RV Farley Mowat
| 300px Farley Mowat at Docklands, Melbourne, Australia | |
| Career | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Johan Hjort |
| Port of registry: |
 Norway |
| Builder: | Mjellem & Karlsen, Bergen, Norway |
| Yard number: | 79 |
| Launched: | 1956 |
| In service: | 1957 |
| Out of service: | 1983 |
| Identification: | IMO Number 5172602 |
| Fate: | sold |
| Career | |
| Name: | Skandi Ocean |
| Port of registry: |
Norway |
| Acquired: | 1983 |
| Career | |
| Name: | STM Ocean |
| Port of registry: |
Norway |
| Acquired: | 1990 |
| Career | |
| Name: | Cam Vulcan |
| Port of registry: |
Norway |
| Acquired: | 1990 |
| Career | |
| Name: | Sea Shepherd (1997),[1][2] Ocean Warrior (2000), Farley Mowat (2002) |
| Owner: | Sea Shepherd Conservation Society |
| Port of registry: |
 Canada (2002),  UK (2006), 22x20px Belize (2006), (2007),  Netherlands (2008) |
| Acquired: | August 1996 |
| Fate: | Canada sold the vessel and is no longer a sea shepherd vessel. |
| General characteristics | |
| Tonnage: | 648 gross register tons (GRT) |
| Displacement: | 657 long tons (668 t) |
| Length: | 52.4 metres (172 ft) |
| Beam: | 9.3 metres (31 ft) |
| Installed power: | 1,400 hp (1.0 MW) |
| Propulsion: | [Variable pitch propeller] |
The RV Farley Mowat is a long-range, ice class, heavy-duty conservation ship. Originally built as a Norwegian fisheries research and enforcement vessel, she was purchased by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in Edinburgh, Scotland, in August 1996. She is named after Canadian writer Farley Mowat.[3] Her previous name with the group was Ocean Warrior.[4]
She was the flagship of Sea Shepherd's fleet until seized by the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans off the coast of Newfoundland in April 2008. She was purchased in late October 2009. As of April 2010 she is moored in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia being refit for operation by Green Ship LLC, a company headquartered in Oregon. She is to become an expedition vessel and will be doing research in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Career
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society used the vessel to monitor international waters for violations of international fisheries agreements. The RV Farley Mowat officially began her career in the waters off Costa Rica, immersed in controversy over policing actions against illegal fishing activities.
In March and April 2008, the Farley Mowat was involved in controversy related to the 2008 Canadian commercial seal hunt. On 12 April 2008, Fisheries and Oceans Canada seized the R/V Farley Mowat in the Cabot Strait after the ship came near the seal hunt without an observation permit and two collisions with a coast guard vessel occurred.[5][6] During the raid, the captain and first officer were arrested and later charged for the incident.[7][8]
Currently, the Farley Mowat is being held by Fisheries and Oceans Canada at Sydney, Nova Scotia until a court orders the release.[9] The location of the ship at the time of the seizure is controversial.[citation needed] The Sea Shephard Conservation Society claims the ship was seized illegally in international waters. The Canadian Fisheries minister claims that the ship was seized in Canadian waters, but also that the Fisheries Act gave him authority to order the boarding outside Canada's territorial waters zone of 12 nautical miles.[10]
The captain and first officer made a court appearance on 1 May 2008.[11] On 2 July 2008, they entered a plea of not guilty to coming too close to sealers. Convicted in absentia in June 2009 on two counts each of approaching within 926 meters of a seal hunt, the pair were sentenced on 10 September 2009 to fines totaling Template:CAD$45,000.[12]
On 27 February 2009, the Canadian Crown-in-Council announced that the Farley Mowat was being put up for sale to cover approximately CAD$500,000 in berthing fees accrued since the April 2008 seizure.[13] Subsequently, the Farley Mowat was reportedly sold for Template:CAD$50,000, but the buyer did not complete the transaction. As of September 2009 the ship is still in the possession of the Canadian government and continues to accrue berthing fees.[12] Sea Shepherd later stated that the seizure of the ship had been expected and, in fact, encouraged. Therefore, it had been used in provocation, with the full intention to have the Canadian government end up with, in their opinion, a more or less worthless vessel.[14]
The Farley Mowat arrived in Halifax on December 18, 2009 for refit and in March was towed to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia where she now is tied up..[15] It was reported[16] in November 2009 that the vessel has been sold for the sum of CAD $5,000 to Green Ship LLC to be used in a survey of the North Pacific Gyre.
Registration
The Farley Mowat registered under a Canadian flag in April 2002. In October of the same year, the government suspended her registration.
The United Kingdom revoked the ship's registration in early December 2006; the same day it was issued. Sea Shepherd then received registration for her in Belize on 19 December 2006. Ten days later, on 29 December 2006, the Farley Mowat cleared Australian Customs in Hobart, Tasmania, only hours before Belize struck its flag.[citation needed]
During 2007, the ship operated without an officially recognised registration flag. In May 2007, Sea Shepherd issued a press release stating that the Mohawk long house of the Iroquois Confederacy, in response to the Canadian government action, had agreed to the ship (and Sea Shepherd's other ship the Robert Hunter) flying their flag.[17][18] It was not clear if this was recognised as a registration by port authorities as the body is not internationally recognised as a country.
The vessel was registered in the Netherlands in 2008.[9]
In popular culture
- The vessel is featured in the 2007 film Sharkwater.
References
| IMO 5172602
]]- ↑ "Miramar Ship Index - IMO 5172602". http://www.miramarshipindex.org.nz/ship/show/347523. Retrieved 24 January 2010.
- ↑ "Ship Photos - Sea Shepherd". 6 June 1997. http://www.shipphotos.co.uk/pages/seashepherd.htm. Retrieved 24 January 2010.
- ↑ "Sealing activists bailed out with bag of toonies". CTV.ca. 2008-04-14. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/print/CTVNews/20080413/farley_protest_080414/20080414/?hub=CanadaAM&subhub=PrintStory. Retrieved 2009-09-07.
- ↑ Wolkoff, Lauren (2002-05-10). "More Woes for Sea Shepherd". Tico Times. http://www.ticotimes.net/archive/05_10_02_4.htm. Retrieved 2009-09-21.
- ↑ "Sea Shepherd and coast guard ships collide". http://www.smh.com.au/news/conservation/sea-shepherd-and-coast-guard-ships-collide/2008/04/01/1206850877251.html.
- ↑ "Where, precisely, was the Farley Mowat?". http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/features/viewpoints/story.html?id=171b77e8-2f80-45fa-911b-59921711d55f&k=66594.
- ↑ "2 crew members arrested as anti-sealing vessel seized". April 12, 2008. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2008/04/12/seal-hunt.html.
- ↑ "Anti-sealing activists appear in court". http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/04/13/seal-arrests.html.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 "Anti-seal hunt protesters decry Canada's 'act of war' in seizing their vessel". http://www.canada.com/globaltv/bc/story.html?id=2fa0e7fc-5c3f-47a8-b7ff-a0dc53a65b18&k=10047.
- ↑ "Crew maintain seizure broke international law". 13 April 2008. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080413.wsealhunt0413/BNStory/Front.
- ↑ "N.S. court grants bail to anti-sealing activists". CBC News. 2008-04-13. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/04/13/seal-arrests.html?ref=rss.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 "Seal Savers Sentenced for “Egregious Crime” of Seeing a Seal Slain". September 10, 2009. http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-media/news-090910-1.html.
- ↑ "Federal government selling sealing protest vessel". February 27, 2009. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2009/02/27/mowat-sale.html.
- ↑ "The Tar Baby Farley Case is Now Closed". http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-media/news-090910-1.html.
- ↑ "Farley Mowat back in town". Shipfax. http://shipfax.blogspot.com/2009/12/farley-mowat-back-in-town.html.
- ↑ "MV Farley Mowat will have new purpose". Cape Breton Post. http://www.capebretonpost.com/index.cfm?sid=302669&sc=145.
- ↑ Sea Shepherd Conservation Trust. "Sea Shepherd Receives the Flag of the Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy". http://www.seashepherd.org/news/media_070705_1.html. Retrieved 2007-11-18.
- ↑ "As It Happens". CBC.ca. 2007-06-19. http://www.cbc.ca/mrl3/8752/asithappens/20070619-aih-1.wmv
External links
- Brief description of the vessel, with photos, from a philatelic society's site, dating to a visit the Farley Mowat made to New Zealand.
- Original source with picture and description of other ships in their fleet from SeaShepherd's site.
- Melbourne newspaper "The Age", Jan 10 2007.
- Indymedia report on vessel deregistration.
- Sea Shepherd News - Confessions of a Modern Southern Oceans Pirate by Captain Paul Watson, 28 December 2006.
- Melbourne newspaper "The Age", 8th February 2007 - Unregistered pirate vessel Farley Mowat fails to locate Japanese whalers, unable to return to port
- ITU Call Sign: MANP
- IMO 5172602
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