Ady Gil Hosts Fundraiser to Replace Sunken Ship

Los Angeles producer Ady Gil hosted a fundraiser last weekend in hopes to raise $5 million to replace the ship bearing his name that was sunk in conflict between Sea Shepherd conservationists and the Japanese whaling fleet. The $50-per-person event featured vegan hors d'oeuvres and a special announcement that Gil himself would be protesting outside of Japan's Los Angeles embassy. Gil's company, American Hi Definition, specializes in high definition projection equipment used for awards shows like the Grammys, broadcast productions like America's Funniest Videos, and most recently the premiere of James Cameron's Avatar at Mann¹s Grauman Chinese Theatre in LA.

Gil reported that donations were much more modest than he might have hoped for, with no "big-gun" Hollywood donors present. Regardless, Gil reported that many LA residents contributed what they could to the fund, be it $100 or $50,000. "I won't let them take me down," said Gil of the sinking of the Ady Gil. "I'm going to build another ship, an improved version." The former ship was sunk in a collision between Japanese whalers and the Sea Shepherd conservationists. Video of the event shows the whaling vessel in a sharply curving course toward the conservationists, who were attempting to tangle the rudder of the ship in ropes laid in its path. The whaling vessel does not appear to veer away from the carbon-fiber stealth boat until seconds before impact, though the Japanese point out a stall followed by acceleration from the Ady Gil into the path of the whaling vessel.

Australia, which had spoke about sending a peace-keeping vessel to Antarctic waters to separate Sea Shepherd from the whalers, has declined to moderate the situation after Tokyo blasted Australia's acting foreign minister for suggesting that the whalers were equally to blame for the collision.

Sea shepherd moved to counter Japan's diplomatic attempts to foist the blame on the island nation by filing a piracy claim against the whalers in the group's current port-of-call, the Netherlands. Founder Paul Watson revealed that he would rather go after the Japanese whalers for attempted murder, which was seconded by Sea Shepherd Deputy CEO Chuck Swift: "They have certainly proven that some of them have as much disregard for the law and human life as they do for the law and whale life," Swift said. "We could have had six dead."

The Japanese dismissed the filing as a publicity stunt, saying "They have no real basis here for filing any claims at all, especially of piracy. The chances of them winning anything, the odds are well against it — noting that they were in the wrong for the incidents to start with."