Rainbow Warrior (1955) - With Greenpeace

With Greenpeace

In early 1985 Rainbow Warrior was in the Pacific campaigning against nuclear testing. In May, she transported some 300 Marshall Islanders from Rongelap Atoll, which had been polluted by radioactivity from past American nuclear tests at the Pacific Proving Grounds.

She travelled to New Zealand to lead a flotilla of yachts protesting against French nuclear testing at the Moruroa Atoll in the Tuamotu Archipelago of French Polynesia. During previous nuclear tests at Moruroa, protest ships had been boarded by French commandos after sailing into the shipping exclusion zone around the atoll. For the 1985 tests Greenpeace intended to monitor the impact of nuclear tests and place protesters on the island to illegally monitor the blasts. The French Government infiltrated the Canada-based organisation and discovered these plans.