Whaling activist in 'Ady Gil' sinking rescue recalls alarm

Dunedin electrician Brad Latimer joined the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to save sharks in tropical waters but ended up pulling bits of Ady Gil out of the Southern Ocean.

Mr Latimer (26) was asleep on board the Sea Shepherd ship Bob Barker when Ady Gil lost its bow in a collision with the Japanese whaling ship Shonan Maru 2 last January.

During his first trip to Dunedin since the headline-grabbing incident, he yesterday said he was roused by the alarm - "a sinking vessel, there, I couldn't believe it" - and ran to the deck to see the badly damaged black trimaran in trouble in the icy water.

Mr Latimer had been sleeping in his warm protective clothing, and he and a navigator were the best equipped to immediately launch the inflatable rescue boat.

As he drove the rescue boat from Bob Barker, Mr Latimer worried about what he might find at the wreck of the Sea Shepherd's super-fast pursuit boat.

"It happened so quickly; there was a job to do and we just did it," he said as he scrolled through the photographs of the incident, at his parents' Waverley home.

"But you worry about the worst - I had no idea whether anyone was hurt or in the water."

The crew was safe and a relieved Mr Latimer ferried them to Bob Barker. A ship from the dispersed Japanese fleet watched as Mr Latimer returned to clean up the mess.

The cleanup took 22 hours - "we wanted to get every last bit; we're there to protect the environment, not pollute it" - but it did not stop the hunt for the whalers.

Less than a month later, Bob Barker got close enough to the whaling fleet's processing ship, Nisshin Maru, to stop it receiving whales from the rest of the whaling fleet.