Yachties hoist nuclear protest banner

New Zealand yachties protesting against nuclear fuel-carrying ships are in position to form a symbolic chain across 75 nautical miles of international waters.

The four yachts that left the Bay of Islands 10 days ago met three more from Sydney near Lord Howe Island yesterday and unfurled a 40m by 5m floating banner which reads "Close the nuclear highway."

Spokesman Henk Haazen said the 39 people on the yachts forming the Nuclear-Free Tasman Flotilla were ready to face the two British-flagged plutonium ships, Pacific Pintail and Pacific Teal.

The vessels were expected "any day now."

Environmental group Greenpeace said the cargo of 230kg of MOX, which combined plutonium and uranium oxides recycled from spent nuclear fuel, contained enough plutonium to make 20 atomic bombs.

The ships were taking the fuel to a Japanese nuclear reactor.

Mr Haazen said there was no justification for the shipment. "The people who live around the Japanese reactor that the plutonium is destined for don't want it. Australians and New Zealanders don't want their seas being used to transport it and Pacific Islanders are vehemently opposed.

"It is only the Australian Government that is allowing the Tasman to be used as a nuclear highway," he said.

The flotilla plans to approach the British ships and hoist anti-nuclear banners, as well as link up in a symbolic chain across the stretch of water that the ships will pass through.

They do not plan to stop or obstruct the ships.

The flotilla organisers said nuclear companies in Britain, France and Japan responsible for the shipment had used the Tasman route in 1993 and 1999 to transport plutonium.

The companies could make up to 80 trips in the next 10 years.

The Australasian flotilla is the first such fleet since 1995, when New Zealand boats converged on France's South Pacific nuclear test site at Mururoa atoll.

The flotilla yachties are aged from 12 to 68 and represent New Zealand, Australia, the Netherlands, Canada, Russia, Japan, France and Poland.

Among the crews are a retired architect, a doctor, a helicopter pilot, a tree planter, a lawyer, a vet, a film-maker and a student.

Mr Haazen described the week-long journey from Sydney and the Bay of Islands to Lord Howe Island as gruelling.

Crews faced gale-force winds and 4m swells.

Lord Howe Island is 770km northeast of Sydney.

- NZPA