Our swimmers halt the Stena Carron again

Posted by jossc - 26 September 2010 at 3:32pm - Comments

We may have been forced by legal action to end our 100-hour occupation of Chevron's giant drill ship, Stena Carron, yesterday - but that doesn't mean we've given up trying to stop its journey towards a deep water drilling site off Scotland.

Just hours after we removed our survival pod from the ship's anchor chain, it left for a site in the Lagavulin oil field where it will drill an exploratory well in 500 metres of water.

So this afternoon we sent out an actions team in inflatable speedboats to track Stena Carron, now in open seas 100 miles north of Shetland. At 1.30pm they managed to put four swimmers in the drill ship's path, forcing it to stop.

One of the swimmers, Ben Stewart, said: "That oil drill ship is the size of a sky-scraper on its side and as it cut through the water towards us I felt really scared, it's like nothing I’ve ever done, but we are determined to stop it reaching its deepwater drilling site.

"We need to go beyond oil, we need our politicians to stop ships like this from threatening our pristine coastlines and the global climate. It shouldn’t be down to people bobbing in the water in front of ships to stop the insane rush for the last drops of oil in ever more dangerous and difficult to reach places."

See the latest pictures from the action on our Flickr site »

As a result the 228-metre long Stena Carron has been halted on its journey to the drilling site. We're now planning to send waves of swimmers and campaigners in kayaks out in front of the drill ship throughout today and tomorrow to pressure the ship into turning back. And we're also doing everything we can to stop the ship through legal channels, having sent a "letter before action” to the government, the precursor to seeking a judicial review of the decision to push ahead with new deep water drilling before the lessons from the BP disaster have been learned.

We've already seen the disastrous consequence of deep water drilling in the Gulf. It's fraught with danger for the environment, the climate, and the workers involved - and it's got to be stopped.

Article tagged as: chevron, climate change, go beyond oil, oil, oil spill, shetland

Comments Commenting is now closed

You were on last nights BBC Reporting Scotland.

By Barry D - 27 September 2010 at 12:37pm

I've been following your exploits since the Stena Don and don't see how you can claim to have made any headway. On the Stena Don, you claimed to be there for 'as long as it takes', giving up two days later when it got cold and choppy - That can only be described as a total failure. At the time, you claimed that your stunt was completely safe as they were not encountering oil or gas, yet when the results are announced they did encounter gas and oil at several points of the drill - Don't you feel that you lied to everyone about safety? You endangered yourselves, the Stena Don and its crew as well as the environment that you claim to care so much about.I guess that had you caused a spill up there that it would be 'a small price to pay to point out the dangers etc'. You lifted a custom made pod on to the Stena Carron with the claim to stay for 'up to a month'. Hmmmmm 3 days and your ilegal acts are stopped, another failure and again endangering the Stena Carron and its crew and the environment. This time you swim in front of the same vessel 'to pressure the ship into turning back', lets see if this stunt has any more effect and meets its objective. I suggest that another failure will result! I have asked here over the last month or so, and ask again: HOW are we meant to live without oil? I only believe that one should protest about something when a suitable and workable alternative is available. £ and $ are being invested continually into technology to reduce our oil dependancy, which i hope one day will become a commercial alternative. Until this alternative is provided, oil is required. Please leave Stena Carron to go about its legitimate and LEGAL business.

By wikkid - 26 September 2010 at 6:20pm

I've been following this, and putting on a few comments of my own, on the blogs. But feel that wikkid sums it up brilliantly on here and the other blogs they've done. Green Peas, (sic) you've losy a lot of support and created some really bad publicity for yourselves. Bad luck

By joannaedw - 26 September 2010 at 7:24pm

You guys are true heroes, keep up the great work. Chevron are Scum!

By David Hardy - 26 September 2010 at 7:49pm

...how much work lays still in front of us all. It is always easy to beat on the active and therefore exposed parts of a society, than e.g. to constructively use the "comments"-function of a blog. Just to keep dumping simplifying statements here will neither lead to growing interest in other perspectives on the issue, nor will it help to solve a problem that is evidently there (one way or the other). So please, those who seem to enjoy spamming blogs with polemic comments: think of those who do not want to switch of their brains while reading through it and think twice before posting anything. I m getting simply sick of all those unqualified, cause max. reduced and seemingly not much thought of comments on blogs in general and this time I did not want to swallow. AND PLS NOTE: I m not against criticism and controversial discussion, that is what the core-idea of a blog is. But I believe in quality rather than in quantity! GO TEAM ESPERANZA! Cheers Nena

By Nena - 27 September 2010 at 9:11am

You Really Stopped the vessel? then do tell, why is it that all of us watching the AIS, have noticed that long before you 'entered the waters and stopped it', the Stena Carron had come to a halt AT HER DESTINATION!

By demon_that_is - 27 September 2010 at 11:40am

Er, yes we have stopped Stena Carron, and no it hasn't reached it's designated drill site yet. And if you are wondering what happened to your other post, it was deleted because it broke our house rules (the bit that says offensive inflammatory abuse will be removed).

By jossc - 27 September 2010 at 2:37pm

A great example of peacefully and bravely putting your bodies between our delicate environment and those who threaten to harm it. Great job Greenpeace, you have my support.

By Neil Jones - 27 September 2010 at 5:47pm

I do appologise if my comments seem one sided, simplifying and one-sided to you Nena. If concerns over safety of hundreds of people and the Greenland and Shetland environment are any of the above then Greenpeace's philosophy really should change. NOT ONCE have Greenpeace answered a question over safety concerns with any real proof. I simply ask legitimate questions where i have concerns - thats all. Maybe the switching off of brains is what led the climbers to dis-regard the safety of the rig and its entire crew and the environment. If your protests did not endanger so much, i would be in agreement with you and your cause. I have said many times that reducing our oil dependancy is of utmost importance, but endangering lives and the environment is not the way forward. Providing alternatives must come first.

By wikkid - 27 September 2010 at 8:22pm

Then in that case you lot are even more idiotic than i thought. Jumping into the north sea infront of a vessel like that, are you just hoping his brakes work good? OR are you safe and enter the sea with plenty of distance so that the vessel COULD safely stop in plenty of time? also giving them plenty of distance. Remove all the post you like, it doesn't take away from the fact your a bunch of dangerous morons. Why not put greenpeace funds TOWARDS an alternative. Be productive and earn far more support. Idiots

By demon_that_is - 27 September 2010 at 9:18pm

That's courage! Hey, I have a kayak, can I come?! No, unfortunately I don't think I'm really qualified to do that, although I'd LOVE TO!!! Sometimes, you just gotta get out there and take action. The occasional 'lets just go for it' can make all the difference in the world. Greenpeace, you rock. And I'm with you all the way.

By angelofthewest - 28 September 2010 at 7:22am

For all those people 'demanding' answers. How many people do you think Greenpeace would have to employ full time, to answer every forum and blog post, every email and letter? Greenpeace's actions do the talking. Campaigners and activists do the talking. People who donate time and money globally, do the talking. They talk to and take action against the people they believe are committing environmental crimes, not every individual who posts on the net, with questions that have been answered a thousand times, if you care to look. Look at the videos. If you want more information, take the time to find and look at the countless reports and articles that are freely available. And if you want answers, really, do you seriously expect an abusive tirade to elicit a response? A tirade that would get you banned from most forums and blogs. Greenpeace do the research, then they take the action they believe is appropriate. They are a direct action campaign organisation. They aren't a 'sit around looking for posts to respond to' organisation.

By KD - 28 September 2010 at 12:49pm

i think you are all wasting your time i mean for you to go out in a speed boat how would you have used that if we have no oil? use your heads for once and protest on something that matters and is more of a problem like how much people we have in this country claiming benifits and wasting all the workers hard earned cash and get away with this is what we need to stop the spongers of that are here. and come from far and wide to exploit our very easy hand out country.

By oil worker - 14 April 2011 at 3:24pm