Thursday, February 18, 2010

Pete Bethune: serial idiot

I just came across something that was omitted from reporting around the time that the Ady Gil collided with the Shonen Maru II, scuttling the incredibly expensive wave piercing tri-maran.

Turns out that Ady Gil skipper Pete Bethune has a history of crashing into other boats, only the last time it happened someone actually died.

The tragedy happened while the Ady Gil, then known as "Earthrace" was making it's circumnavigation attempt. Just off the coast of Guatemala they ran right over the top of a fibreglass skiff full of Guatemalen fishermen. One was lost at sea, presumed dead, and two were picked up by Earthrace, with one almost bleeding out during the process.
The Earthrace crew were detained in Guatemala, until Pete Bethune's insurance company settled with the dead man's family for damages. Pete protested "it wasn't his fault" because he was in his bunk at the time, then promptly sold the Earthrace engineer down the river, as he was the one at the helm.

Sorry Pete, that's not how it works when you're the skipper. Anything that happens under your watch is your responsibility. I know what its like, I'm training to be a doctor. When a mistake happens under a doctors care, it doesnt matter whether it was personally the doctors fault or the fault of a team member working under them. The doctor is responsible. Its the way it works. If you don't like it, don't be a skipper or a doctor. If you like boats or medicine but don't want to take responsibility, then be a crewman or a nurse or a theatre technician, or whatever. The top job just isn't for you.

The excuse given was that the fishing boat wasn't running under lights, but Pete Bethune's own blog entry (which can be read at the first link supplied above) states that the fishing skiff was 26 feet long. Given that it wasn't a submarine they hit, surely you would have some warning of an object that size on radar? Especially given that Pete himself describes the conditions at the time of the collision as being flat calm, and Earthrace was doing 15 knots (around 28 km / hr), not their top speed.

9 comments:

  1. Im not a big fan of killing animals...but Im an even less of a fan of terrorists!! YES...Pete Bethune and his ilk (like those fucking whale wars pussys) are FUCKING TERRORISTS!!!

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  2. I agree. It's farcical that we allow clowns like Sea Shepherd to detract from the horror that is industrialised whaling. Sadly, all the times I said "those a*holes are going to get someone killed oneday", it turns out I was right.

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  3. Honorary Darwin Award via simply entering a boat skippered by Bethune...

    egg_

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  4. Bethune and his mates are raving nuts who, display the Pirate skull and cross bones on their ships and think its ok to behave like a pirate and break the law. Lets hope the Japanese legal system brings them down to reality and he spends time in prison and his cellmate is another raving nut like him but twice his size. Hurro cookie boy.

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  5. Pete

    Stay home and look after yer wife and kids and stop wasting yer life and frogshitting around like an idiot

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  6. I find utterly remarkable and humorous the stupidity of the Sea Shepherd melodrama.

    Funded through a gullible Public and the donations of grieving widows (Terri Irwin) and senile vanity ridden old men (Bob Barker) this exercise in stupidity has now dabbled in murder....and it is murder, pure and simple.

    Paul Watson is a media attention whore with, no pun intended, one goal in life; to satisfy his whale sized ego. This piece of human garbage cares nothing about whales nor any other form of wildlife but rather ensuring his cons net him enough cash to attend a few more photo-ops and meetings where he can squeeze out a few salty ones in order to impress the naive and utterly stupid doe-eyed eco groupies. Evidence of his lack of concern for those untrained and uninformed who play pathetic rodents to his tired Pied Piper routine can be found in the numerous high seas debacles during which lives come within a hairs breadth of being snuffed out. From almost killing crew in the capsizing of the small boat to the unquantifiable number of dangerous and life threatening screw ups that the trained eye catches but that go unnoticed by the average turnip glued to his or her set in some sewer metropolis.

    (On a personal note I was laughing so hard I almost lost control of my plumbing when I watched the Keystone Kops style response of the crew on the Bob Barker in dealing with the Ady Gil emergency, albeit an emergency created by Bethune, but an emergency none the less)

    Paul Watson has being playing this game with startling incompetence since the early 70's. A perfect example can be found in the late 70's in northern British Columbia, Paul Watson running down a frozen road wearing snowshoes to save wolves...all with TV cameras in tow. Or his sea quest with photo-op after fund raising seeing him leave Vancouver BC in a kayak....after the media went away he quietly pulled into Seattle..a little short of his "Mexico or Die!!!!"

    But look closer at the Sea Shepherd Society and you find a grifters paradise...abandoned Sea Shepherd Society ships rotting and leeching toxic waste into harbors, a refusal to provide detailed accounting of funds donated and the list goes on.

    Pete Bethune is just a variation on the same theme. No better than some loud mouthed punk harassing shoppers outside a convenience store he has killed innocent fisherman and risked the life of his crew (a band of idiots in their own right) to meet his own ends and satisfy his ego. Just look at the video shot by the Japanese just before the collision with the Shonan Maru II.. you can plainly see the engines accelerate and the trailing froth jump up indicating he or someone else deliberately accelerated to collide.

    Then they abandoned the Ady Gil which poses a significant threat to maritime traffic of all types which is also a threat to life but obviously no concern to Pete Bethune or Sea Shepherd.....the list goes on. From leaving prop fouling ropes drifting on the high sea, again a significant threat to maritime traffic including small fishing and sailing vessels, to dumping garbage to extremely aggressive and provocative confrontations with the Japanese. Once the table are turned and they get a little taste of their own medicine they whimper and whine and with shrieks and shrill voices claiming Japanese harassment, intimidation and brutality.

    Now these arrogant, murderous, negligent drama queens have their very own TV show. This, in their eyes, somehow legitimizes the life threatening stupidity and criminality that has become so commonplace on the show Whale wars. What a farce...placing the welfare and safety of the gullible and dangerously uninformed in jeopardy to boost ratings and sell more soda pop and potato chips.

    END PART 1

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  7. PART TWO OF TWO

    This is behavior that needs to be rewarded with a long period of time in prison. This is behavior that sets the legitimate pursuits of decent organizations like Greenpeace and World Wildlife Fund light years behind in affecting decent and meaningful progress. No wonder Paul Watson and Pete Bethune have been shunned and pushed to the margins by not only effective and well managed environmental organizations but by the world as well.

    Just a thought.....

    Regards, from way way out in Left Field.....

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  8. You Paul Watson did not get that fat eating Veggies Bethune what can you say an idiot now aconvicted criminal.
    Jack Hampton

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  9. Anyone notice the clothing the Sea Shepard’s where wearing when the The Ady Gil was hit. Thought it was funny that they were all talking soooo much crap about how dangerous and reckless the Japanese were while they were wearing hats that say “prepare to ram”. Paul W’s shirt was the best. On one side of the shirt it listed all the boats they have rammed and on the other side it listed the boats they have sunk.

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