1970-77
Ships: Phyllis Cormack In service: 1970-77 Built: around 1940 Type of ship: Fish trawler Length: 24m Max. speed: 9 knots Crew: 12 people were on board during the trip to Amchitka Early in 1971, Jim Bohlen and Paul Cote were looking around the docks in Vancouver for a suitable boat to make the trip to the nuclear test site at Amchitka. A boat had been recommended to Cote, but he failed to find it at the dock he had been directed to. He asked a nearby fisherman, who had never heard of the boat Cote was looking for, but who was curious to know more about Cote’s search. The fisherman was Captain John Cormack, a stout man in his 60s, covered in grease and oil, missing two fingers on his left hand, missing most of his teeth, and sporting a rough grey stubble of a beard. Cormack had 40 years’ experience fishing the West Coast, though, and operated a 66-foot fish trawler called Phyllis Cormack, after his wife. The idea of taking his boat across the treacherous Gulf of Alaska did not faze him in the slightest, and after several years of poor fishing and with his boat needing repairs, he needed the charter money. The Phyllis Cormack made the legendary trip to Amchitka with Captain Cormack at the wheel. She was also later involved in Greenpeace’s first actions against whaling in 1975 and 1976. After her Greenpeace career, she remained in service as a fish trawler for many years, until she sank in 2000.
image 1 1975 anti-whaling campaign © Greenpeace / Rex Weyler image 2 Preparing for departure for Amchitka on 15 September 1971 © Greenpeace / Robert Keziere image 3 1975 anti-whaling campaign © Greenpeace / Robert Keziere
22 THE GREENPEACE chronicles