One of the pleasures of working in our offices at Canary Wharf is the view afforded over a great sweep of the Thames and the occasional sightings of special ships passing through. This week we arrived to the sight of Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior anchored at South Quay, in full view of our office.

This is a boat with history. It even has an Olympic connection; back in 2000, the Rainbow Warrior anchored in Sydney Harbour during the Olympic Games and one evening Greenpeace Australia hosted a reception for the IOC's Sport and Environment Commission on board. As a volunteer with the Sydney 2000 Environment team at the time, I too managed to get to the party, so it was especially nice now to see the ship in our own back yard and to have the chance to get reacquainted.

A ten strong posse from LOCOG and the ODA went down to the quayside at lunchtime. The Greenpeace crew were at first a bit puzzled by our mass interest in their ship but after a bit of persuasion, the Captain invited us all aboard for a chat and a tour on and below deck, as well as the obligatory photos.

For the technically inclined, Rainbow Warrior is a three-masted schooner, converted from a former North Sea trawler. This is of course the second Rainbow Warrior; the first was sunk by French Secret Service agents in Auckland Harbour in 1985. This was to prevent Greenpeace disrupting French nuclear tests in the South Pacific. The attack, which killed a Portuguese photographer, created a major scandal and diplomatic incident.

Although refloated for forensic examination, the boat was irreparably damaged and was subsequently scuttled in Matauri Bay, in northern New Zealand, to serve as a dive wreck and fish sanctuary. A few artefacts from the original ship have been carried over to the Rainbow Warrior II, but there are also plenty of signs of more recent battles, including lots of dents and scratches of the radio room door, as well as slots for reinforcing bars on all the bridge windows to prevent forced entry.


Eight years ago when I was in Sydney, Greenpeace was campaigning on issues such as PVC, ozone-depleting refrigerants and dioxins. Today their focus is almost exclusively on climate change, and their current campaign is against the use of coal in power stations.

I felt a certain paradox that the crew today were wearing tee shirts with the slogan, 'Say No to Coal' . Back in the mid-eighties when the first Rainbow Warrior was sunk, young activists of the day sported badges saying 'Coal not Dole'. How times have changed.