High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The MV Steve Irwin is a 59-meter ship owned by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, and used in their direct action campaigns against whaling and other activities the group opposes. The vessel was built in 1975 and formerly served as a Scottish Fisheries Protection Agency conservation enforcement patrol boat, the FPV Westra, for 28 years. Sea Shepherd had previously christened the vessel the MV Robert Hunter after Canadian Robert Hunter, co-founder of Greenpeace, but was renamed in honor of the late Crocodile Hunter host Steve Irwin on 5 December 2007. Irwin had considered joining the vessel on a voyage to Antarctica shortly before his death, and the renaming was endorsed by his widow Terri.