The SV Rainbow Warrior

Origin

The SV (Sailing Vessel) Rainbow Warrior is perhaps the most famous Greenpeace ship due to its predecessor sinking in New Zealand in 1985 after a French Secret Service agent planted two bombs on the ship.

The current Rainbow Warrior was launched on 10 July 1989, being the fourth anniversary of the original ship's sinking.

The ship's name was inspired by a North American Indian prophecy that influenced the crew on board the Phyllis Cormack, during the first Greenpeace voyage.

The prophecy foresees a time when humans, through greed, have destroyed the world, and the Warriors of the Rainbow rise 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

Some of the Rainbow Warrior's greatest moments took place when it returned to Moruroa in 1995 to protest France's resumption of nuclear testing.

9 June 1995 - 20 March 1996 Rainbow Warrior actions against French Nuclear testing:

After being rammed and stormed by French commandos, the Rainbow Warrior immediately continued the protest by joining a peace flotilla with ships from around the world, before being stormed again and having its crew arrested.

Find our more at our archived site.
http://archive.greenpeace.org/~comms/rw/rw.html

Other campaign work the ship has been involved with is:


Driftnets, fisheries and Norwegian whaling;
Touring the Russian Far East for forests and South-East Asia for toxics;
Documenting the potential impacts of climate change on coral reefs in the Timor Sea and the Pacific;
Tracking and blocking dangerous plutonium fuel shipments between France, Belgium, Britain and Japan; and
Touring European waters to help protect Ancient Forests.
Find out more at:
http://archive.greenpeace.org/saveordelete/warrior/rwarrior.html

Specifications

Port of registry: Amsterdam, Netherlands
Date of purchase: 1987
Number of berths: 30
Number of inflatables: 1 Avon Searider 1x 200hp optimax outboards
2 Novurania 45ph 4 stroke outboards
2 Avon 45 hp 4 Stroke outboards
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: 4.5 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

Personal Account

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.

Read more Greenpeace stories from the Rainbow Warrior when it was recently in Europe helping to save ancient forests.
http://archive.greenpeace.org/saveordelete/warrior/rwarrior.html