Mike Mate

Vasily Lozovsky flashed up on the screen and was gone. It left me questioning my sanity but a hunch told me he’d switched off his automatic identification signal (AIS). Too far to show on the radar, he was gone without a trace.

We entered Senegalese waters from the north as night was beginning to fall. Ahead of us was a long strip of echoes on the radar screen, all moving at the characteristic trawl speeds of 3.5 knots, none of them transmitting identification signals. It was too dark to identify fishing boats visually and being our first night I felt it safer to hold off till morning. We cut the engine and drifted, forty miles off St Louis.

As we motored down the coast in the morning I counted an average of 15 trawlers every twenty miles – all with their nets down. About half way between St Louis and Dakar we found Vasily Lozovsky – enormous. The ship is not even registered as a fishing vessel – it is registered as a Fish Factory with a gross tonnage of 7,765 tonnes and a length of 107meters.

The weather was not in our favour, the NE trade wind had stepped up to force five. Arctic Sunrise was pitching like a see-saw, her stern bouncing up as the bow came down. It looked like the helicopter might launch itself, the pilot told me that was not ideal. We had to rely on our trusty old inflatables for documentation.

I spoke to the captain of the Vasily Lozovsky. He did not seem to mind us being there, even invited us on board if we left our cameras behind. Everything the Russian ship was doing was legal, the governments had agreed. And then he took off into the weather, full speed on the Arctic Sunrise to keep up, up and down, smashing into waves. Our Senegalese campaigner, Raoul, turned from black to green.

‘He’s about to shoot his nets’ I called to the crew, ‘ready the boats’. We were too late. We managed some filming from the bridge wing of Arctic Sunrise, but by the time the small boats had arrived at the stern of the factory, its nets were down and Vasily Lozovsky had resumed a 3.5 knot trawl speed.

Campaigners went out in the second boat holding protest banners in four languages. I kept a half-mile off and watched the wee boats smashing through the high seas. It takes a long time to shoot a steady picture of a moving inflatable – from a moving inflatable with ocean waves and salty sea spray raining down on you.

Somewhere West of Africa and far, far out to sea, the Arctic Sunrise surges ahead. Alone on an inky ocean, under blue skies, with long legged white horses snapping at her heels. She slows to a crawl, puts her beam to the mares and launches small boats over the lee. Not the best weather, force-four, but its predicted to get worse and so her crew make do – training underway.

Bright yellow toys are jettisoned for the little boats to play with. They rush in and hook them up, tow them around, they hook them on and come back for more. Drivers change and the novices get to practise an easier task of coming alongside a moving vessel running down wind – sometimes they bounce, lose a little control, sometimes there movements are slick, all the time training.

Here comes the doctor and a deck-hand, helped across the deck whilst looking much like a pair of michelin-men only in bright orange. They leave the ship by way of the pilot door to join one of the little boats which buzz off in a burst of foam to a point ahead of the Arctic Sunrise. There is a splash one hundred yards away as the orange men enter the sea. I hold my course and run them down. The image of lobsters comes to mind as I watch them pass beneath the bridge wing. They do it again, swimmers in training.