French America's Cup Entry Rammed and
Damaged by Greenpeace
May 20 - Lorient, France
That Areva, a large French nuclear power
company, is the sponsor of the French Le Defi America's Cup Challenge,
is an outrage to some environmentalists. The outrage vented on
Saturday, when the boat was to be presented in a giant extravaganza
to the people of Lorient, France, where she was built. Scores
of environmentalists, including Greenpeace members, took to the
water in a variety of craft to protest, and were successful in
preventing the thousands gathered from seeing the boat. This
was somewhat in keeping with assurances to local authorities
by Greenpeace and three other environmental groups that they
were going to conduct a "passive protest."
Then it became a more active protest. As
the Le Defi folks were positioning the boat to have her lifted
out of the water, a group of Greenpeace activists in an RIB broke
through a police barricade and rammed the America's Cup entry
on the beam at an estimated 15 knots. They struck a sensitive
spot on the starboard side, just aft of the chainplates. The
hull was not penetrated, but it's expected there was some delamination
that will have to be repaired.
Le Defi crewman Tim Kroger was furious
with Greenpeace's tactics. He told reporters that after the ramming,
the Greenpeace members got on their backs "like beetles
and said 'Don't touch us, we're pacifists.'" He noted that
on the previous day, they had used disabled people as "fenders"
on a wooden boat in an attempt to prevent getting kicked out
of Le Defi's slip.
What makes the matter all the more piquant
is that more than a decade ago, the French military sent a dive
team to Auckland, New Zealand, current home of the America's
Cup, to bomb and sink Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior. Which
they did, although not very covertly. For what it's worth, France
gets an overwhelming majority of its energy from nuclear power
plants. This is not the end of this story or the protest.
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