You can't sink a rainbow

You can't sink a rainbow is a vintage pin badge by Greenpeace that uses a simple play on words to act as a statement of steadfast resolve.

The sinking in the harbour

In July 1985, the Greenpeace flagship, the Rainbow Warrior, sat docked in Auckland harbour, New Zealand. The crew was preparing to protest French nuclear testing at Moruroa Atoll. Late one night, French intelligence agents attached two limpet mines to the hull beneath the waterline.

The resulting explosions tore through the metal, sinking the ship in a matter of minutes and killing Portuguese photographer Fernando Pereira. It was a state-sponsored attempt to halt a protest by sending Greenpeace's flagship to the seabed.

The weight of a rainbow

Instead of ending the campaign, the bombing provided the movement with a phrase that would haunt the French government for decades. The badge itself captures this defiant response. Against a bright blue background, a white dove carrying a green olive branch flies across a bold rainbow.

The slogan printed on the badge, You can't sink a rainbow, rests on a simple contradiction. A ship is built from heavy components like steel, wood, and engine blocks. If its hull is breached, gravity and water will inevitably pull it down.

A rainbow, however, has no solid mass. It is nothing more than light refracting through moisture in the air. By the strict laws of physics, it is impossible to sink.

By destroying the ship, the attackers only strengthened what it stood for.

Words from the street

A phrase this sharp might seem like the work of a professional advertising agency, but it actually came from the street. An unnamed supporter in Auckland coined the slogan in 1985.

Greenpeace picked up the phrase and ran with it — a rare case of the movement's sharpest line coming from the street rather than from a campaign office.

A larger vessel

The claim of You can't sink a rainbow proved accurate. Rather than deterring activists, the attack backfired entirely. The bombing created a global diplomatic scandal, and international arbitration ordered France to pay reparations to Greenpeace.

Greenpeace used that compensation to build a much larger, stronger successor ship to continue their methodical work on the oceans. When the new vessel set sail, Greenpeace christened it Rainbow Warrior II.

The original ship still rests off Matauri Bay, hull turned reef. The rainbow on the badge, small enough to fit in a palm, still cannot be sunk.