Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Catching Thunder: The Story of the World’s Longest Sea Chase
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: Oslo
STATE:
COUNTRY: Norway
NATIONALITY: Norwegian
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2005020672
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2005020672
HEADING: Engdal, Eskil, 1964-
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040 __ |a DLC |b eng |c DLC
100 1_ |a Engdal, Eskil, |d 1964-
670 __ |a Engdal, Eskil. Berserk, c2004: |b t.p. (Eskil Engdal) jkt. (b.1964)
953 __ |a ld04
PERSONAL
Born 1964.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Journalist. Dagens Naeringsliv, Oslo, Norway, feature journalist, c. 1996–.
AWARDS:SKUP journalism award for outstanding investigative reporting; International Reporter’s Journalism Award; Golden Pen.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Eskil Engdal is a Norwegian journalist. He has worked as a feature journalist at the Norwegian periodical Dagens Naeringsliv for over two decades. It is there that he was awarded the SKUP journalism award for outstanding investigative reporting, the International Reporter’s Journalism Award, and the Golden Pen. Among many other topics, Engdal has written about pirate fishermen.
On this global issue, Engdal published Catching Thunder: The Story of the World’s Longest Sea Chase in 2018 with coauthor and fellow journalist Kjetil Sæter. The account traces the pursuit of the illegal fishing vessel Thunder as it worked the Southern Ocean off the coast of Antarctica for the endangered toothfish or Chilean sea bass. Engdal and Sæter show how the nonprofit Sea Shepherds Conservation Society vessel Bob Barker Captain Peter Hammarstedt chased the Thunder for 111 days in an effort to bring the ship’s activities to justice. The Thunder had been wanted by Interpol for some time for its poaching over the course of several decades. The difficulty in bringing international maritime crimes to court is one of the aspects the authors cover in the book. They also show how the profits and sponsorships of these illegal vessels are easily hidden in tax havens.
Writing in Spectator, Philip Hoare remarked that “Engdal and Sæter are energetic writers with a sense of pace and cinematic detail; indeed, in the process of translation into American English … their story cries out for a film crew. But although Catching Thunder is an exciting read, it is overshadowed by the real story set up by Sea Shepherd.” Hoare noted that “the book’s short chapters read like urgent frontline bulletins, as reconstructed by the authors. Unlike Sam Vincent in Blood and Guts, Engdal and Sæter were not aboard the vessel to tell the story but conducted detailed interviews with the protagonists after the event.” Hoare called the book “an uproarious adventure–one predicated on the protestors’ ferocious sense of moral rectitude.” A contributor to Publishers Weekly suggested that “readers will easily root for Hammarstedt, but may lose interest in this lackluster maritime narrative.” The same reviewer found the narrative to be “surprisingly tepid.” Writing in Foreword Reviews, Rachel Jagareski found the book to be “an all too rare positive, satisfying story about how the forces of good won out over criminals and other self-interested baddies, and how they helped to protect our” planet. Reviewing the book in Sydney Morning Herald, Steven Carroll labeled it “a solid piece of collaborative journalism.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, February 12, 2018, review of Catching Thunder: The Story of the World’s Longest Sea Chase, p. 72.
Spectator, March 17, 2018, Philip Hoare, review of Catching Thunder, p. 30.
Sydney Morning Herald, March 8, 2018, Steven Carroll, review of Catching Thunder.
ONLINE
Foreword Reviews, https://www.forewordreviews.com/ (March 1, 2018), Rachel Jagareski, review of Catching Thunder.
Eskil Engdal and Kjetil Sæter are journalists for the Norwegian broadsheet Dagens Næringsliv. They have both been recipients of the prestigious SKUP award for investigative journalism.
Eskil Engdal has worked as a feature journalist at the Norwegian broadsheet Dagens Naeringsliv for more than 20 years. He has won the prestigious SKUP journalism award for outstanding investigative reporting (2001), the International Reporter’s Journalism Award (2012), and the Golden Pen (2013).
Print Marked Items
Pirates of the Southern Ocean: Philip Hoare describes a
thrilling game of cat and mouse through the storms and
drift ice of the high seas off Antarctica
Philip Hoare
Spectator.
336.9890 (Mar. 17, 2018): p30+.
COPYRIGHT 2018 The Spectator Ltd. (UK)
http://www.spectator.co.uk
Full Text:
Catching Thunder: The Story of the World's Longest Sea Chase by Eskil Engdal & Kjetil Swter, translated from the Norwegian by Diane Oatley
Zed Books, 12.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 391
Sea Shepherd is a radical protest group made famous--or notorious--by the American cable TV series Whale Wars and by the support of
numerous Hollywood celebrities and rock stars. Having previously concentrated on obstructing whale-hunting from Japan to the Faroe Islands, it
now focuses on other devastating acts of marine plunder.
In Catching Thunder, written with Sea Shepherd's active co-operation, the Norwegian journalists Eskil Engdal and Kjetil Sffiter tell the story of a
10,000-mile sea chase, lasting 110 days, in which the organisation sought to bring to justice a Spanish vessel illegally trawling for highly
endangered toothfish in the Southern Ocean. The result is an uproarious adventure--one predicated on the protestors' ferocious sense of moral
rectitude.
Sea Shepherd is run with Ahab-like persistence by Paul Watson, a Canadian who left Greenpeace in 1977 when he decided they were not
hardcore enough. I happened to be in Hobart, Tasmania in December 2009 when their vessel the Ady Gil--a contraption that would have looked
more at home on a Batman set--was readying itself for a mission which would end in disaster the following month, when it was rammed by a
Japanese whaling ship, the Shonan Maru 2. Renowned for being vegan eco-warriors, the young crew might have been getting ready for
Glastonbury as much as preparing for inevitable confrontation on the high seas. I met one adherent who seemed wild-eyed with his cult-like
mission. 'He'd take a bullet for Watson,' I was told.
Later, in 2016, I was sent on assignment to interview Watson at the Cannes film festival. I'd already encountered him in Paris the previous year at
the CO21 climate conference, where he told the audience, in a chic hotel, how his life had changed after he'd looked into the eye of a hunted
whale. It was mesmerising. He makes no bones about his courtship of celebrity, believing in any means necessary to his end.
Hence his provocative appearance at Cannes. His fearsome vessel the Sam Simon, moored offshore, was painted in grey camouflage style, with
the addition of shark-like teeth to the prow. As I boarded by rope ladder, I was told by the captain, with some satisfaction, that a police launch had
just visited, after complaints from local hoteliers that the ship's presence was upsetting their guests.
Watson, a buccaneering presence, was keen to show me the watch Pierce Brosnan had given him, and to boast about sending Pamela Anderson to
lobby Putin over the export of whale meat to Japan. This was world politics as a movie cast; and indeed Watson presides over his organization--
and over Catching Thunder--as though he were a mastermind from a James Bond film, directing from afar in his places of exile; or a maritime
version of Julian Assange or the Scarlet Pimpernel--a righteous fugitive from erroneous justice.
Sea Shepherd's story has already attracted literary attention. In his lively book Blood and Guts, published in 2014, the Australian writer Sam
Vincent acted as an embedded journalist on one of the organisation's anti-whaling missions, during which his eyes were opened to a certain
Conradian craziness, evoking shades of Martin Sheen's character, Captain Willard, in Apocalypse Now. (In a neat case of typecasting, Sheen
himself is a prominent supporter of Watson, and one of Sea Shepherd's vessels is named after him. During a stand-off with Canadian sealers in
1995, Sheen kept the sealers at bay in an hotel, allowing Watson to make his escape).
Last December, Sea Shepherd more or less gave up the fight against the Japanese whale hunters, frustrated in part by their military technology.
Watson declared: 'We have an obligation to our supporters that if we cannot be successful in intervening directly, then it would not make sense to
send a vessel.'
Peter Hammarstedt, captain of their ship the Bob Baker, agreed: 'We were active in the Southern Ocean for ten years and saved more than 6,000
whales. We also have many other critically important campaigns to run elsewhere in the world'. It is one of those campaigns that Catching
Thunder charts.
In April 2016, the Bob Baker--a former Norwegian whaling ship, bought for Sea Shepherd by the Australian TV presenter and animal rights
activist after whom it is named--set off in pursuit of a renegade Spanish fishing boat. The Thunder was longlining in the Southern Ocean for
toothfish, an endangered species which, if ordered in a restaurant, as the authors note, would be comparable to eating a panda cub. Despite
international bans on the practice, and a series of Interpol notices for its arrest, the Thunder, along with a significant number of other fishing
vessels, continued to flout the law. Hence the resulting cat-and-mouse chase in which the two vessels--protestors and pirates--covered 10,000
miles and three oceans, using radar, international communications and their physical presence to confront one another in seriously hazardous seas.
The book's short chapters read like urgent frontline bulletins, as reconstructed by the authors. Unlike Sam Vincent in Blood and Guts, Engdal and
Sster were not aboard the vessel to tell the story but conducted detailed interviews with the protagonists after the event. They also carried out
their own background work into the shadowy ownership of the illegal fishing trawlers making vast fortunes out of toothfish--one operation
earning 17 million euros in just two years. The Thunder's owners are traced to Galicia, and to what is portrayed as a Spanish mafia that blur their
illegal catches with suspicions of drug-trafficking.
With its punchy presentation and layers of pop culture and celebrity, Engdal and Sster's account is almost edited for social media--the Thunder
even recognises the Bob Baker from Whale Wars. Half way through the marathon, Hammarstedt (who is given to quoting classical authors to
encourage his crew), contacts the Guinness Book of Records to lodge a world record for the pursuit of a poacher. And in one of his erratic and
excited press releases, Watson declares that, in the absence of support from the Australian or New Zealand authorities (both of which accuse the
campaigners of endangering their own crews' lives, as well as those of their target's), 'Sea Shepherd is the only sheriff in town'.
How long will either ship last in the chase? Fuel and food supplies are limited. Eventually, the Thunder makes for port--in Equatorial Guinea,
whose regime appears positively disposed to such piracy. A tense stand-off ensues and the Thunder sinks rapidly. The Bob Baker and Sam Simon
rescue all 40 of its crew, but suspect the captain of having scuttled his ship in order to destroy any incriminating records.
Engdal and Sster are energetic writers with a sense of pace and cinematic detail; indeed, in the process of translation into American English
(complete with authorial interventions such as 'this shit is for real'), their story cries out for a film crew. But although Catching Thunder is an
exciting read, it is overshadowed by the real story set up by Sea Shepherd, its supporters and detractors. How do we deal with the greatest crisis
facing the world--the imminent threat to its fragile environment, especially now that democracy seems to have become distrusted or even
outmoded? I'm not sure that Paul Watson has the answer. But then, as he'd say, does anyone have a better idea?
Caption: Left: The Bob Baker trails the Thunder through six-metre swells, and (above) the Thunder sinks
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Hoare, Philip. "Pirates of the Southern Ocean: Philip Hoare describes a thrilling game of cat and mouse through the storms and drift ice of the
high seas off Antarctica." Spectator, 17 Mar. 2018, p. 30+. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A538248923/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=1aa81410. Accessed 16 July 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A538248923
Catching Thunder: The Story of the World's Longest
Sea Chase
Publishers Weekly.
265.7 (Feb. 12, 2018): p72.
COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Catching Thunder: The Story of the World's Longest Sea Chase
Eskil Engdal and Kjetil Saeter, trans. from
the Norwegian by Diane Oatley. Zed, $21.95
(400p) ISBN 978-1-78699-087-7
Norwegian journalists Engdal and Saeter chronicle the recent pursuit of the Thunder, an illegal fishing vessel plying the waters off Antarctica, in a
surprisingly tepid narrative. On Dec. 17, 2017, Peter Hammarstedt, captain of the Bob Barker (a vessel belonging to the Sea Shepherds
Conservation Society and named for the American game-show host) set out in pursuit of the rogue vessel. The authors set the stage early on,
pitting one boat against the other. The Thunder, with an international crew and among "a fleet of battered trawlers and longline fishing vessels"
wanted by Interpol, had been poaching fish for decades. Hammarstedt, meanwhile, was determined to catch it, "destroy the fishing gear and hand
the crew over to the coast guard or port authorities." A cat-and-mouse pursuit ensues. Engdal and Saeter shine a broad light on maritime crimes
committed in international waters by mixing in other stories of outlaw ships. Though pervasive, the authors write, maritime crimes are difficult to
prosecute as profits are often hidden in tax havens, complicating the paper trail. Furthermore, "it is virtually impossible to induce those who know
the operation from the inside to talk." The authors aren't able to fully capture the excitement of the chase, and once they reach the final days of the
110-day chase, the action comes too
little, too late. Readers will easily root for Hammarstedt, but may lose interest in this lackluster maritime narrative. (Mar.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Catching Thunder: The Story of the World's Longest Sea Chase." Publishers Weekly, 12 Feb. 2018, p. 72. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A528615543/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=ae2f3a72. Accessed 16 July 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A528615543
Catching Thunder
The Story of the World's Longest Sea Chase
Eskil Engdal
Kjetil Saeter
Diane Oatley (Translator)
ZED Books (Mar 15, 2018)
Softcover $21.95 (400pp)
978-1-78699-087-7
Norwegian journalists Eskil Engdal and Kjetil Sæter deliver a true story that reads like a spy novel, peppered with scary organized crime villains, charismatic environmental activists and Interpol agents, and enough tidbits about sailing treacherous seas, commercial fishing, and endangered species to satisfy the most dedicated nautical adventure fan.
The Thunder of the title was a notorious illegal factory fishing vessel that poached lucrative catches of toothfish, otherwise known as Chilean sea bass, for years in the Southern Ocean. The nonprofit Sea Shepherd Conservation Society took on the charge of rounding up Thunder and other illegal fishing boats in their targeted “Bandit 6” after their efforts to interrupt Japanese whaling in Antarctic waters, chronicled on the popular cable television show Whale Wars, proved successful.
Equipped with a nimble ship loaded with excellent radar and communications technology, Sea Shepherd captain Peter Hammarstedt and his crew were fortunate to locate Thunder early in their December 2014 patrol mission while their food and fuel reserves were high. The authors smartly punctuate the subsequent 111-day account of the sea chase with less action-filled but no less intriguing asides about how illegal fishing ships are surreptitiously registered and bankrolled, their inequitable treatment of fishing crews, problems with international fishing and marine sanctuary regulations and enforcement, and money laundering and corruption in various Asian, African, and European ports of call.
The book suffers from occasional bouts of awkward dialogue and translations, as well as from Sea Shepherd hero worship, but despite these choppy waters, the narrative is exciting and illuminating. This is an all too rare positive, satisfying story about how the forces of good won out over criminals and other self-interested baddies, and how they helped to protect our environment.
Reviewed by Rachel Jagareski
March/April 2018
Catching Thunder review: Eskil Engdal & Kjetil Saeter on a hunt for pirates
By Steven Carroll
8 March 2018 — 4:00pm
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Catching Thunder
Eskil Engdal & Kjetil Saeter
Catching Thunder. By Eskil Engdal & Kjetil Saeter.
Photo: Supplied
Scribe, $32.99
This is a modern pirate story, but the plunder isn't pieces of eight – it's the Patagonian Toothfish, as valuable as narcotics. The pirate ship, the eponymous Thunder, was one of a number specialising in the illegal, million-dollar trawling of endangered species. In December 2014 Swedish-American Peter Hammarstedt set out on the Bob Barker to catch the Thunder, which was also wanted by Interpol. Easier said than done: oceans are vast, ships tiny. Six months later, in a journey that had taken them from the Antarctic to the tropics, Hammarstedt and his volunteer crew were shadowing their prey, in scenes reminiscent of Coleridge, when the sinking Thunder sent out a Mayday call. Today it lies 3000 metres below. A solid piece of collaborative journalism, it's just one tale about the oceans of unregulated, pirate waters.