Using their own boat, the Sirius, and four rubber inflatables, the members of the ecological movement kept the Encounter Bay from leaving the port of Barcelona yesterday.

They stuck notices on the hull of the freighter, reading ``No dumping in Asia'' in English and ``Enough toxic'' in Spanish. Greenpeace Spain's campaign director Juan Lopez de Uralte said the conditions under which the vessel would be broken up were ``lamentable''.

``There are no safety measures, the workers wear no masks or gloves, and are barefooted,'' he said. Products like asbestos could both cause cancer in people and damage the environment.

Greenpeace did not object to sending boats to be scrapped in the Third World, but said they should be stripped of dangerous materials first.

The ecologists handed a letter to this effect to thecaptain of the Encounter Bay, which is owned by the Anglo-Dutch P & O Nedlloyds group, one of the world's leading container ship operators.