Militant environmental group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said its flagship vessel collided twice with Japanese whaling boats Friday as the group tried to disrupt whaling operations in Antarctic waters.
In the first incident, the collision occurred as the conservationist group tried to interrupt the transfer of a dead minke whale to the mother ship Nisshin Maru.
In the second incident, the group said, the Yushin Maru No. 1 and the Yushin Maru No. 3 tried to transfer two dead whales to the mother ship Nisshin Maru just as the Steve Irwin was blocking the slipway to prevent the transfer.
Earlier Friday, after the first collision, Japan lodged a protest with the Netherlands, summoning Dutch Ambassador Philip de Heer to the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo and telling him that Japan deplores Sea Shepherd's repeated violent harassment and obstruction to operations of the Japanese whaling fleet.

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M/Y Steve Irwin
On December 5, 2007 just before the 2007-2008 Antarctic Whale Defense Campaign: Operation Migaloo began to defend the whales of the Southern Oceans, the Sea Shepherd vessel M/Y Robert Hunter was officially re-named the Steve Irwin in honor of the late Australian conservationist. The name change was announced at a press conference by Irwin’s widow Terri Irwin and Captain Paul Watson at the Melbourne Docklands just prior to the ship’s departure to the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary.
Sea Shepherd is proud to partner with Terri Irwin for this name change as she and Steve have been world renowned for their conservation work. At the press conference, Terri stated that Steve would have been extremely honored to be acknowledged in this way as he shared Sea Shepherd's passion for saving whales."Whales have always been in Steve's heart and in 2006 he was investigating the possibility of joining the Sea Shepherd on part of its journey to defend these beautiful animals," Terri said.
The objective of Sea Shepherd’s Antarctic whale campaigns is to intervene against illegal whaling actions by the Japanese whaling fleet. The 2007-2008 Operation Migaloo campaign was very successful and the whalers only got about ½ their quota, due to the Steve Irwin’s intervention. The Steve Irwin is currently in Australia under going preparations for the 2008-2009 Antarctic whale defense campaign.
"Steve Irwin's life demonstrated how one person can make a significant difference in the world," said Watson. "Steve wanted to come to Antarctica with us to defend the whales and now he is able to join us in spirit with his name emblazoned on the fastest and most powerful whale protection ship in the world."To see pictures of the Steve Irwin in action during the Operation Migaloo campaign, click here.
The ship, formerly known as the M/Y Robert Hunter was originally named after Canadian Robert Hunter, who along with President and Founder of Sea Shepherd Captain Paul Watson was a co-founder of the Greenpeace Foundation. Bob Hunter died in May 2005, and at his funeral, Captain Watson pledged to name an ocean conversation ship in his honor. That dream came to pass with the purchase of the M/Y Robert Hunter, a 53-meter, former Scottish Fisheries Protection Service vessel.
Carrying on her father’s activist genes, Robert Hunter’s daughter Emily Hunter joined the ship’s crew for Operation Leviathan; Sea Shepherd’s 2006-7 campaign to stop the Japanese whaling fleets’ illegal slaughter of over a thousand whales in Antarctica. The Robert Hunter has the long-range capability and fast speed needed to locate and keep up with the whalers. The new ship joined the Society’s flagship Farley Mowat in the Ross Sea of Antarctica with over 60 international volunteer crewmembers, a helicopter, and numerous smaller vessels.
“Bob and I were in the very first inflatable that blocked the harpoons of the whalers in 1975,” said Captain Watson. “He was my shipmate from 1971 onward with Greenpeace and later joined me on many Sea Shepherd campaigns. With this ship, he was by my side once again in spirit continuing to defend whales.The Operation Leviathan campaign succeeded in stopping the Japanese whaling fleet from getting their self-appointed quota of whales. To see photos and read more about the Operation Leviathan campaign click here.

Neptune's Navy
Since 1977, a number of vessels have served in the Sea Shepherd fleet to protect and defend the world's marine wildlife. We are proud to present the current fleet and historical information on those vessels that have come before them... some of which float no more.
The Current Fleet
R/V Farley Mowat
In August 1996, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society purchased a new long-range, ice-class, heavy-duty, conservation enforcement ship in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Originally christened Sea Shepherd III, she was re-named Ocean Warrior in 1999 to reflect the missions and campaigns that face her in the new millennium.
She is definitely up to withstanding the ice floes of the Labrador coast, the harsh unpredictable waters of Antarctica and challenging any pirate whaler on the high seas.
The ship was built in 1956 as a Norwegian Fisheries research and enforcement ship. At 54 meters (180 ft) in length and 657 tons (displacement), her one-inch thick riveted, welded steel hull was built to withstand the violent pounding of the storm-haunted North Sea.
The ship's massive German-built diesel engine drives a variable pitch propeller that is protected inside a Kort nozzle. This means 1400 horsepower, coupled with the swift maneuverability of bridge control of he pitch.
In 2002, after months of bureaucratic paper shuffling and payments of extortionist demands by the Cayman Islands Bureau of Shipping, the Ocean Warrior was re-registered in Canada. She was renamed the Farley Mowat after Sea Shepherd's International Chair, Farley Mowat, Canadian author and animal welfare advocate.
The Sea Shepherd flagship, the R/V Farley Mowat officially began her career in the waters off Costa Rica appropriately immersed in controversy over policing actions against illegal fishing activities.
She is a protector, and a symbol of hope for a better, more humane, and more ecologically conscious future. The Farley Mowat is, has been, and will continue to be the world's greatest defender of marine wildlife.

To: Freedom Ship supporters who visit our site. July 1, 2008The following is an article I put on the Wikipedia web site. I removed all of the Freedom Ship distortions that were put on the existing site by "unknown people" and replaced them with the following. It is unfortunate that people are permitted to put anything they wish on this site and still keep their identity secret. I think they should tell who they are, just like I did as you can see below.My name is Norman Nixon and I just read the documentation of Freedom Ship on this site. I am the lead Professional Engineer associated with the design of the ship and the CEO of Freedom Ship Inc. I have never seen anything as distorted as the reports on these pages. I wish to clarify the situation.
We went public long before the reported date of 1999. My engineers and myself have heard from thousands of people, over the years, from most every country on this planet. And it has been a "learning experience" like we never expected.
The vast majority of these people want to join us and help us bring the ship to fruition so they can purchase space on the ship and enjoy the same type of "new lifestyle" we envision. This was what we were hoping would happen, but it has been in numbers far greater than we ever expected. We were originally hoping we could find enough people to build one ship, but we have heard from enough people to build more than 3 ships.
We have also been contacted by a group of people who we thought in the beginning had a serious interest in the ship, but this was an even bigger "learning experience" for us. A number of these people that came from most every country on earth wanted nothing more than to use us for a "scam." We spent a lot of our time with several groups of these con men. In the beginning, we thought they were "for real" when they were promising us financing for the ship. I have heard of such "scams" all of my life but I never expected to personally meet such a criminal in person. However, I have now met with more than two hundred of them. And we wasted a lot of valuable time meeting with them and checking them out. This has been my biggest disappointment because we wasted a lot of time with these "characters" that we could have spent doing serious work on the development of the ship, or producing an income to feed the family. They flew in from Australia, Hong Kong, Europe, and other countries and we wasted our time with all of them. This was "learning experience" number 2 associated with the Freedom Ship Project.
Another, smaller group, also came to us wanting more information on the ship. We worked with them also, but they started reporting things on their web site that were far off base. It appears they were not only talking to us, but to a group of so-called "experts" that were not even engineers, much less Registered Professional Engineers. In the beginning we spent time explaining the technical facts about the ship to them, (trying to be nice guys) but they ignored everything we said. We were confused as to why they were ignoring us (all Registered Professional Engineers) and putting on their web sites statements made by people with no knowledge or credibility of any type. Then we were finally informed about the "realities" associated with many web sites. This was "learning experience" number 3. It appears that people can make money based on how many people they have coming to their web site. These people do everything they can to "get associated" with any "major web site" such, as our Freedom Ship site, and they do or say anything to try and attract some of our people to their web site. We don't really care how many of our people go to their web sites, but we strongly disagree with the things they say on their sites. These people have gone so far as to accuse us of running a "scam." So, I invited several of them to come here and personally visit with me, our attorney, and our engineers. But none of them came, because they could really care less about whether or not we were running a "scam;" they just want to generate "controversy" and bring people to their web sites. This is the people who took advantage of Freedom Ship and of Wikipedia by making totally false reports.
Since I have given you our history, I will also give Wikipedia the first "official" notification of where we stand today -- July 1, 2008. We are still in business and still working on the project. But we did run into a little bump in the road. I set up, as our President, a man who had the "Financial Experience" we "engineers" do not have. His education and Financial Experience, as well as his personality, seemed to make him the perfect person we needed to move forward on the project. And he assured us he had found our financing, so we were all excited. But then I discovered that our $400,000 bank account (which we were using to do a public IPO so we could sell Freedom Ship stock to the general public) abruptly went down to nothing. It appears he turned over our entire bank account to a man who promised him a "Peruvian Gold certificate" worth a billion dollars. Before this we could not believe that anyone (especially a well educated and successful person) could believe something like this. This was "learning experience" number 4. He did this without our knowledge. He also took the money out of our bank account even though he did not have "signature authority." So, as you might guess, we have a major law suit against everyone involved. Per the laws of the State of Florida, the crime of "racketeering" brings a fine of 3 times the money you take. So, we are going after everyone involved for $1,200,000. This crime also brings a jail penalty, but we are willing to overlook this as long as we get our $1,200,000. This is more than we need to complete our IPO. Then is all we need to build the ship and move forward. Thank you,

Star Wars isn’t the only franchises with LEGO-loving fans. This massive Asgard Beliskner-class battleship proves there is at least one for the Stargate world. The 5L X 6W x 2T foot model has a buy it now options of $3500 and so far - cause the auction is still up - no one has purchased it. I’m thinking it would take a pretty big Stargate SG-1 fan to purchase this ’cause I consider the show one of my all-time favorites and wouldn’t spend a dime over $2500 for such a model - plus, I would want a model of the Prometheus anyway. A few more pics after the jump

Gigantic Cruise Ship Planned
Ships may be getting bigger, but a new cruise ship planned for Japanese owners will dwarf anything in service today. Princess Kaguya is described as an 'International Urban Cruise Ship' and will be 500 m long with over 20 decks. The 370,000gt vessel will be able to accommodate 8,400 passengers and 4,000 crew, with cabins being housed in three hotel blocks.
Freedom of the Seas, at 154,400gt, is the largest cruise ship presently in service, but is less than half the size of the planned Japanese giant. More than 50 restaurants and 9,500m² of lounge and bar space will cater for passengers' needs aboard the Princess Kaguya.
A diesel electric propulsion plant will give the ship speed of 20 knots. It is hoped to place an order for the ship by the end of 2008, with delivery expected in 2012.