Rainbow Warrior (1957)

For other ships with the same name, see Rainbow Warrior.

Rainbow Warrior (sometimes informally called Rainbow Warrior II) was a three-masted schooner most notable for service with the environmental protection organization Greenpeace. She was built to replace the original Rainbow Warrior that the French intelligence service (DGSE) bombed in 1985 in the Port of Auckland, New Zealand, which sank the ship and killed photographer Fernando Pereira.

Rainbow Warrior in port at Bastia in 2006
History
Name	Kashmir
Owner	Craig & Sons, Aberdeen, United Kingdom Greenpeace (1989 – 2011), Friendship (2011 – 2018)
Port of registry	Amsterdam, Netherlands (1989 – )
Builder	Cochrane & Sons, Selby, United Kingdom.
Launched	1957
Acquired	1987
Out of service	2018
Identification	IMO number: 5300481 MMSI number: 244535000 Call sign: PC8024[1]
Fate	Scrapped, 15 November 2018
General characteristics
Class & type	Motor assisted schooner
Tonnage	555 GT
Length	55.20 m (181 ft 1 in)
Beam	8.54 m (28 ft 0 in)
Draught	4.6 m (15 ft 1 in)
Propulsion	Two Diesel Deutz-MWM 2 × 6 cylinder 2 × 500 KW
Speed	13 knots (maximum) 10 knots (cruising)
Range	30 days
Boats & landing craft carried	One Avon Four Novurania
Capacity	30
Notes	Sail area: 650 m2 (7,000 sq ft)

The Rainbow Warrior II was built from the hull of the deep sea fishing ship Ross Kashmir^[2] (later Grampian Fame), which had been built by Cochrane & Sons of Selby, North Yorkshire and launched in 1957. The ship was originally 44 metres (144 ft) long and powered by steam, but was extended to 55.2 m (181 ft) in 1966. Greenpeace gave the vessel new masts, a gaff rig, a new engine and a number of environmentally low-impact systems to handle waste, heating and hot water.^[3] She was officially re-launched in Hamburg on 10 July 1989, the fourth anniversary of the bombing of her predecessor, the original Rainbow Warrior.

History

Over the course of her career, Rainbow Warrior was used in activist campaigns such as blockading the Russian whaling fleet, protesting French nuclear weapons testing, and stopping ships with cargos of coal and palm oils, as well as humanitarian activities such as evacuating the inhabitants of Rongelap after the island was contaminated by nuclear testing, and providing aid after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.^[4] Rainbow Warrior, piloted by skipper Mike Fincken, was docked at the Legazpi City port in Albay on 22 May 2008 for a one-month-long "Quit Coal, Save the Climate" Philippines tour and campaign aimed to educate people on the effects of the use of coal on the environment, specifically on climate change. The tour proposed alternative energy sources such as geothermal and solar energy.^[5]

Greenpeace damaged the Tubbataha Reef, a world heritage site in the Philippines, with Rainbow Warrior in 2005. Greenpeace was fined $7,000 for damaging almost 100 m² (1,100 sq ft) of the coral reef.^[6] Greenpeace blamed faulty maps provided by the Philippine government for the accident.^[6] The BBC quoted Greenpeace official Red Constantino as saying "The chart indicated we were a mile and a half" from the coral reef when the ship ran aground.^[6] Greenpeace paid the fine.^[6]

Legacy

Rainbow Warrior was retired in August 2011 and sold to Friendship, a Bangladesh-based NGO, to serve as a hospital ship, renamed Rongdhonu, Bengali for rainbow.^[4] She docked in the port of Chittagong on 29 August to undergo a refitting for that purpose.^[4] Rainbow Warrior III was launched in October 2011.

The NGO Friendship sold the ship for scrapping in a Bangladesh scrap yard in 2018.^[7][8]

Image gallery

• 
  Rainbow Warrior in port at Genoa in 2007
• 
  Rainbow Warrior in port at Wellington in 2008
• 
  Rainbow Warrior in port at West India Docks, London in 2009
• 
  Rainbow Warrior in at Keelung, Taiwan in 2011
• 
  The specification.
• 
  Rainbow warrior in Port of Haifa, Israel, 2008.

See also

• Legend of the Rainbow Warriors
• List of schooners
• Tubbataha Reef grounding incidents