1988-92 Ships: GONDWANA
In service: 1988-92 Built: 1975 Type of ship: Former Ice-class supply ship Length: 61m Max. speed: 13 knots Crew: 12, max 30 The Gondwana was Greenpeace’s campaign ship for the Antarctic. She is named after the ancient land mass of which Antarctica was once a part. The ship is particularly suitable for polar operations – she was built as an ice-class tug/supply vessel, and can spend 36 days at sea. Greenpeace equipped her with a helicopter landing platform and hangar to facilitate her work re-supplying the World Park base. She made trips to Antarctica over four consecutive years. During her third voyage she encountered the Japanese whaling fleet again – she had already delayed them for eight days on her first trip. Crew members were dropped by helicopter into the path of the whalers’ factory ship, frustrating the whaling fleet’s activities once more. During her fourth visit to the continent, the World Park base was dismantled and stored on board the ship. When she returned to Europe in 1993, she protested the building of a new power plant in the Canary Islands. She also campaigned against industrial and urban waste discharges in the Atlantic and the Bay of Biscay, before finally returning to Amsterdam, her port of registry, where she ended her service with Greenpeace.
image 1 Cook on board in 1988 © Greenpeace / Loretta Dorreboom image 2 1988/89 Antartica expedition © Greenpeace / Steve Morgan image 3 Albert Kuiken, Mate on board in 1988 © Greenpeace / Loretta Dorreboom image 4 At Cape Evans, 1989/90 Antarctica tour © Mike Midgley / Greenpeace
74 THE GREENPEACE chronicles