Reppy Solo Sail Ends off Japan: Fight for Taiji Orcas Continues

by Nathan LaBudde
International Marine Mammal Project

On April 24, marine mammal activist Michael Reppy set sail for Tokyo from San Francisco with a twofold agenda - break the world record for a solo Pacific crossing and use the resulting press coverage to draw attention to the plight of five captive Japanese orcas known as the Taiji Five [Spring '97 EIJ].

Reppy hoped to make the crossing in 30 days to break the existing record of 34 days, six hours. His 36-foot trimaran, the Nai'a (Hawaiian for dolphin), was adorned with slogans - "Free the Taiji Five," "Save the Dolphins" - on its fiberglass hull and white, windpuffed spinnaker. The words "Earth Island Institute" ran the vertical length of the boat's mast. As the ocean-bound Nai'a cleared the morning shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge, Reppy's thoughts drifted between the 8,400-kilometer (5,219 miles) odyssey before him and some troubling news from Japan, where famed orca researcher Paul Spong was reporting on the deteriorating health of three of the Taiji Five orcas. The orcas, captured under so-called "scientific" auspices, were now in their third month of captivity at various marine parks.

The female orca at Taiji Whale Museum and two orcas at Shirahama Adventure World were refusing to eat. Inexperienced aquarium personnel force-fed the sick orcas only 10 to 40 pounds of frozen fish each day. A healthy orca's daily intake is 150 to 200 pounds.

"Especially worrisome was the female at Shirahama Adventure World," recalls Reppy. "We suspected that she was pregnant and her declining condition was cause for alarm." Shirahama officials would neither confirm nor deny the pregnancy and refused to acknowledge any feeding problems. On the open Pacific, Reppy spent time writing and shooting a video journal. Isolated from the rest of humanity, his only communication limited to brief radio conversations and weather faxes, he spent the passing days in the company of terns, shearwaters, albatross and dolphins.

"The oceans are our place of origin, where all life evolved from.

As vast as they are, the seas can't handle all the pollutants and dumping from our industrial society," Reppy says.

Except for a five-day spell of "dead wind," the Nai'a kept a record-breaking pace until - with star-crossed accuracy - the morning of the 30th day when, a mere 400 km (249 miles) and two days from Tokyo, a dozing Reppy awoke with a jolt.

An hour earlier, under steady winds, he had set the Nai'a on autopilot, gone below and fallen asleep. In that short time, the wind had dramatically picked up and the Nai'a, now traveling at 20 knots, was overtaking the waves.

Knowing that he had to quickly furl Nai'a's straining spinnaker, Reppy hesitated a few moments to don his foul-weather gear. Climbing out of the cabin, he saw the now-vertical Nai'a pointing nose-first into the bottom of a wave. Reppy instinctively lunged back into the cabin as the Nai'a flipped.

"I was upside down in the cabin, the water was rising up to my waist, my gear was dumped and I was getting thrown around wildly. I knew that had I made it on deck 10 seconds earlier and released the spinnaker, I could have prevented the Nai'a from capsizing," he recounts. "At that point I had to worry about surviving, not about losing the Nai'a. I gathered my emergency gear and handheld radio. I climbed through the Nai'a's escape hatch, walked over its underside and inflated my life raft."

Within two hours, a Japanese Maritime Safety Agency plane appeared overhead and radioed Reppy that the Century Highway II, a nearby container ship bound for Osaka, was coming to his rescue. Three hours later, radio contact was established with the ship's captain and the vessel's lights appeared faintly on the night horizon. Reppy fired off a red flare and settled back into his enclosed life raft, relieved that rescue was at hand. "I continued talking with the captain. When I finally stuck my head out of the life raft, towering directly above me is an ocean-going skyscraper. My life raft is under the Century Highway II's bow and I'm going to be run over. It's 100 feet to the ship's bridge and I'm yelling into the radio, 'Back away! You're about to crush me!' Because of our proximity, the captain can't hear me so he keeps saying, 'Speak louder! I think the batteries in your radio are going dead!'"

A few tense minutes later, the ship backed away and dispatched a lifeboat. It developed engine trouble, though, so it wasn't until an hour later that the repaired lifeboat pulled alongside a meditating Reppy. "I dove headfirst into that boat and immediately thanked each man aboard. They were risking their lives for me. The sea and wind were picking up. Our lifeboat was tossing about and I was thrown against a seat, which cost me some cracked ribs. After reaching the Century Highway II, and waiting for what seemed like a millennium, we managed to make it aboard." The Century Highway II crew proved themselves gracious hosts and two days later, an exhausted but recovering Reppy disembarked at Yokohama. He was greeted by representatives from Earth Island's Japanese Environmental Exchange and the Japanese-based Dolphin and Whale Action Network.

Paul Spong, also in Japan, informed Reppy why the Taiji orcas were refusing to eat. Unlike coastal "resident" orcas, which subsist on a diet of fish, the Taiji orcas are ocean-roaming "transients," feeding almost exclusively on sea lions, seals and other marine mammals. The Taiji Five were refusing to eat because they were being offered the wrong food - frozen fish.

For the next three weeks Reppy spent most of his waking hours working with the Dolphin and Whale Action Network and speaking on marine mammal issues. These talks included video of the Taiji Five capture, graphic images of dolphins and whales being massacred in Japanese drive fisheries at Taiji and Futo bays, and footage of Keiko, the orca known around the world for his role in Free Willy.

"What made the greatest impact on my audience was the footage of the young male orca from the Taiji Five capture," Reppy said. "This small orca calls out repeatedly in an anguished cry universal to any baby being torn from its mother. Surrounded by divers he cries as they bind him with ropes, force him into a sling and lift him out of the bay onto a lorry bound for Shirahama Adventure World."

Reppy was quick to inform viewers that this orca was now growing weaker from hunger each passing day.

Reppy's solo voyage and the plight of the Taiji Five were featured in Japan Times and appeared in newspapers in Kobe, Niskinomiya, Tokyo and Kyoto. Japanese radio stations also ran the stories and the Tokyo Broadcasting System ran a three-part TV series on the Taiji Five, featuring interviews with Reppy. Now back in the US, Reppy is continuing to work for the "Free the Taiji Five" campaign and has begun plans for another transpacific voyage.

Earth Island Institute would like to note that while world sailing records are, by themselves, temporary milestones of time, distance and knots per hour, heroes are defined by faith and their courageous response in the wake of cataclysm.

Michael Reppy's resolve to continue his Taiji Five media tour of Japan after losing his ship, a world record and very nearly his life, won him the gratitude of marine mammal activists on both sides of the Pacific. On June 14, sad news came from Japan. The young male orca at Shirahama Adventure World had died of starvation. Only three days later, the large female at Shirahama also died of starvation. Inside sources confirm that she had indeed been pregnant and had aborted her calf in April, some two months after capture. (In fact, no pregnant female, once taken from the wild, has successfully given birth in captivity.) On June 21, more than 100 black-clad marine mammal supporters held a candlelight vigil on the streets of Tokyo's Ginza district.

Despite thousands of faxes from around the world, the Japanese government and Fisheries Agency, which sanctioned the capture "for breeding and research purposes," refuses to take action to save the surviving three Taiji orcas.

Shamed Shirahama Adventure World officials continue to respond to criticism and pleas from journalists and environmentalists with a self-incriminating "no comment." At press time, an independent Japanese journalist reported that another Taiji Five orca, the second male at Shirahama Adventure World, has stopped eating.

What You Can Do: Ask the Japanese government to secure the release of the remaining three Taiji Five orcas. Send letters via Earth Island's Mark Berman [300 Broadway, No. 28, San Francisco, CA 94133, (415) 788-3666, ext. 136, berman@eii.org], who is spearheading the worldwide "Free the Taiji Five" campaign.