As the Steve Irwin continues to trail the Japanese whaling fleet, the smaller harpoon boats begin to speed ahead of the factory ship. Meanwhile, the crew of the small boats decide that the use of a sharpened grappling hook thrown from an inflatable boat to try and pull down the nets in advance of a throwing attack isn’t worth the risk. Desperate to come up with another plan, at one point a crew member actually approaches Paul Watson with a plan to board one of the Japanese ships from the small boat. Soon Captain Watson decides to launch the small boats in an attack against the factory ship hoping to lure the harpoon boats back to defend their mother ship. On board the zodiacs the crews have a tough time trying to throw bottles onto the deck of the gargantuan ship. At one point they even attempt a head on attack effectively a bold game of chicken in a tiny raft against an enormous beast. At this point the harpoos ships change thier course to come back to the aid of the Nishin Maru. The Japanese also step up their counter attack as well by using the LRAD (A military grade acoustic weapon) on the Steve Irwin’s helicoptor with pilot and Animal Planet cameraman on board.