The is a cutter class vessel owned and operated by the

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) is a non-profit, marine conservation activism organization based in Friday Harbor, Washington, Friday Harbor on San Juan Island, Washington, in the United States. Sea Shepherd employs direct action t ...

since December 2017. She is being used in their

direct action Direct action originated as a political activist term for economic and political acts in which the actors use their power (e.g. economic or physical) to directly reach certain goals of interest, in contrast to those actions that appeal to oth ...

campaigns Campaign or The Campaign may refer to: Types of campaigns * Campaign, in agriculture, the period during which sugar beets are harvested and processed *Advertising campaign, a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme *Bl ...

against illegal fisheries activities.

Overview

The ship is an built by

Bollinger Shipyards Bollinger Shipyards is an American constructor of ships, workboats and patrol vessels. Its thirteen shipyards and forty drydocks are located in Louisiana and Texas. Its drydocks range in capacity from vessels of 100 tons displacement to 22,000 to ...

Lockport, Louisiana Lockport is a town on Bayou Lafourche in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 2,490 in 2020. It is part of the Houma– Bayou Cane–Thibodaux metropolitan statistical area. History Lockport, founded in 1835, ...

and first launched in 1991 as the

U.S. Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mul ...

cutter ''Bainbridge Island''. The vessel is identical to her

sister ship A sister ship is a ship of the same class or of virtually identical design to another ship. Such vessels share a nearly identical hull and superstructure layout, similar size, and roughly comparable features and equipment. They often share a ...

s and . After 22 years of service, it was retired in a ceremony in New Jersey on 17 March 2014. The vessel was purchased and was donated to

by medtech entrepreneur Chris Sharp, and it was presented at a press conference on 11 December 2017 in Miami, Florida. The vessel was renamed MV ''Sharpie'', named after its donor. She is a cutter powered by two Caterpillar diesel engines and can travel at a maximum speed of with a range of .

Incidents

In January 2019, a "mob of over 50

skiff A skiff is any of a variety of essentially unrelated styles of small boats. Traditionally, these are coastal craft or river craft used for leisure, as a utility craft, and for fishing, and have a one-person or small crew. Sailing skiffs have devel ...

s" threw

Molotov cocktail A Molotov cocktail (among several other names – ''see other names'') is a hand thrown incendiary weapon constructed from a frangible container filled with flammable substances equipped with a fuse (typically a glass bottle filled with flamma ...

s and rocks burning the MV Sharpie's Hull and breaking windows. In February 2020, the MV Sharpie was fired upon while on "routine" patrol of the Vaquita Refuge in the

Gulf of California The Gulf of California ( es, Golfo de California), also known as the Sea of Cortés (''Mar de Cortés'') or Sea of Cortez, or less commonly as the Vermilion Sea (''Mar Bermejo''), is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean that separates the Baja Ca ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sharpie, MV Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ships 2017 ships Ships built in Lockport, Louisiana Island-class patrol boats

Overview

Incidents

See also

References