There he learns that the New Zealand Navy is now searching for three members of “The Bandit 6”.
For the Kunlun the first days of fishing have been wonderful. The fog snatches at the peaks of the ice bergs around the ship, the air temperature is a comfortable five below zero Celsius and the waves are not rising to more than 2 or 3 metres. It is 12 January, and before the day comes to an end, they will haul on board another four chains of nets. In the relatively calm weather, this will take eight hours.
Alberto Zavaleta Salas is distressed about bad news from home. In Peru his son has been born prematurely. Nonetheless, he tries to enjoy the clear air and the translucent night that never really becomes dark.
Down in the fish factory, the movement of the cutting blades glitters from early in the morning. The washing tanks are dark red from fish blood and in silent concentration the Indonesian crew sends ton after ton of the fatty toothfish meat into the flash-freezers. In contrast to the ship’s miserable exterior, the fish factory is clean and free of rust. It could have been the kitchen of a first class restaurant. It has capacity for 220 tons of fish and they will not leave Antarctica until the cold storage room is full – or the fuel tanks empty. No other reason is acceptable to the ship owner.
Suddenly, Alberto Zavaleta Salas sees a grey-painted bow cutting through the ocean mist. It is the battleship the HMNZS Wellington, which has been hidden behind the icebergs to avoid detection by the pirate’s radar. Now the crew are lowering the dinghies and sending them on their way towards the Kunlun.
For the first time a country’s armed forces are to be used to challenge a pirate ship in the Antarctic. That means 2,000 tons of high technology, brute force and superior speed against a rusty and dodgy slaughterhouse. Two 50-millimetre machine guns against a terrified crew from the third world. The 35-year-old Lt. Commander Graham MacLean against the despondent officers from Peru and Spain. The Wellington commander’s orders are to document the illegal fishing operation, procure evidence and board the vessel. The Kunlun’s officers’ orders are to refuse to allow the Navy to come on board, pull up the nets and flee to the north.
If one can say that a criminal is as cold as ice in action when faced with a hostile naval battleship on the outskirts of the Antarctic – if outskirts of the Antarctic even exist – that is an apt description of the Kunlun’s fishing boat captain José Regueiro Sevilla.
The moment he sees the Wellington emerge from the mist, he calls the ship owner in Galicia and is instructed to pull in the nets and deny the Navy permission to board the ship, but to give them the papers they ask for.
The Kunlun is sailing under Equatorial Guinea’s flag and is in international waters. In order to be allowed to send his men on board the longline fishing vessel, Commander MacLean must have permission from the closed dictatorship in Africa. Because of the time difference, José Regueiro Sevilla hopes that it will take at least 12 hours before Equatorial Guinea answers the phone.
In front of the Wellington’s cameras, the Kunlun’s Indonesian crew begins pulling up the gillnets, but the ocean is becoming rough, and they cut the nets, leaving half of them behind. At any moment the Wellington can receive a phone call informing them that the papers from Equatorial Guinea are false. Then they can board the Kunlun without asking permission first.
Alberto Zavaleta Salas therefore sails the Kunlun at full throttle to the north. If they can manage to outmanoeuvre the battleship, the two vessels with which the Kunlun is collaborating, the Yongding or the Songhua, will return to pull up the four nets left behind.
After six days, Captain Zavaleta Salas sees the Wellington come about and change course. MacLean has observed the Yongding fishing in the midst of a sheet of pack ice. The Wellington commanding officer has finally received an answer: Equatorial Guinea can find none of the ships in its register and grants permission to board. MacLean calls up the Yongding and asks for permission to enter the ship, but the response is to stay away.
Due to the fog and the 2–3-metre waves, MacLean decides it is too risky to board by force. He has too little fuel to chase the Yongding and decides to return to New Zealand.
MacLean has filmed and documented the illegal fishing activity. Interpol will be notified and can now circulate wanted notices on the three vessels.
On board the Bob Barker the news of the Wellington’s retreat is received with disbelief. The most pessimistic among them imagine that the Sea Shepherd crew are the only ones who will end up in prison after the chase is over.
At first, Sea Shepherd decides not to criticize Graham MacLean, but when the Wellington’s chief commanding officer implies in an interview that he does not have much respect for Sea Shepherd, Paul Watson decides to strike back.1
“Commander MacLean proceeded to lament to media about the rough sea conditions, cold weather and potential dangers. Maybe he is trying to convince the public that it was a resounding success, but the reality is that it was a pathetic and cowardly failed intervention,” Watson writes in a press release.2
Watson also asks the question of why the Wellington does not fill up its fuel tanks and return to the Southern Ocean.
“My bet is that the New Zealand government and Navy will do nothing, that they will allow volunteers – including Sea Shepherd’s Kiwi volunteers on the Sea Shepherd ships – to take the risks that they will not and to undertake the responsibility from which they have walked away,” a frustrated Watson writes.
For New Zealand’s government, the incident in the Southern Ocean resembles more a PR disaster. In the end, Minister of Defence Gerry Brownlee
