Sea Shepherd's Paul Watson Sued by The Real Ady Gil

The Ady Gil. Photo: JJ Harrison via Wikipedia

Yesterday was a bad day for Cap’n Paul Watson. Not only was he forced to resign from his post as president of Sea Shepherd in wake of legal issues facing him and his organization, but he was also sued by the real Ady Gil in connection to the 2010 sinking of the MY Ady Gil.

According to the gossip website TMZ (yup, I went there), Paul Watson, founder and now ex-president of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, has been sued by Gil, who says he actually owned the high speed catamaran that famously sunk after a collision with a Japanese whaler while filming the show “Whale Wars.”

In the lawsuit, which was filed yesterday in a L.A. courtroom, Gil claims that Watson used the 2010 collision as an opportunity to promote the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s anti-whaling efforts by lying about the circumstances surrounding the sinking of the vessel.

Gil maintains that he had lent Watson and the Sea Shepherd the boat on the basis that they would take care of it. Obviously that didn’t happen, and it sunk allegedly following the collision with the whaler even though footage of the boat actually going down was never released.

Gil says that the collision only resulted in damage to the Ady Gil’s bow and that the damages could have been repaired. The suit claims that Watson, being the marketer as he is, saw the collision as an opportunity to garner support for his cause and secretly ordered members of his crew to scuttle the boat “under the cover of darkness”, then blamed the whole thing on the Japanese.

Now Gil is pursuing more than $5 million in damages from Watson for failing to keep up with his end of the bargain.

As far as his resignation goes… Watson was forced to resign as president of Sea Shepherd U.S. and Australia in wake of a recent U.S. injunction barring him and his organization from physically attacking, or approaching within 500 yards, of any Institute of Cetacean Research vessels navigating on the open sea.

Stay tuned…