A flotilla is setting off to meet the gas exploration vessel due to arrive off the Otago coast.
David killed Goliath, and the Oil Free Otago flotilla set to sail tonight can stop the Anadarko drill ship, the Rev Peter Matheson says.
Mr Matheson said he would be aboard the lead flotilla yacht SV Tiama when it left Dunedin tonight to confront the Anadarko drill ship Noble Bob Douglas at the drill site 65km from Taiaroa Head.
Although confronting the drill ship of an oil giant on a small yacht was as ridiculous as David fighting Goliath, the outcome could be similar, Mr Matheson said.
”Anyone remember who won?”A similar fight was won by anti-nuclear protesters in the 1980s, he said.
A slingshot from 500 metres might be a bit ambitious.
Also set to board SV Tiama is Bob Lloyd, associate professor and director of energy studies at the University of Otago physics department. Prof Lloyd said he would ask the drill ship crew, via radio on the protest yacht, to halt its New Zealand drilling operations.
He would ask they stop their search and focus on discovering renewable energy, such as solar panels and wind turbines.
I thought solar panels and wind turbines had already been discovered. What doesn’t seem to have been discovered yet is how to make solar and wind energy cost effective enough to supercede fossil fuel, along with all the electric powered transport and infrastructure.
As off Taranaki the anti-exploration protest will get some attention but the drilling will go on. And our oil and gas needs will go on.
Your NZ 
paulscott
/ 8th February 2014The sooner we sack these political activists from Otago University the better.
I have sent my opinion on this to where it counts
Pete George
/ 8th February 2014Do you mean the political activists with secure University jobs who have no idea what business and employment is like in the private sector?
Pongo
/ 8th February 2014Otago Uni need to be a little careful that the mutters that inhabit the place don’t kill its reputation, they are becoming a bit of a laughing stock.
Perhaps the rev Matheson may like to apologise for the homosexual rape of the teenage son of the moderator of the Presbyterian church of NZ in the 1970s after their arrival from the UK, don’t think it’s just the Catholics….ask Matheson to work back from Kings College, Remuera and the ?………..next door neighbour and when he has finished apologising then he can set sail on his moral high ground.