In the mid-1970s some Greenpeace members started an independent campaign, Project Ahab, against commercial whaling, since Irving Stowe was against Greenpeace focusing on other issues than nuclear weapons. After Irving Stowe died in 1975, the "Phyllis Cormack" sailed from Vancouver to face Soviet whalers on the coast of California. Greenpeace activists disrupted the whaling by placing themselves between the harpoons and the whales, and footage of the protests spread across the world. Later in the 1970s, the organization widened its focus to include toxic waste and commercial seal hunting.