The vessel doesn't look ferocious or exceptionally speedy, like other new boats the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society unveiled before previous campaigns against Japanese whaling. But the SSS Sam Simon (pictured above, and below), which was put on public display this week in the Tasmanian port of Hobart, is not as ordinary as it looks.
Sea Shepherd claims the 183-foot patrol ship, built in 1993 by the Japanese as the Seifu Maru, was previously used to obtain ocean data that benefited Japan's North Pacific Whaling Program. It was even docked alongside whaling vessels.
The ship was retired two years ago and purchased recently by Sea Shepherd with funds donated by Sam Simon, co-creator of the perennial hit TV show "The Simpsons."
Locky Maclean, captain of the Sam Simon, said in a news release: "After months of secrecy, it is such a great feeling to finally be able to fly the Sea Shepherd flag from the main mast, and yes, Sea Shepherd now owns a real Japanese research ship!"
The Sam Simon, which will depart for the Antarctic whaling grounds next week, carries a crew of 24 volunteers who are "ready to brave the Southern Ocean to seek out and shut down the illegal Japanese whaling fleet," Sea Shepherd states.
Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research has set a quota of nearly 1,000 minke whales and 50 endangered fin whales during a campaign that, like the others, is described as research oriented.
Japan skirts a long-standing International Whaling Commission ban on commercial whaling by operating under a lethal research loophole contained within the language of the moratorium.
The whaling effort has been sharply criticized by other nations but Japan has maintained that minke whales are not endangered and that whaling is part of the Japanese culture.
The Japan Times this week published the results of a survey of 1,200 Japanese citizens from around the country. Of people between the ages of 15 and 79, 26.8 percent favored the continuation of Japan's whaling program, while 18.5 percent said whaling should end.
The other 54.7 percent had "no opinion" on the matter, but 88.8 percent of those surveyed said they had not bought whale meat in the last 12 months.
If whaling is controversial, so are the harassment tactics used by Sea Shepherd and its captain, Paul Watson. They have included tossing stink bombs onto whaling ships and ropes onto boat propellers, and both sides have been involved in ramming incidents.
What remains unclear, now that Sam Simon is intimately involved in the anti-whaling movement, is whether this annual series of skirmishes will somehow end up being featured, in some manner, in an episode of "The Simpsons."
--Note: This post also appears on the GrindTv.com Outdoor channel