The new Greenpeace flagship, Rainbow Warrior, undertook a five-week tour of New Zealand ports in January. Built in 2010 in Gdansk, Poland, she was fitted out in Bremen, Germany and launched in October 2011. The entire €22.5 million cost of the project was funded by Greenpeace supporters.
The 58m ship carries 1,300m2 of sail on 55m high A-frame masts, and her propeller can be feathered to reduce resistance through the water while under sail. She is powered, when not under sail, by the cleanest and most efficient diesel-electric engines, and she carries advanced satellite communications systems.
A wooden dolphin on the ship’s foredeck is from her immediate predecessor, Rainbow Warrior (2), which was built in 1957 in Yorkshire as the deep-sea trawler Ross Kashmir, and was later named Grampian Fame.
Meanwhile, the new flagship’s bell is a direct connection with the first Rainbow Warrior, which was built as the trawler Sir William Hardy, and was controversially bombed by French secret agents in July 1985. The bell, salvaged following the bombing, was rung as the new Greenpeace flagship visited the resting place of the original ship in Matauri Bay in January.
