Nisshin Maru
 Rift of the Nisshin Maru
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The Nisshin Maru ( Japanese 日新 丸 ) is a factory ship for processing whale meat and with a length of about 129 meters it is the flagship of the Japanese whaling fleet . The killed whales are cut up and frozen on the ship. Every year, together with the Nisshin Maru, a different number of ships are deployed in the Antarctic : Scout ships, three whalers and a security ship to protect against opponents of whaling. There is also a supply ship .
Building history
The Nisshin Maru , a stern trawler , was built in 1986/1987 by Hitachi Zōsen KK in the Innoshima plant ( Hiroshima prefecture ) for the fishing group Nihon Suisan KK (Nissui; English Nippon Suisan Kaisha Ltd. ) as Chikuzen Maru ( 筑 前 丸 ) (new price 7 billion yen / 53.8 million US dollars ). Originally known as trawlers for fishing in the Exclusive Economic Zone of the United States designed it was after three years of 1.55 billion yen (11.9 million US dollars) sold to Japan at Nissui and 1991 at a cost of 400 million yen ( $ 3.1 million) converted for whaling. The Nisshin Maru has no ice class according to the Japanese ship classification society Nippon Kaiji Kyōkai (ClassNK) .
The ship was from the Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR; Japanese Nihon Geirui Kenkyūjo ( 日本 鯨類 研究所 )) at the Kyōdō Sempaku KK ( 共同 船舶 株式会社 , dt. About: "Ship cooperation "; former name: Nihon Kyōdō Hogei KK ( 日本 共同 捕鯨 株式会社 , dt: "Japanese whaling cooperation ")) chartered , Japan's largest whaling ship operator. Kyōdō Sempaku operates seven of the eight Japanese whaling ships. Five large companies were involved in the company until April 2006, led by the fishing company Nissui and its subsidiaries. However, under pressure from environmental lobbyists, they withdrew their holdings. In addition to the ICR, various non-private Japanese organizations hold stakes today.
The IMO number is 8705292 . The callsign is JJCJ .
Use of the ship
At the beginning of her first whale hunt in the Southern Ocean, in 1998, a fire broke out on board the Nisshin Maru , and in February 2007 she was again badly damaged by a major fire. After the early end of the 2010/11 whaling season, the Nisshin Maru was used to transport aid to areas devastated by the earthquake and tsunami .
Movie
The ship first became known outside of professional and environmental circles in 2005 through the experimental film Drawing Restraint 9 by Matthew Barney , which plays on the Nisshin Maru . Barney worked there for the first time with his wife, singer Björk , who produced the soundtrack. Commenting on the ship, Barney said:
“I didn't want to make the debate about the ban [note: whaling] the subject of the film. I am only interested in the ship because of its architecture, as a sculpture. "
Conflicts with Greenpeace
Greenpeace ships pursued the Japanese whaling fleet several times. In December 1999, the Nisshin Maru collided with the Arctic Sunrise in Antarctica . The question of guilt remained controversial. On January 8, 2006, the Nisshin Maru collided with the same ship again, the bow of the Greenpeace ship was dented in the incident. Greenpeace claimed on both occasions that the crew of the Nisshin Maru had deliberately caused the collision, which they denied and blamed the other side.
The documentary film Hunting Season - The whalers on the trail was shot in 2009 about Greenpeace's activities to prevent whaling .
Conflict with Sea Shepherd
On February 10, 2007, the Japanese whaling fleet, led by the Nisshin Maru, came into conflict with the ships Farley Mowat and Robert Hunter of the militant environmental organization Sea Shepherd , led by its founder Paul Watson , one of the first members of Greenpeace, during a voyage in the Southern Ocean off the Antarctic coast , with which Greenpeace no longer works. The scout ship Kaiko Maru collided twice with the Robert Hunter and tore its side wall to a length of one meter. The Kaiko Maru was also damaged. According to their own account, activists of this organization sprayed six liters of butyric acid onto the deck of the Nisshin Maru from a helicopter to prevent work there, and sealed a drainage opening in the ship's deck with metal plates so that whale blood stuck back on the deck. According to Japanese information, two crew members were slightly injured by the butyric acid attack. Sea Shepherd ended the operation on February 14th and left the area due to lack of fuel.
Later actions in the following years are thematized in the documentary Whale Wars .
On February 20, 2013, the ship collided with the Steve Irwin , the Sam Simon , the Bob Barker and several times with its own Sun Laurel , a South Korean product tanker. The Bob Barker suffered damage and almost capsized, so she made an emergency call. The freefall lifeboat on the Sun Laurel was badly damaged, so the ship was then escorted from the Antarctic by the Sam Simon .
Fire and average
On February 15, 2007, the ship hit the headlines when a large fire broke out on board, in which a crew member was killed and the ship was damaged. The fire had broken out in the factory area and then spread to the engine room. According to the New Zealand authorities responsible for the sea area in question, the fire was not triggered by the attacks by militant whale protectionists. There were 126 crew members on board at the time of the accident.
The ship had about 1000 tons of oil (500,000 liters of heavy fuel oil and another 800,000 liters of heating oil) as fuel and large quantities of environmentally harmful chemicals for whale meat processing on board, as well as a considerable amount of whale meat. By extinguishing water that got Nisshin Maru occasionally heavy list . Therefore, the New Zealand authorities, who are responsible for sea rescue in this area, feared that the damaged ship could trigger an environmental disaster in Antarctica, especially as it is about 100 nautical miles from the site of the accident, at Cape Adare in the Ross Sea area , one of the largest in the world Colonies of Adelie penguins are alive. An offer of help from the Greenpeace ship Esperanza , which was about 24 hours away at the time of the accident and was the first foreign ship to help , which wanted to tow the Nisshin Maru from Antarctica, was strictly refused on the instructions of the Japanese fisheries authorities. The whaling rejecting New Zealand government has repeatedly called to tow the ship, this could, however, claims to not prevail because the relevant Antarctic sea area going from the International Whaling Commission in 1994 to a whale sanctuary of the catch but was declared (Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary) According to the Japanese government, this is done for research purposes, which is allowed due to an exemption. In addition, the area is international water .
After almost two weeks of repair work, the ship was able to leave its location on its own at the end of February, but the 2007 whaling season, which was supposed to last until mid / late March, had to be ended prematurely because the Nisshin Maru was the only ship in the fleet that can process the whales directly on board and some of the ship's and whale processing facilities were so badly damaged by the fire that they could not be repaired on site.
future
According to the species protection organization Pro Wildlife, one of the reasons for Japan's announcement that it will only operate whaling within its 200-mile zone is that the Nisshin Maru is now too dilapidated to continue to exist in the rough seas of Antarctica New construction would no longer be worthwhile given the declining interest in whale meat in Japan.
swell
- ↑ Information based on Greenpeace press release of February 20, 2007
- ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of October 10, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ P. Garrett, Australian Secretary of the Environment and B. Debus, Australian Secretary of the Interior: Whaling Announcement - Release of images from the Oceanic Viking , Interview Transcript (PDF) February 7, 2008. Retrieved October 15, 2013.
- ↑ Nikkei.com: Whaling Ship To Transport Relief Supplies For Quake Victims ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ in an interview with the art magazine Monopol, quoted from: Die Welt, February 20, 2007, see web links
- ↑ Presentation by Greenpeace on the collision with the Nisshin Maru in 2006
- ↑ Kim Choe: Sea Shepherd claims victory in Southern Ocean after collisions. In: 3 News. February 21, 2013, archived from the original on September 26, 2013 ; accessed on March 11, 2013 (English).
- ↑ Ingo Arzt: “Fight until they sink us” , Die Tageszeitung , February 20, 2013, accessed on February 26, 2013
- ↑ Scandal: Japan officially begins commercial whaling on July 1, 2019! June 18, 2019, accessed August 23, 2019 .
