Crewmember Pete Bouquet paints the Rainbow Warrior, 1978 It took
Greenpeace eight months to raise enough money for a 10 percent
down-payment on the rusting ship in 1978. The balance was due
within 60 days. As time ran out, hopes of purchasing the ship
waned. But when the Netherlands branch of the World Wildlife
Fund agreed to help finance a campaign to save the whales,
Greenpeace had acquired its first vessel in Europe. It was
renamed 'Rainbow Warrior' after the Warriors in a North American
Cree Indian prophecy: 'When the world is sick and dying, the
people will rise up like Warriors of the Rainbow... Kwakiutl
symbol of harmony with nature. Fresh paint, in striking rainbow
patterns, was applied to the super-structure and on the bow a
dove of peace carrying an olive branch symbolised the vessel's
mission. On the stack of the ship, the crew painted a motif of
two whales forming the infinite cycle of nature, which
symbolized harmony with the natural world to the sea-faring
Kwakiutl people of North America. The s