In a vast hanger in a north German shipyard, environmental pressure group Greenpeace’s latest weapon is nearing completion: the state-of-the-art Rainbow Warrior III.
“The Rainbow Warrior III is much more than a flagship,” the group’s spokesman Mike Townsley said ahead of the vessel being floated tomorrow prior to its official launch for Greenpeace’s 40th birthday in October. “It is very modern and very ecological ... It is the practical application of our values.”
Costing an estimated 23 million euros (US$33.4 million), 10 to 15 percent of Greenpeace’s total annual budget, this is the first time that Greenpeace is having a Rainbow Warrior built from scratch to its own specifications.
Photo: AFP
The first one, sunk by French agents in 1985 in New Zealand while attempting to stop nuclear testing in the Pacific, was a converted British fisheries research trawler built in 1955 acquired by Greenpeace in 1978.
The second, another former fishing vessel, is more than 50 years old and is being retired after being “rammed, raided and bombed” in numerous campaigns against nuclear testing, over-fishing and illegal logging, Greenpeace says.
The contract to construct what Greenpeace calls its “eyes and ears” against environmental destruction — and for action “when bearing witness isn’t enough” — went to 161-year-old German shipyard Fassmer in 2009.
The hull was made in the Polish port of Gdansk, with work beginning on July 10 last year, the same date as the sinking in Auckland 25 years earlier in which one activist died. It was brought to Germany in November.
The 58m long vessel, weighing 680 tonnes, already sports the logo of a white dove and rainbow on each side of its green hull.
Inside, 120 employees of the family-owned Fassmer are working hard to get everything ready and to ensure that the shipyard meets Greenpeace’s demands that the vessel is ecologically sound.
“It is something very special working for Greenpeace,” the ship’s chief designer Uwe Lampe said, adding that he got “a few migraines” trying to give the non-governmental organization the ship of its dreams. “We have constructed a boat with an unusually high -number of environmental and safety standards ... We can only use parts that meet European norms and materials from Europe, so no Chinese steel or Russian plywood.”
“The whole concept of the boat was, how should I say, very complex,” he said. “It’s like a small town, with its own electricity generator, air conditioning, waste water treatment and laboratory.”
The boat is powered by sails on its 50m masts, by an electric motor allowing it to reach a top speed of 10 nautical miles per hour (18.52kph) and a diesel engine giving it 15 nautical miles per hour (27.78kph).
Another demand from Greenpeace was for Rainbow Warrior III’s radio room to be able to withstand for at least 30 minutes any attempts by special forces to break in — something that would not be a first.
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