According to this article in the SMH, Australian Customs is contemplating sending its ice-capable armed patrol ship, the Customs and Fisheries armed Southern Ocean patrol vessel Oceanic Viking, to follow the Japanese whaling fleet this season in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary!
The vessel has light fixed weaponry of 2 .50cal machine guns. Customs officers onboard are also armed.
It typically apprehends shitty-looking boats like this.
A much cooler-looking ship is the ACV Triton, which performs much the same job in the EEZ up near Indonesia. The illegal fishing boats there are much smaller and more numerous, and Customs simply destroy them, often on the spot. Triton can do almost 40 km/h, and is guided by JORN.
In a 2003 incident, Customs under the Southern Ocean Maritime Patrol mission famously chased a Uruguayan fishing ship over 21 days and 7200km, starting in the Australian Exclusive Economic Zone and ending near Africa, the longest pursuit in Australian maritime history.
