KEY POINTS:
Conservation Minister Chris Carter says he has won an assurance from anti-whaling activists they will not ram a Japanese ship in the Southern Ocean.
Yesterday two ships from the Sea Shepherd environment group, the Robert Hunter and the Farley Mowat, collided with the Japanese whaling ship the Kaiko
Maru.
Sea Shepherd leader Captain Paul Watson yesterday said the Farley Mowat was almost out of fuel and he was considering giving the Kaiko Maru's sister ship the Nisshan Maru a "steel enema" by ramming its slipway.
A spokesman for Mr Carter today told said the minister had spoken to the Farley Mowat's crew by phone today and won an assurance the ship would not ram the Japanese whaling ship.
The two sides have traded blame over who was responsible for the collision.
Whaling vessel the Kaiko Maru issued a distress call after colliding with the Robert Hunter.
Mr Watson said the confrontation happened when the Robert Hunter caught the Japanese ship bearing down on a pod of whales.
"The Kaiko Maru manoeuvred alongside our vessel and sideswiped it into the ice. That caused a gash in the starboard bow section of our ship," Mr Watson said.
"Both ships got stuck in the ice and then the Kaiko Maru backed out and into the port stern section of Robert Hunter, causing a metre-long gash. They struck us twice, both times penetrating the hull."
But a spokesman for the Japanese Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR), Glenn Inwood, said it was the Robert Hunter that had rammed the Kaiko Maru.
"Then both Sea Shepherd boats came up on either side, stopping it from continuing," he told Radio New Zealand today.
"It was done in same manner you would imagine pirates have conducted themselves for years.
"Sea Shepherd threw smoke pots onto the vessel, they released ropes and nets to entangle the screw and the propeller has been damaged."
As rescue services in New Zealand struggled to gather details of the incident, Greenpeace vessel Esperanza raced to help the whaling ship.
"We completely condemn any violent action by anyone. Potentially endangering lives in the middle of the Southern Ocean is unacceptable," said Karli Thomas, expedition leader on board the Esperanza.
The New Zealand-based Rescue Co-ordination Centre said last night that the ship was no longer in distress and was able to continue under its own power.
Sea Shepherd activists have been facing off against the whalers north of the Balleny Islands, west of the Ross Sea, trying to stop Japan's controversial annual whale hunt.
Dr Hiroshi Hatanaka, director-general of the Institute of Cetacean Research, last night said that Sea Shepherd was conducting a "campaign of outright destruction and terrorism" and he had serious concerns that someone would be injured or killed.
Earlier Mr Watson said: "Perhaps it's time to give these cruel whalers a steel enema they will never forget."
Mr Watson had warned that the Sea Shepherd flagship, the Farley Mowat, on which he is travelling, was almost out of fuel.
He had hoped to obtain some from the Robert Hunter.
But with that vessel now damaged, the future of the Sea Shepherd protest is uncertain.
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