The Rainbow Warrior

Origin

The Rainbow Warrior is perhaps the most famous Greenpeace ship.

 

The current Rainbow Warrior was launched on 10 July 1989. The original vessel was sunk in 1985 by agents of the French government in an attempt to foil protests of their nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific.

The plan backfired, sparking worldwide outrage, and the rebuilt ship proved that "you can't sink a rainbow" when it returned to battle successfully against the testing programme. Nuclear testing ended at Moruroa in 1996. 

(More information about the bombing of the original Rainbow Warrior.)

The ship's name was inspired by a North American Indian prophecy which foretells a time when human greed will make the Earth sick, and a mythical band of warriors will descend from a rainbow to save it.

History

Greenpeace converted the Rainbow Warrior into a motor/sailing vessel by constructing three masts on the hull of a North Sea fishing trawler formerly called the Grampian Fame.

 

It is an ocean-going vessel equipped with the latest in electronic navigation, sailing and communications equipment.

Actions

The Rainbow Warrior's decks have been graced by celebrities, religious leaders, royalty and rock bands. She has challenged environmental crimes, relocated the population of a South Pacific Island contaminated by radiation, provided disaster relief to victims of the 2004 Tsunami in South East Asia, and sailed against whaling, war, global warming, and other environmental crimes on every ocean of the world.

 

Arguably, the Rainbow Warrior's greatest moments were in her decades-long struggle to end nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific. Despite being rammed, bombed, and subject to every form of intimidation and opposition imaginable, she carried on the fight for a nuclear-free Pacific.

You can read about the ultimate success of those efforts here, in our 1996 web report of the end of nuclear testing in the Pacific.

Specifications

       (Take a virtual tour.)

Port of registry: Amsterdam, Netherlands
Date of charter: 1987
Number of berths: 28
Inflatable boats: 1 outboard Rib and 4 inflatables
Type of ship: Motor Assisted Schooner
Call sign: PC 8024
Built: 1957 by Cochrane & Sons, Selby, UK
Gross tons: 555
Length: 55.20 m
Breadth: 8.54 m
Draught: 4.6 m
Maximum speed: 12 knots (2 engines, 3000 L/day)
Engines: 2 Diesel type Deutz M.W.M. 2 x 6 Cylinder, 2 x 500kW
Sailing Speed: 5-7 knots average
Sails: 650 m2
Max Airdraft 41 m

 

The Rainbow Warrior

The Hull

Main Deck

Poop Deck

Personal Account

Click here to listen to the BBC radio programme, The Reunion, which brought together Greenpeace activists and crew involved in the early campaigns of Greenpeace and the Rainbow Warrior.

 

Stephanie Mills, campaigner on board the Rainbow Warrior during the 1995 return to Moruroa:

It's 6 am on 10 July 1995, the 10th anniversary of the first Rainbow Warrior bombing.

After entering the 12 mile exclusion zone around Moruroa atoll, commandos storm the Rainbow Warrior and begin breaking windows and throwing tear gas canisters onto the bridge.

As the skipper stops the engines and the crew head for the lower deck, the Rainbow Warrior is rammed by a French tug ripping a hole in her hull, fortunately above water level.

I'm in the radio room when commandos take an axe to the door and throw another canister of tear gas through the split. Choking for breath, I manage to escape through the porthole along with the radio operator, Thom Looney and French Campaigner Jean-Luc Thierry.

We are all forced from the Rainbow Warrior and interrogated before being returned to the ship and escorted back into international waters.