As you might imagine, Faroese people have a tendency to get quite defensive when this subject comes up. In my opinion, this mostly comes from the fact that most of the critique is based on misinformation.
First of all, I should point out that the whale slaughter is not purely a tradition. It's not like fox hunting or bullfighting, which is are mainly done for entertainment and other non-essential reasons. The whale hunt accounts for a significant portion of the meat consumed in the country. The only other locally sourced meat is sheep and fish. Everything else needs to be imported. The whale hunt is not for fun or for entertainment. It is for food. Is it possible to survive without it? Sure, but then those missing calories will need to be imported, causing damage to the environment and also acting as drain on the already vulnerable economy.
The Faroes are largely supported by fishing, and most families own a modern boat. If we for some reason had to do the whaling with traditional wooden boats, then we'd all need to own two boats. Not only that, but the hunt would become much more dangerous and risky for no practical reason.
That said, the boats are probably not used for hunting like you imagine it. They are used to herd the whales onto the beach where they are killed using pretty traditional means. This part of the hunt has also diverged from the old days though, and I would definitely say for the better. Originally, the whales were killed by slicing their throats, letting them bleed out. These days doing it like that is illegal. We have developed a new spear-like tool, which makes it easy to sever the spinal cord in a single blow, instantly killing the whales. This eliminates the most painful part for the animal.
The whale drives are a communal effort to provide food for the entire community, not a "manhood tradition", as often depicted in the media. I can tell you one thing for certain - if people stopped caring about eating whales, the tradition would also stop.