How long is the steve irwin ship

It has been my honor to have been captain of this vessel for so many successful high seas campaigns. The lives we have saved and the difference we have made with this vessel has been awesome. We worked the ship hard, through horrific storms and crushing ice and after eleven years, our engineers have determined that the Steve Irwin is no longer safe for sea.

Despite the many risks we have taken over the years we have learned when to hold a ship and when to retire a ship and regrettably the time to retire the Steve Irwin is now.

Battle scarred and damaged, regrettably she must be retired, but the memories, the campaign victories and the lives saved will be the lasting legacy of a ship that was as valiant and courageous as her namesake.

Left with no choice but to retreat, the whaling fleet relents and leaves the Antarctic, heading north out of the whaling grounds.

In restoring peace to the Southern Ocean, the lives of whales were saved that year; the highest number of whales saved in the history of campaigning.

The self-allocated killing grounds of the Japanese whalers occupy over half the Antarctic continent. To find a fleet of six ships, intent on hiding from us, means using a combination of stealth and surprise. It also means having to study weather patterns, cloud cover, plankton charts and traditional whaling patterns to search the right pockets within millions of square miles before the whalers have had a chance to get to the whales.

For the first time in over a century, there would be no whaling in Antarctica. As I listened to the verdict being live-streamed over the Internet, my heart swelled with pride and my skin broke out in goosebumps. I thought about a memory from the third refuelling attempt made just a year ago by the Japanese whalers that we had successfully blocked.

Amidst the chaos and violence of nine ships battling over the marine life of Antarctica, a seal had jumped agitatedly out of its mid-morning nap and begun to bark at the passing Japanese coast guard vessel. With the court ruling against Japan, the whalers have finally been forbidden from returning to the Southern Ocean. However, down south this means nothing. It is simply another indicator of just how removed Antarctica is from the rest of the world. A continent that launched the Heroic Age of exploration and inspired a deadly race to the South Pole remains largely desolate, alone and unoccupied even today.

Standing on the deck of the ship, I look around and think of the magic of life thriving in the most remote corners of our planet. I also think about the destruction humanity has unleashed on this refuge, this place of solace and beauty. The rich waters of this continent are under constant threat from plunderers. Siddharth Chakravarty is a marine conservationist and works at Sea Shepherd Global. As an ocean navigator, he is actively involved with campaigns against poaching on the high seas.

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