The Japanese had suspended whaling as they tried to elude the protesters, who found the fleet earlier this week and disrupted their controversial hunt, Shane Rattenbury told AFP by satellite phone from one of Greenpeace's two ships in the area.

"We've managed to stop them whaling for almost 48 hours now," Rattenbury said. "Every hour we can stop them hunting represents a respite for the whales."

Rattenbury said the whaling fleet initially got into formation then sped north in an effort to shake off the protest vessels, before turning south Saturday when it reached the edge of the Antarctic whaling grounds.

"I think they'll attempt to resume whaling in the next day or so, in which case we'll launch our small inflatable boats and put ourselves between the harpoons and the whales," he said.

"There's every chance we will spend Christmas Day doing just that."

Earlier this week, Greenpeace said the largest of the Japanese whalers turned fire hoses on the inflatables.

There was also a minor collision between a Japanese vessel trying to unload a dead whale and a Greenpeace ship blocking access to the factory ship, leading Japan to denounce the group's tactics as akin to "piracy".

The Greenpeace boats, the Esperanza and the Arctic Sunrise, with a total of 57 crew on board, intend to continue harassing the Japanese fleet for several weeks, Rattenbury said.

One of the Japanese whalers, the Keiku Maru, avoided a confrontation with protesters in the Tasmanian capital Hobart when it airlifted a sick crewmember from ship to shore late Friday, rather than dock and face waiting demonstrators.

The crewman was taken to hospital suffering appendicitis, while about 100 environmentalists turned out in Hobart Saturday to criticise the Australian government for failing to impound the Keiku Maru.

"The Australian government should have made sure that ship was escorted into Hobart and put out of action instead of going back to kill our whales," Greens senator Bob Brown told the group.

Brown ridiculed Japan's assertion that its whaling program was carried out on a scientific basis.

"What is it after 20 years that they've discovered? That whales go well with soy sauce?" he said.

Japan says it conducts whale hunts for scientific research, but critics say that is a cover for commercial killing of whales for consumption in Japan, where whalemeat is popular.

Despite international protests, Japan has this year more than doubled its planned catch of minke whales to 935 and added 10 endangered fin whales.

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