Derek Nicholls, a 53-year-old New Zealander, was held for several hours and charged with entering a restricted port and failing to heed harbor master's orders over the protest at Port Kembla, south of Sydney, officials said.

The Rainbow Warrior entered Port Kembla's inner harbor late Monday to prevent the departure of the container ship The Rhein carrying the genetically engineered (GE) soy to Melbourne.

Port authorities and police seized the Greenpeace vessel early Tuesday and arrested Nicholls.

"The skipper was arrested without incident and the vessel, which had 22 people on board, was seized by police (and) the vessel was then taken to a wharf within the port," said a New South Wales police spokesman, Terry Dalton.

The rest of the crew, from a range of countries, were questioned overnight but were not charged.

The captain, crew and ship were released Tuesday and were en route for Melbourne, a Greenpeace spokesman said.

"We wanted to stop this shipment of genetically engineered soy getting into our food chain, so we weren't successful in that, but we've been very successful in delaying the shipment and in highlighting this issue to the people of Australia," the spokeswoman said.

The Rhein was already the target of a protest in Brisbane last week when activists painted "Stop GE Imports" on the ship's hull.

Critics say genetically engineered foods have not been adequately tested to ensure they do not represent a danger to people or the environment.

TERRA.WIRE