police are waiting for them to do an investigation. Good thing you taped all that incriminating evidence, which was then confiscated.

     In conclusion, I am not condoning whaling. I agree it should be stopped, but there are other ways to go about it. I don’t understand what drives people like this but I’d guess it’s their own sense of moral superiority. Captain Paul Watson has displayed a history of using extremist measures to try and make his point. Eventually he’s going to get people killed. After being on a ship run like that for one campaign I honestly can’t see why anyone would want to sign on again. Also, they killed and harvested whales right in front of them and them could do nothing to stop it. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions and while their intentions are good, their methods quite obviously are not. Anyway, its nice to have misguided do-gooders to entertain the rest of us.

Idiots.

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Listen: Pearl Jam, “The Whale Song”
Quote: “Hell isn’t merely paved with good intentions, it is walled and roofed with them.” – Aldous Huxley