Peter Willcox

Peter Willcox (born March 6, 1953) is an American sea captain best known for his activism with the environmental organization Greenpeace.

Notable Greenpeace campaigns 1981 Offshore Oil drilling on Georges Bank.

1982: Stopping National Lead Industries from dumping a million gallons of sulfuric acid off the New Jersey beaches every day.

Seal killing in Canada.

Dolphin killing as part of the tuna industry in the Pacific.

Whaling campaign in Peru.

1983

Seismic surveying off the coast of California.

Driftnet fishing in North Pacific.

Whaling by Russia in Bering Sea.

1985

Relocating the village of Rongalap in the Marshall Islands who were victims of the U.S. Atomic Testing program.

Rainbow Warrior was blown up in Auckland by French military personnel, killing shipmate Fernando Pereira.

Sailed on Vega IV to Mururoa atoll.

1987

Action with Danish Fisherman against Waste Management Services ship Vulcanos.

1988

Action on USN destroyer bring nuclear weapons into Denmark.

1989

First trip on board the second Rainbow Warrior.

Tasman Sea action against drift netters.

Scientific Testing at Mururoa.

1993

Exposed Russian dumping of nuclear waste in Sea of Japan.

1995

Sneak into Turkish power plant burning coal with banner.

2000

Return toxic waste to U.S. embassy in Manila.

2001

Soldertalje, Sweden action over burning toxic waste to generate electricity.

2003 (?)

Guns for Logs in Italy, France, Spain and Netherlands.

2007

Research trip to Bering Sea with two one-man submarines.

2009

Research trip to Greenland to document global warming.

2013

Captains the Arctic Sunrise in an action against Russia's oil drilling platform in international waters in the Arctic. He and the crew are arrested and held in prison for two months before being granted amnesty. Demonstrations were held all over the world urging Russian President Vladimir Putin to release the Arctic 30.

2016

Peter captains the second Rainbow Warrior near Fukushima, Japan to monitor radiation levels being released into the environment by the damaged nuclear reactors.

Family life Willcox was married in 1991, just in time for the birth of his first daughter, Anita. His second daughter, Natasha, was born in 1995. He was separated in 2002 and moved from Spain where he had been living back to Norwalk, Connecticut. His daughters joined him in 2004. In 2013, he married Maggy Aston, whom he had met on the Clearwater in the late 1970s, on Islesboro island in Maine, where he now lives. He has a step-son named Skylar Purdy. He has nine brothers and sisters, either adopted, biological or step.

Sailing Willcox grew up sailing. His father Roger was a multiple class national champion, who took his son big boat racing in the early 1960s. Roger continues to be a fair weather frostbite dingy sailor at age 94. Willcox raced for the America's Cup syndicate Freedom – Enterprise in 1979. He has done ten Bermuda Races, did eight S.O.R.C.s (Southern Ocean Racing Circuits) in the 1970s and is still active today. He currently races on a boat called Christopher Dragon out of New York.

He estimates he has sailed over 400,000 miles in his professional and recreational career.

He retired from Greenpeace in June 2019. He continues to race, ship out, and sail for a better planet.

Writing Willcox's memoir Greenpeace Captain: My Adventures in Protecting the Future of Our Planet