That was the simple plan.
“For how long will you follow them?” Chakravarty asked.
The question came as a surprise for Hammarstedt. He had no ready answer.
“For however long it takes?” Chakravarty asked.
“Yeah. For however long it takes,” Hammarstedt answered.
4
THE OCCUPATION
HOBART/THE SOUTHERN OCEAN
“Oh, no! Not the Sea Shepherd-crazies.”
That was the first thought that flashed through Martin Exel’s mind when he heard about Operation Icefish.
As general manager of environment and policy for the fishery giant Austral Fisheries, he had lived and breathed for the Patagonian toothfish for more than 20 years.
Exel had administrated a secret intelligence network to confront and stop the pirates; he now operated a fleet of legal vessels that fished toothfish in the Southern Ocean. At Austral Fisheries, Sea Shepherd was commonly viewed as a gang of crazy, unscrupulous assholes – Paul Watson was a man who made a fool of himself with deranged initiatives and lived in an alternative universe. Martin Exel was convinced that Sea Shepherd would attack the legal toothfish ships, spray down the hulls and generally speaking raise hell.
When he asked other environmental organizations for advice, they stared at him in terror and told him to stay away from Sea Shepherd.
The publicized Sea Shepherd expedition could end in a commercial disaster for Austral Fisheries. Sea Shepherd’s massive media machinery would frighten luxury hotels and top restaurants all over the world, deterring them from serving Patagonian toothfish. Martin Exel saw no other solution but to meet Sea Shepherd halfway and arrive at a form of collaboration.
“The task of searching for one or two ships in the Southern Ocean is almost impossible. We have been chasing these vessels for 20 years and know how complicated and costly it is,” he explained in a meeting with Jeff Hansen, the director of Sea Shepherd Australia.
In the early 1990s, Austral Fisheries sent its flagship, the 85-metre-long Austral Leader, on a series of expensive and disastrous expeditions to the Antarctic. The hope had been of finding schools of hake. Every day the company lost large amounts on the search, which did not reward them with anything but empty nets. In their desperation they scrutinized the maps for places where they could commence regulated fishing activity and finally they found their way to Macquarie Island, halfway between Australia and Antarctica. Out of the depths a species emerged that was virtually unknown in Australia, the Patagonian toothfish. But the Australians were too late: the toothfish stock had already been over-fished by Russian vessels.
Austral Fisheries continued its expeditions deeper and deeper into the Southern Ocean, all the way to the volcanic island Heard Island. There, the Austral Leader sailed straight into a fleet of Argentinean pirate ships. When the Icelandic shipmaster navigated his way into a confrontation with the Argentinean ships, the battle over the toothfish commenced. After having threatened to arm its own ships, Austral Fisheries initiated a highly unconventional and costly intelligence operation to thoroughly investigate the illegal fleet and its owners. The company hired former elite soldiers to acquire information. In Perth they set up a direct line for anonymous tips, they put up posters in ports and offered a reward of 100,000 dollars for information about the toothfish pirates. Eventually they had a network of secret informants all over the world on their payroll. It was a gamble with high stakes and enormous risk. The cover of one of the secret informants was blown and he was beaten up so badly that he was hospitalized for three months. What they first believed to be a gang of opportunistic amateurs, turned out to be a well-organized and cynical crime syndicate. The pirates hired private security companies which kept every single patrol ship under surveillance. When a French patrol vessel refuelled in Réunion on its way to the Antarctic, the pirates knew that it would take four days before they reached the fishing banks and notified their ships.
The management of Austral Fisheries compared the situation in the Southern Ocean to an invasion that challenged both the nation’s sovereignty and its financial interests. Between 40 and 100 pirate vessels were pillaging the region, many with Spanish and Norwegian backers. When the Australian authorities sent ships to Antarctica to hunt for the pirate fleet, it was the country’s first armed operation in the region since the Second World War. Operation Dirk took place 4,000 kilometres from the Australian mainland and cost taxpayers millions of dollars. In one of the most peaceful regions of the world something was taking place that resembled a war, even though the Antarctic Treaty prohibited all military activity.
When the patrol ship the Oceanic Viking, equipped with two 50 calibre machine guns, arrived at Prydz Bay in December 2006, it ran into the pirate vessel the Typhoon 1, the ship that would later come to be known as the Thunder.
5
HOT PURSUIT
THE SOUTHERN OCEAN, DECEMBER 2014
“I wanted you to be the first to know.”
The Sam Simon has just set sail from Wellington to join Operation Icefish when Captain Sid Chakravarty receives a phone call from the Southern Ocean. It is Peter Hammarstedt.
“I have in front of me the Thunder, I believe. We got several fishing buoys in the water. We got a visual ID on the vessel. They are 5.7 nautical miles away. Based on its superstructure and its profile it has got to be the Thunder,” he reports.
After having concluded his conversation with Chakravarty, Hammarstedt quickly climbs down the stairs from the bridge, trots through the messroom and into the lounge. He enthusiastically informs the crew of what lies in front of them.
“We have come across a fishing vessel. There is fishing gear in the water. We do need to get a bit closer to get a 100 per cent confirmation, but it does seem like the vessel we have found is the Thunder. On the second day of our search. We got one of them!” he says eagerly.
“This shit is for real,” one of the crew shouts amidst the excited uproar, rounds of applause
