Greenpeace Will Give a Wide Berth at Trident Launch

Greenpeace anti-nuclear activists, their ship damaged by the Navy during a protest last week of a Trident 2 missile launch, said Tuesday they will observe an upcoming launch but will not try to stop it.

“Our intention is not to physically obstruct the upcoming Trident test, but to exercise our rights to protest in international waters,” said Shannon Fagan, a Greenpeace spokeswoman.

She said a 60-foot-ketch, the Mondeivitano, would sail to the vicinity of the test site later this week “and will maintain the same distance from the site as other Navy vessels.”

The Trident submarine launch area is in the Atlantic 50 miles off Cape Canaveral. During a test launch, the Navy declares a 5,000-yard radius safety zone around the submarine.

Last week, the MV Greenpeace penetrated the safety zone and dispatched two motorized rafts in an effort to halt a launch from the submerged submarine Tennessee. But a Navy submarine support ship bumped the Greenpeace vessel several times and used fire hoses to shoot water down the smokestacks to stop the engines. Small Navy boats corraled the rafts.