Space-age powerboat to harass Japan whalers: activists

A super-fast, space-age powerboat which scythes through waves and smashed the round-the-world record is set to be unleashed on Japanese whalers next month, activists said on Friday.

The tri-hulled, kevlar-and-carbon vessel, which can manage speeds up to 50 knots (57 miles/93 kilometres per hour), will chase the controversial boats during their annual hunt in seas south of Australia.

The futuristic "Ady Gil", formerly known as "Earthrace", jetted round the world in just under 61 days last year, two weeks faster than the previous record circumnavigation.

Campaign spokesman Paul Watson said the boat will pursue the Japanese harpoon boats and stop them spearing whales killed in their hundreds in waters off Antarctica each year.

"The Ady Gil will be our interceptor. It will be able to latch on to a harpoon boat and prevent it killing any whales," Watson told AFP.

"It should be able to run rings around them."

Watson said the boat, bankrolled to the tune of one million dollars by Hollywood businessman Ady Gil, will accompany the "Steve Irwin" ship during the three-month campaign from early December.

In an increasingly bitter campaign, activists have boarded a whaling ship and hurled stink bombs and rancid butter at the fishermen, while accusing the Japanese of warding them off by using ear-piercing sonic weapons.

Environmental groups, as well as anti-whaling nations led by Australia and New Zealand, have attacked Japan for the annual expeditions, criticizing them as cruel and unnecessary.

Japan pursues the hunts using a loophole in the 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling which allows the animals to be killed for "lethal research", and often accuses Western critics of insensitivity towards its culture.