i was reading Maritime Monday this morning and stumbled accross the blurb about the collision involving the Nisshin Maru and another Marshall Islands-flagged ship in the Japanese Islands. is this the same Nisshin Maru of whale wars fame?
first off, no article ive read says exactly WHAT ship sank, all it said was that 2 NM crew are missing, and the other two were rescued. it seems like 4 crew is not a lot, but can you run a large stern trawler with just 4 crew? i would guess so, but i dont know. i read that it was moving from Kure to Kawasaki, so perhaps a skeleton crew for a repositioning trip?
second, it says that the Nisshin is 199gt, but everything ive read puts her closer to 8000gt.
Almost (if not) all japanese fishing vessels are named XXXXX Maru. I wouldnt be surprised at all if Nisshin Maru is a common name for a fishing vessel in Japan. Also isn’t the full name of the one on whale wars Nisshin Maru Number something?
ive read its the fourth NM, but the Japanese symbol for the number 4 is similar to the Japanese symobol for death, so they omit it for luck. sorta like the lack of a 13th floor in some buildings.
as to the whole “maru” thing, i found a wikipedia article that sorta cleared it up.