Sea Shephard Fans Involved in Jury Tampering!

It is astonishing what some “True Believers” will do to advance a cause. Late Thursday afternoon BoatTEST.com’s trusty webmaster – after working all day at the New York Boat Show – got back to his control room only to discover that our “You Be the Judge” jury balloting in the high-seas collision case of Ady Gil vs. Shonan Maru had been tampered with. While we doubt that the management of Sea Shepherd would stoop to such degrading behavior to rig the results of BoatTEST.com’s world-wide boater jury results, obviously some of their more zealot followers did.

Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa was convicted in a U.S. federal court for jury tampering 45 years ago. Now his jury-tampering ways have gripped the Sea Shepherd followers!

On Wednesday at 11 pm EST – after 10 hours of jury balloting -- Ady Gil was well on its way to being named the guilty party in the collision with 42% of the vote, and Shonan Maru clearly being exonerated with only 21% of the BoatTEST.com member-jury. About 650 jurors had cast ballots by that time. Then, in the dark of night, as the world turned, something mysterious happened...

By late Thursday afternoon in BoatTEST.com’s Jury Room there had been an incredible reversal of fortune. From out of no where, Shonan Maru had 42% of the votes for conviction, and Ady Gil only had 33%! Now there were over 1600 votes cast! Immediately on discovering this change, our webmaster realized that someone, or a group of people, had stuffed the Jury secret ballot box.

Hamid Karzai is a graduate of the Mayor Daley School of Charm & Politics.

Proof of Jury Tampering!

At first we suspected Afghan President Hamid Karzai, but it turned out that we had only gotten three votes from the whole country of Afghanistan. Then, we suspected Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, a master of resurrecting the dead on Election Days, but once again there too few ballots cast from the Windy City to have made the difference.

However, when checking the IP addresses of the jury members we discovered that two stood out with 256 votes coming from one and 58 from another. BoatTEST.com is a strong believer in “one person, one vote.” And while a hand full of people might be from one IP address, not 56 much less 256. Voting from these two IP addresses accounted for nearly 19% of the total and were all cast for the conviction of Shonan Maru!

Shonan Maru shown here as photographed from Ady Gil a few seconds before the collision.

We suspect that many other votes were cast in concert with these two IP addresses from other IP addresses in a vast conspiracy of Sea Shepherd fans to tamper with the impartial BoatTEST.com Jury decision.

A “Mistrial” Has Been Declared

Our chief bailiff (aka webmaster) has thrown out the votes from the two identified offending IP addresses. However, it is clear that there are still many other undetected votes that did not follow the Jury Instructions to be impartial and leave bias at the keyboard before clicking the mouse. Therefore, BoatTEST.com is declaring a MISTRIAL!

Further, those two IPs will be locked out of all future connection with BoatTEST.com. Henceforth they are “IPs non grata.”

Ady Gil shortly after the now-famous collision off Antarctica. Formerly called Earthrace, the vessel cost in excess of $1 million, and held the record for fastest circumnavigation by powerboat. Whale research vessel Shonan Maru in the background.

Date of the New Trial

We feel that it is important that all parties to the disastrous collision have not only their day in the unbiased Admiralty Court of Boater Opinion, but also an impartial jury decision based solely on the evidence presented. At stake are the reputations of the skippers of both the Shonan Maru and the Ady Gil.

Clearly the civil administration at BoatTEST.com is not taking this matter lightly, and is begging its boat-owning constituency to behave with appropriate decorum.

The next trial date is scheduled for the February 3, 2010 BoatTEST.com e-newsletter. Those jurors planning on self-impaneling who wish to brush up on the facts of the matters and to see the three videos and still pictures introduced in evidence my do so by clicking here...

Those interested parties who wish to state their reasons for convection of one party or the other, or both, or neither one, may use the “comments bow below to make their case in 250 words or less. The Court, at its sole description, will choose several of these it deems the best to be offered in evidence on February 3rd.