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: 5/5/1971
WEBSITE:
CITY: Kolbotn
STATE:
COUNTRY: Norway
NATIONALITY: Norwegian
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born May 5, 1971; married; children: two.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Author and journalist; feature writer, Dagens Naeringsliv. Formerly worked as reporter for Aftenposten and Finansavisen. Guitarist with Norwegian bands Katthult and Wolfgang.
AVOCATIONS:Skiing.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Norwegian journalist Kjetil Saeter is the coauthor, with fellow journalist Eskil Engdal, of Jakten på thunder (translated and published under the title Catching Thunder: The Story of the World’s Longest Sea Chase). It tells the story of the pursuit of the vessel Thunder, which was discovered engaging in illegal fishing in Antarctic waters by the Bob Barker, a ship owned and operated by the environmental organization Sea Shepherd. “For ten years, Sea Shepherd had been pursuing the Japanese whaling fleet in the Antarctic, high-profile campaigns that ultimately resulted in the government of Australia taking the government of Japan to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague,” explained Peter Hammarstedt, the captain of the Bob Barker and protagonist of Catching Thunder. “The ICJ ruled that the Japanese whaling program was illegal and thus the Japanese whaling industry took a one-year hiatus from whaling as they re-worked their whaling program in bid to subvert the ICJ ruling. That one-year hiatus gave Sea Shepherd the opportunity to focus on a different Antarctic poaching issue altogether — namely the poaching of Patagonian and Antarctic toothfish.”
Toothfish are protected from overfishing by international laws and treaties, and certain types of fishing techniques are banned because they damage the environment and threaten other, noncommercial fish. But since toothfish bring a high price on international fish markets (where they are usually sold under the name “Chilean sea bass”) the laws are often ignored. Since few, if any, governments will commit resources to patrolling the empty seas near Antarctica and often refuse to prosecute lawbreakers, criminal organizations are willing to risk sizeable fines to make huge profits from illegal fishing. “Seeking even more layers of protection, many of the vessels have multiple identities, backed up with legitimate paperwork, so that when threatened they can switch name plates and in minutes change their designation to evade pursuit: the Kunlun had at least ten names over a decade and had been flagged in five countries,” explained a reviewer in the South China Morning Post. “Following the money trail proves harder still, with the profits hidden in tax shelters and only a handful on board aware of the identities of their real bosses.” Investigations “eventually leads to Europe,” the South China Morning Post contributor continued, “to a region with a history of smuggling and involvement in the cocaine trade.” “The takeaway is that combating environmental crime requires greater international cooperation than is the case today,” declared a contributor to Talking about Books, “and meanwhile, environmental NGOs are filling the enforcement vacuum left by inadequate government action. They take great risks to do so, risks that should not be required.”
Critics found Catching Thunder intriguing. The journalists “deliver a true story,” observed Rachel Jagareski in Foreword Reviews, “that reads like a spy novel, peppered with … enough tidbits about sailing treacherous seas, commercial fishing, and endangered species to satisfy the most dedicated nautical adventure fan.” “Engdal and Saeter,” wrote a Publishers Weekly reviewer, “shine a broad light on maritime crimes committed in international waters by mixing in other stories of outlaw ships.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, February 12, 2018, review of Catching Thunder: The Story of the World’s Longest Sea Chase, p. 72.
South China Morning Post, February 22, 2018, review of Catching Thunder.
Sydney Morning Herald, March 8, 2018, Steven Carroll, review of Catching Thunder.
ONLINE
Byron Writers Festival website, https://byronwritersfestival.com/ (August 8, 2018), author profile.
Foreword Reviews, https://www.forewordreviews.com/ (August 24, 2018), Rachel Jagareski, review of Catching Thunder.
Talking about Books, https://talking-about-books.com/ (February 25, 2018), review of Catching Thunder.
Zed Books, https://www.zedbooks.net/ (April 13, 2018), “An Interview with Captain Peter Hammarstedt of Catching Thunder.”
Eskil Engdal is a journalist for the Norwegian broadsheet Dagens Næringsliv and a recipient of the prestigious SKUP award for investigative journalism.
Kjetil Saeter has worked as a journalist for the broadsheets Aftenposten and Finansavisen, and currently as feature writer for Dagens Naeringsliv. He has won two SKUP diplomas (2007 and 2010), the SKUP award (2011), and the Schibsted Journalism Award (2008).
Sessions: 50, 88, 107
Kjetil Saeter
Kjetil Sæter has worked as a journalist for the broadsheets Aftenposten, Finansavisen and currently as feature writer for Dagens Næringsliv. He has won two SKUP diplomas (2007 and 2010), the SKUP award (2011) and the Schibsted Journalism Award (2008). Catching Thunder is his second book.
Sæter lives in an Oslo suburb with his wife, two kids and a cat named after Frank Sinatra. When not working with journalism or spending time with his family, Sæter is a very eager guitar player who has participated on albums with Norwegian bands such as Katthult and Wolfgang. During winter, he also enjoys the Norwegian national sport of skiing – both cross-country and racing down mountains.
Catching Thunder: The Story of the World's Longest Sea Chase
Publishers Weekly. 265.7 (Feb. 12, 2018): p72.
Copyright: 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 26 June 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
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The author of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the author for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
Catching Thunder review: Eskil Engdal & Kjetil Saeter on a hunt for pirates
By Steven Carroll
8 March 2018 — 4:00pm
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Send via Email
Normal text sizeLarger text sizeVery large text size
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.
Catching Thunder: The True Story of the World’s Longest Sea Chase, by Eskil Engdal & Kjetil Sæter
25
Sunday
Feb 2018
Posted by susannegjonnes in Crime / Thriller, Fiction
≈ Leave a comment
This true-life crime novel, ‘Catching Thunder: The Story of the World’s Longest Sea Chase’, is the dramatic account of Sea Shepherd’s 110-day long international pursuit of the pirate fishing vessel Thunder.
Sea Shepherd is a group of activists committed to fighting illegal fishing led by the Swedish-American captain, Peter Hammarstedt. Their ship Bob Barker is trawling around for the ‘Bandit 6’, a list of six vessels fishing illegally in the Southern Ocean. At the start of their adventure, they come across Thunder, a vessel with an INTERPOL purple notice, and wanted by several governments around the world. This is the start of the ever-longest chase at sea, lasting 110 days, and crossing three oceans. Behind the scenes, INTERPOL and various countries’ fisheries management watch the chase, collaborating with Sea Shepherd in unconventional ways behind closed doors.
The book takes us from the once state of the art fishing vessel’s birth in 1969 in Ulsteinvik, Norway, across the oceans, and to Galicia, Spain, where unscrupulous mafias have specialised in the illegal fishing and whitewashing of Patagonian tooth fish, a lucrative species of cod icefish also named the “white gold of the ocean”. A criminal business extending across several jurisdictions, and including a web of tax havens, insurance companies, and ship registries, facilitates this lucrative poaching.
The product of a three year investigation taking them to four continents, the Norwegian investigative journalists Eskil Engdal and Kjetil Sæter, have produced a book which is both a page-turner and a highly impressive documentary account of their work.
Chilling in places, with many situations hovering on the edge of extreme danger, one admires Sea Shepherd but also yells at them for the reckless peril they subject themselves to. Hammarstedt knows that the world and their donors are watching, and giving up is no option. This is both bravery and stupidity, but in the end a deep passion for protecting the oceans wins through, one that is hard to disagree with.
The book depicts how the international system fighting illegal fishing still has a long way to go if it effectively wants to get rid of the mafias out there, who are exploiting valuable ocean resources. In a really exciting fashion, the book highlights the problem of illegal fishing that has profound impact on communities across the world, but is largely unknown to the majority of people.
The takeaway is that combating environmental crime requires greater international cooperation than is the case today, and meanwhile, environmental NGOs are filling the enforcement vacuum left by inadequate government action. They take great risks to do so, risks that should not be required.
Catching Thunder will be out in English in March this year.
Story of Sea Shepherd’s epic high-seas hunt for poachers revealed in new book
One of Catching Thunder’s strongest points is that the authors – investigative journalists who accompanied the chasing vessel – track down players on each side, piecing together their testimonies on the 110-day chase
22 Feb 2018
1173 Share
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on Reddit
Share on LinkedIn
Share on Google Plus
Share on Sina
Previous
The crew of the Thunder pulling up their illegal nets. Picture: Simon Ager/Sea Shepherd
The crew of the Bob Barker watching from the bow as the ship moves through thick ice floes in pursuit of illegal fishing vessel Thunder in 2015. Picture: Simon Ager/Sea Shepherd
The toothfish poaching vessel, Thunder, in the ice fields of the Antarctic Ocean. Picture: Simon Ager/Sea Shepherd
The crew of the Thunder pulling up their illegal nets. Picture: Simon Ager/Sea Shepherd
The crew of the Bob Barker watching from the bow as the ship moves through thick ice floes in pursuit of illegal fishing vessel Thunder in 2015. Picture: Simon Ager/Sea Shepherd
Next
More on
this story
Hong Kong supermarkets need to do better with seafood labelling
Giant grouper threat: ‘Who knows what monsters will be created?’
Sea Shepherd crew say poaching ship may have been scuttled to conceal crimes
Sea Shepherd calls for warships to intercept vessel poaching in Antarctic waters
Hong Kong supermarkets need to do better with seafood labelling
Giant grouper threat: ‘Who knows what monsters will be created?’
1
2
3
4
Catching Thunder: The Story of the World’s Longest Sea Chase
by Eskil Engdal and Kjetil Sæter
Zed Books
The longest sea chase in recent history started in late December 2014. It would last for 110 days and 16,000km. Few on board the two vessels involved could have expected the ordeal ahead of them, or the way the chase would end.
Many questions remain over the impact of the hunt, and of efforts to rein in illegal poaching in the vast Antarctic waters.
This is the story told in Catching Thunder, by Eskil Engdal and Kjetil Sæter, two Norwegian investigative journalists who accompanied the chasing vessel, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ship Bob Barker. Engdal and Sæter have dedicated considerable time and resources to exploring the murky world of illegal fishing, particularly operations in Antarctic waters, which offer some of the most lucrative fish poaching in the world.
The area, an icy sea far outside the reaches of most countries and their navies, is an inhospitable region frequented only by research vessels and intrepid fishing boats. It is also home to the Patagonian toothfish, which some say is the best-tasting fish in the world.
The Patagonian toothfish, also known as the Chilean sea bass, is a lucrative target for illegal fishing. Picture: Alamy
Living much of its adult life in ice-cold waters more than 1,000 metres down, and barely known until the 1980s, its meat is considered a delicacy, having a taste somewhere between lobster and scallop. One British restaurant critic wrote that it is “seriously endangered, so you’d better eat as much as you can while stocks last”.
Indonesia blows up illegal toothfish ship sought by Interpol
Described in the book as a “petulant and repulsive giant that can grow to a weight of 120 kilograms and live more than 50 years”, the Patagonian toothfish (also known as the Chilean sea bass) is a “deep sea delicacy that can be just as profitable as narcotics or human trafficking”. In the wild west waters around the Antarctic, this makes it a tempting proposition.
In 2014, the Thunder, a notorious poaching vessel, was part of a group of ships known as the “Bandit 6”, which illegally fished Antarctic waters for years, earning their secretive owners tens of millions of dollars in the process. The Bob Barker, meanwhile, with its crew of 31, is part of Sea Shepherd, a more militant environmental group that grew out of Greenpeace – its flag bears the skull of a pirate flag, but with the crossbones replaced by a shepherd’s crook and a trident.
Sea Shepherd abandons pursuit of Japanese whalers, lashes ‘hostile governments’
Sea Shepherd had previously been a thorn in the side of Japanese whalers. However, with whaling in decline, the group decided to home in on a new target: the Bandit 6.
These vessels included the Thunder, the Viking, the Kunlun, the Yongding, the Songhua and the Perlon – although each went by many names. They had been plundering the stock of Patagonian toothfish for years, gliding in and out of ports, mostly in Asia, to discharge their illegal cargos. While their officers were predominantly Spanish and South American, the deck crews were hired from Asian countries such as Indonesia.
A crew member on the bow of the Bob Barker endures dangerous conditions at sea. Picture: Simon Ager/Sea Shepherd
Many of the vessels were wanted by Interpol, and all had been blacklisted by the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, the organisation that manages the maritime resources surrounding Antarctica. However, this didn’t stop their activities: the Norwegian-built Thunder is estimated to have earned its owners more than US$60 million from poaching.
Hong Kong must tighten the net on illegal reef fish imports
This was what the Bob Barker and its 30-year-old Swedish-American captain, Peter Hammarstedt, were up against when they decided to take on the Thunder.
Sailing into frigid waters in search of their target, they watch the radar for telltale signs of slow-moving dots out of sync with the shifting icebergs. Within two days they have located the Thunder and, after an initial game of chicken through the pack ice, the boats settle in for a long chase, each wary of the other but unwilling to resort to extreme measures.
The Bob Barker and the Sam Simon – another ship in the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society fleet – are joined by a legal fishing vessel, the Atlas Cove, in the 110-day chase of the Thunder (foreground). Picture: Simon Ager/Sea Shepherd
The Bob Barker hopes to trail the Thunder to port, keeping Interpol and national authorities up to date with their movements so navies and coastguards can be prepared. The Thunder and its crew, meanwhile, simply want to lose their tail and vanish. The ships’ captains communicate tensely with one another over the radio, each trying to persuade the other to give up.
Catching Thunder is about more than just the pursuit of one ship, however. Its main focus is the years-long efforts to track these vessels and their mysterious owners on both sea and land. Beyond attempts to bring the ships’ owners to justice, the book explores the challenges involved in trying to police international waters far from populated areas.
Poaching vessel Thunder pulls up illegal nets. Picture: Simon Ager/Sea Shepherd
In 2012, Norway and the United States took the initiative, creating a committee to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, and later that same year, Interpol carried out its first covert operation against fish poachers. The task though is daunting, and made all the more difficult by the ease with which ships register in places such as Togo, Nigeria and landlocked Mongolia, the latter having a navy that consists of one tugboat, with a crew of seven, only one of whom can swim, according to the authors.
Sea Shepherd takes fight to Chinese fleets fishing illegally
These countries sell ship registration with few questions asked, offering legitimacy to owners who want to operate outside the law but scant ways to trace them. When an official at the Nigerian coastguard starts digging into the Thunder partway through the chase, he finds a confusing situation. The vessel has been registered in Nigeria four years earlier by a shipping agent using the address of a bankrupt amusement park in Lagos. The amusement park, once popular, is now inhabited by petty criminals and vagrants, with one corner used as a makeshift cemetery.
The Sam Simon rescues the crew of the Thunder. Picture: Simon Ager/Sea Shepherd
Seeking even more layers of protection, many of the vessels have multiple identities, backed up with legitimate paperwork, so that when threatened they can switch name plates and in minutes change their designation to evade pursuit: the Kunlun had at least 10 names over a decade and had been flagged in five countries.
Following the money trail proves harder still, with the profits hidden in tax shelters and only a handful on board aware of the identities of their real bosses. Despite the lengths to which the owners go to hide their involvement, the trail eventually leads to Europe, to a region with a history of smuggling and involvement in the cocaine trade.
Sea Shepherd crew say poaching ship may have been scuttled to conceal crimes
The authors take readers on a journey as they seek to come face-to-face with those profiting from poaching, and realise the challenges involved in bringing them to justice. One of the book’s strengths is that Engdal and Sæter track down players on both sides, telling the story from all angles. We get the experiences of the environmentalists, the officers on the fishing vessels, the Indonesian crews, and even of those involved in the operations on land.
The Thunder sinks after a tense and gruelling chase. Picture: Simon Ager/Sea Shepherd
Eventually, the gruelling sea chase starts to weigh heavy on all those on board. At one point, fearing the Indonesians on the Thunder are being mistreated, the crew of the Bob Barker put translated messages into bottles and throw them aboard the other ship.
When the Thunder begins to run out of fuel off the coast of the tiny island state of São Tomé and Principe, off the western coast of Africa, tension builds again with the fear of violence and the need to gather evidence before it vanishes.
Related articles
Animal rights in China
Yulin residents defend China’s dog meat festival amid outcry
Conservation
War, wine and wonders: hopefuls vie for place on Unesco heritage list
Pets
Otter seizures surge as critters caught in Japan’s cuteness craze
Conservation
Malaysia’s palm oil production is taking deadly toll on wildlife
Animal rights in China
Yulin residents defend China’s dog meat festival amid outcry
Conservation
War, wine and wonders: hopefuls vie for place on Unesco heritage list
1
2
3
4
This is a story to keep in mind next time you’re given the option of ordering Patagonian toothfish or Chilean sea bass in a restaurant.
Friday, 13th April 2018
An interview with Captain Peter Hammarstedt of Catching Thunder
Catching Thunder tells the story of the Sea Shepherd vessel the Bob Barker, captained by you, and its record-breaking pursuit of the notorious illegal fishing vessel, the Thunder. Why did you and your crew give chase to this ship? What was it doing that needed to be stopped?
For 10 years, Sea Shepherd had been pursuing the Japanese whaling fleet in the Antarctic, high-profile campaigns that ultimately resulted in the government of Australia taking the government of Japan to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. The ICJ ruled that the Japanese whaling program was illegal and thus the Japanese whaling industry took a one-year hiatus from whaling as they re-worked their whaling program in bid to subvert the ICJ ruling. That one-year hiatus gave Sea Shepherd the opportunity to focus on a different Antarctic poaching issue altogether — namely the poaching of Patagonian and Antarctic toothfish. In the years of chasing Japanese whaling vessels, Sea Shepherd ships would often come across abandoned fishing gear in the Southern Ocean, but crews were unable to confiscate the nets as they were in hot pursuit of whalers.
On research it was discovered that the F/V Thunder, which had been poaching in the Southern Ocean for over a decade, had eluding law enforcement authorities by changing name, flag and registry constantly. Thus came the idea that as long as we physically pursued the F/V Thunder, then it would be impossible for them to change their identity. We would be able to provide law enforcement will real-time intelligence. There would be no excuse not to act.
This book documents one particular pursuit, but of course the chase of the Thunder was part of a wider attempt by Sea Shepherd to curtail illegal fishing. Just how widespread and ‘big business’ is this illicit industry, at the time of the chase and now?
When my crew and I first found the F/V Thunder, the notorious poacher was one of six vessels that we came to call the ‘Bandit Six’, which, despite the crackdown against toothfish poaching in the early 2000s, had continued to fish without a license — and to fish using prohibited fishing gear. The chase of the F/V Thunder was great at galvanizing government action against the other five bandits: Indonesia detained and sank the F/V Viking while the others were detained in Cabo Verde, Senegal and Malaysia. Within two years of the F/V Thunder chase, all of the ‘Bandit Six’ had been brought to justice.
In the wake of the ‘Bandit Six’, two toothfish poaching vessels have taken up the helm, one of which was arrested in Indonesia just the other week. We have almost succeeded in shutting down illegal fishing in the Antarctic.
However, globally, illegal fishing remains a massive problem. Between 15-40% of the global catch of fishing is caught through illegal, unreported or unregulated (IUU) fishing.
Throughout the chase there were several nerve-wracking and perilous moments, both as a result of the actions of the Thunder and the natural challenges of stormy seas and ice floes. What was the hairiest moment from your perspective?
The hairiest moments for me are always those that involve ice and storms. Although there was danger involved in chasing the F/V Thunder, the greatest dangers are brought by the weather systems that plague the Southern Ocean. However, the most nerve-wracking part of the chase was the uncertainty. Not knowing how, or when, the pursuit would end … that was the most psychologically-challenging, especially considering we had the fuel to stay at sea for over two years. On board the M/Y Bob Barker, we would speculate endlessly regarding possible conclusions and some of those potential scenarios involved our own ship being detained and arrested, perhaps by a corrupt state actor, or other criminal vessels coming to the aid of the F/V Thunder. As the book Catching Thunder shows, for much of the chase, we were a long way from rescue.
Captain Peter Hammarstedt photographed by Simon Ager
Governments and policy-makers don’t really seem to be doing much to stop illegal fishing. Why do you think this is?
Thankfully governments are now doing more to stop illegal fishing and that is undoubtedly thanks to leadership by the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and Norway. All five of those countries have been instrumental in pushing for illegal fishing to be treated as transnational organized crime.
Historically, little has been done against fish poachers simply because offences such as fishing without a license, or fishing in a prohibited area, have been seen as administrative matters.
However, more and more, authorities are also pursuing owners and operators for the convergence crimes that accompany the fisheries offence. In other words, police authorities now pursue the additional charges that make the fisheries offence possible — from corruption to money laundering to forgery to human trafficking. For the first time, illegal fishing is being seen as part of a broader maritime security issue, a criminal operation that threatens the rule of law and the livelihoods of local artisanal fishermen.
Challenges remain however. The transnational nature of IUU fishing, means that regional and global cooperation in the fight to stop IUU fishing needs to be expanded. Law enforcers need more legal tools to pursue criminal operators. And developing countries with the political will to stop illegal fishing, need the support of civil society, like Sea Shepherd, to assist them in taking their seas back from poachers.
How did you first gravitate towards marine preservation – and why Sea Shepherd specifically?
When I was 14-years-old, I saw a photograph of a whale being pulled up the slipway of an 8,000 tonne factory whaling ship plying the Antarctic. I knew then that I wanted to be one of the people who gets between the whales and the whalers pursuing them. When I was 18, Iceland, after taking a 15-year hiatus from whaling, applied to rejoin the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in order to start commercial whaling under the guise of scientific whaling, a loophole within the 1986 Moratorium on Commercial Whaling that allows for whaling to continue. Iceland became a member of the IWC in a vote of 19-to-18, and it was my native-country of Sweden that cast the deciding vote. Surprisingly, Sweden had voted incorrectly and within minutes of voting, asked for a re-vote; but the protocols of the IWC did not allow for a do-over: a vote cast was a vote cast.
As an 18-year old I remember feeling exasperated that hundreds of whales were now condemned to die as a result of an antiquated rule by a unyielding bureaucracy.
In consequence, I lost a lot of faith in ‘the system’. Sea Shepherd appealed to me because Captain Paul Watson and the organization delivered direct results. In the wake of the IWC vote, and Iceland’s re-ascendancy as a whaling nation, Sea Shepherd was planning to directly intervene in the slaughter. I submitted a crew application just months later, I was aboard my first Sea Shepherd ship.
What do you think are the pressing emergencies facing our oceans today – what should we all try to act upon before it’s too late?
Overfishing and plastic pollution are two of the most pressing emergencies facing our oceans today.
If current trends continue, then by 2048 all of the world’s major fisheries will collapse. At the same time, the amount of plastic in the oceans will outweigh the amount of fish.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that two-thirds of the world’s fisheries are fully-exploited and 26% are overexploited, meaning that just 10% of the world’s fisheries are healthy. When 15-40% of the global catch of fish is caught through IUU fishing, then combating IUU fishing is critical to stopping overfishing.
What Sea Shepherd operations are you currently or involved in next?
Since the chase of the F/V Thunder, Sea Shepherd has signed ‘ship rider’ agreements with the countries of Gabon, Liberia, São Tomé and Príncipe and Tanzania, providing civilian offshore patrol vessels, an operating crew and fuel for patrols. Our government partners station law enforcement agents on board the vessel, with the authority to board, inspect and arrest IUU fishing vessels.
With 90% of the world’s fish caught in the sovereign waters of countries, we are prioritizing working with countries with the political will to combat IUU fishing, but whose economic resources are stretched to the point that they cannot cover the entirety of their waters using existing assets. Since catching the Thunder, over 23 fishing vessels have been arrested for fisheries crimes, thanks to these unique partnerships. The chase continues.
The patrols are only possible thanks to donations from the public: www.seashepherdglobal.org
Catching Thunder
The True Story of the World’s Longest Sea Chase
Eskil Engdal and Kjetil Sæter
Poachers, kingpins and the longest chase in maritime history: A desperate race to save our planet's oceans.
Login or create your Zed account to join the discussion.
Got something to say? Please login to leave a comment.