Flash bangs thrown at a Japanese whaling vessel

Video footage released by the whalers showed Sea Shepherd activists throwing the devices known as "flash bangs", which are non-lethal but burn brightly, onto the ship.

They also released orange smoke as the ship's crewmen attempted to repel the activists with water jets.No one was injured.

But the incendiary devices got caught up in the ship's protective netting, which the whalers say prevented any harm to the crew or damage to the ship.

But Sea Shepherd leader Paul Watson said the devices used were not flash bangs, but smoke bombs.

"We don't have concussion flash bang grenades onboard. Never use them, don't intend to use them and they certainly don't have any evidence of us using them. In fact, flash bang grenades were thrown at us a couple of years ago. It's on film so we know what they look like."

Sea Shepherd said the use of the smoke bombs was designed to try and shake the Yushin Maru 2 from the tail of a Sea Shepherd vessel - the Bob Barker.

The plan initially worked but the Bob Barker had to double back when one of its inflatables was crippled during the confrontation.

"We're trying to close in on the Yushin Maru and if we do, we'll block their slipway but in the mean time we're keeping them running. If they're running, they're not killing whales," Watson said.

He said that for the past 11 days, the anti-whaling activists had successfully distracted the chasing harpoon ships from their primary role of hunting whales.

Advertisement"There are three harpoon vessels down here and two of them are dedicated to just chasing after us, so we know for a fact that they haven't killed a single whale since they've been there."

The two sides have been engaged in a running conflict since New Year's Eve, when the Sea Shepherd vessels Steve Irwin, Bob Barker and Gojira pounced on the whaling fleet's harpoon ships south-east of New Zealand.