Russian Whalers Make Big Catch

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30395, 20 March 1964, Page 1

Russian Whalers Make Big Catch

The pilot of a commercial aircraft which flew low over the Russian whaling mother ship yesterday afternoon said there were 22 whales tied up to the ship. “There were six whales, in two groups of three, on the seaward side of the ship and 16 whales astern. The carcase of a whale, being cut up, was on the deck of the ship,” he said.

One whale - chaser was with the mother ship. The ship was due east of the mouth of the Waipara river, and about seven miles south of Motunau Island. “All those working on deck on the mother ship waved as I flew over,” the pilot said. Akaroa commercial fishermen reported Russian chasers and their factory ship operating off Banks Peninsula on Wednesday and yesterday, taking about 20 whales. The chasers lay to off Akaroa heads overnight outside the three-mile limit, said one trawler owner. They were whaling about six or eight miles off-shore.

Asked if there was any doubt as to the nationality of the boats, the fishermen, who had approached within half a mile of the fleet, said the ships flew the Red Flag and had the hammer and sickle emblem on their funnels. Two Russian whaling ships were flensing whales three miles off the coast and about five miles south-west of Motunau Island at 1.30 p.m. yesterday. Mr P. Legg, an instructor of New Zealand Aerosales fly-

ing school, spotted the ships when flying an Auster from Blenheim to Oamaru with his wife. He circled the ships for some time and took photographs. There were 18 to 20 whales tied up alongside one ship, Mr Legg said. The ships were tied alongside each other. One or two members of the crew waved and they waved back. Three large vessels were sighted by the Northern Steam Ship Company’s 739ton motor-vessel Maranui at 3.30 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon about seven miles east of Akaroa. When the Maranui arrived at Lyttelton from Timaru yesterday morning, the master (Captain E. F. Brown) said his vessel, bound from Picton

to Timaru, was about one mile and a half east of the lighthouse and the Russians were about four miles and a half outside that. The Russian vessels were probably more than 1000 tons, he said. A buoy was also sighted in the same area, probably marking a killed whale. Radio conversations in what was thought to be Russian were also overheard by the Maranui and other coastal vessels at sea.