The public will have the opportunity to visit an anti-whaling vessel this weekend that has docked in Bermuda.

The John Paul Dejoria, a vessel in Neptune’s Navy, has opened its doors to let curious attendees tour the ship on Saturday while it is anchored in Dockyard.

The vessel is part of the Captain Paul Wilson Foundation, a non-profit organisation that pursues marine poachers, fishers and other marine hunters.

The organisation’s founder, conservationist Paul Watson, has been mired in controversy for his use of direct intervention to disrupt the efforts of whaling ships.

According to his foundation’s website, Alex Kozinski, a judge in the 9th Circuit Federal Court in the US, dubbed him and the crew of one of his ships as pirates in 2014.

Mr Watson and his previous group, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, have also been accused of eco-terrorism by the Japanese Government and Greenpeace, another environmentalist group that he cofounded, for their tactics.

The website for the Captain Paul Wilson Foundation maintains that the groups operate off “the strategic philosophy of aggressive nonviolence”.

The John Paul Dejoria is a 72-metre former Scottish Fisheries Patrol vessel.

It was bought in December 2022 to replace the original John Paul Dejoria, a former US Coastguard cutter operated by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society since 2015.

The tour of the John Paul Dejoria will start at 10am sharp on Saturday and continue until 3pm.