Phyllis Cormack Explained

The Phyllis Cormack is a 25-meter[1] (82-foot) herring and halibut seine fishing boat,[2] [3] displacing 99 tons and crewed by up to 12 people.[4] The wooden vessel was built in 1941 in Tacoma, Washington, by Marine View Boat Works.

The vessel was chartered in September 1971 by the Don't Make a Wave Committee to travel to Amchitka to protest against the planned nuclear tests there, and the passengers included Bob Hunter, Ben Metcalfe, John Cormack, Jim Bohlen, Patrick Moore and Terry A Simmons. Greenpeace calls this trip "our founding voyage."

Name

The boat's name derives from that of the wife of its skipper, John Cormack.[2] [5]

Greenpeace charters

1971

The vessel was renamed or nicknamed Greenpeace for the voyage, a name subsequently used by the organisation that sprang from the organising committee.[6] Greenpeace International calls this expedition "the founding voyage".[7] The nickname for the boat arose from "the dual ecological and antiwar nature of their mission". At the time, the boat was deemed to be "a bit jury-rigged." The boat's crew was Canadian, and included Bob Hunter, Ben Metcalfe, John Cormack, Jim Bohlen, Patrick Moore, and Terry A Simmons. The boat's departure and arrival point was Vancouver, British Columbia, though an unauthorised stop was made in Akutan, Alaska, resulting on a U.S. Coast Guard boarding and a charge of a U.S. customs violation. The crew's sight of a grisly, abandoned whaling station in Akutan was compared to the Communist Party of Kampuchea's Khmer Rouge Killing Fields and it was called a "pivotal" moment that turned Greenpeace on to the idea of saving the whales.[4]

1975

In June 1975, the Phyllis Cormack was chartered by the Greenpeace Foundation, a Vancouver, B.C. ecological organization,[8] to harass USSR and Japanese whaling; the crew included persons fluent in Japanese and in Russian. Greenpeace named the season's campaign "Project Ahab"; it ran about 50 miles offshore California, from Eureka in the north to past San Francisco in the south. The New York Times reported that for "the first time in the history of whaling, human beings had put their lives on the line for whales". The Japanese Fisheries Agency stated the harassers were fanatics for whom their movement "is like a religion".[2]

Notes and References

  1. News: SHONA MCKAY . Waging war on ugliness . 19 March 2019 . . 6 December 1982 . In 1971 the Phyllis Cormack, a 25-m halibut boat, set out from Vancouver.
  2. News: CHARLES FLOWERS . Between the harpoon and the whale . 19 March 2019 . The New York Times . 24 August 1975.
  3. News: Paul Clarke . Greenpeace: Past, Present and Future . 19 March 2019 . Satya Magazine . June 1994 . an aging halibut seining boat called the Phyllis Cormack.
  4. News: Environmental Pioneers Profile # 24: The "Don't Make a Wave Committee" Were the Founders of Greenpeace . 19 March 2019 . . . 7 June 1996 . https://web.archive.org/web/20171001064442/https://loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=96-P13-00023&segmentID=8 . 1 October 2017.
  5. News: Lyle Thurston: Activist and ship's doctor on the first voyage of the 'Greenpeace' . https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220526/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/lyle-thurston-activist-and-ships-doctor-on-the-first-voyage-of-the-greenpeace-804021.html . 2022-05-26 . subscription . live . 19 March 2019 . . 3 April 2008 . a mackerel seiner called the Phyllis Cormack, named after the wife of its captain.
  6. Web site: The Founders | Greenpeace USA . www.greenpeace.org . 12 January 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20090401232914/http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/about/history/the-founders . 1 April 2009 . dead.
  7. Web site: Amchitka: the founding voyage . Greenpeace.org . Greenpeace International . 4 August 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190402142337/https://www.greenpeace.org/archive-international/en/about/history/amchitka-hunter/ . 2 April 2019 . en . their old fishing boat was called “The Greenpeace”. This is where our story begins..
  8. News: WHALE PROTECTORS CONFRONT RUSSIANS . 19 March 2019 . The New York Times . 30 June 1975 . 32 . the Phyllis Cormack, operated by a Canada‐based ecological organization, the Greenpeace Foundation, whose headquarters are in Vancouver.

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