Whaling ship

“ On the whaling grounds the boats hang ready in davits, three on a side, with all their whaling gear in place, and ready to be lowered at a moment’s notice. A man is always on the lookout in the barrel, and when a whale is sighted the captain takes his place there and directs the movements of the boats from the ship by signals made with sails and other signs. ”

“ And to me, steeped in the old whaling traditions, primed with the picturesque accounts of real whaling, it was subject for sadness to think of these huge and nowadays helpless creatures being preyed upon so mercilessly. Once the whale-ship has secured as many whales as can conveniently be towed—each dead whale being buoyed and marked until the tale is complete—full steam is made for port, and the catch is hauled ashore on to a sloping plane, where the blubber is rapidly and scientifically stripped from the unwieldy corpse and conveyed to the try-pots to be converted into the oil of commerce. ”

“ Even if the ship should get full of oil and return home in two years, which, by the way, would be a miracle now-a-days, one of her crew cannot, at the [Pg 412] most, make more than half as much as the day-laborer ashore.
These are facts, and are palpable enough to deter any and all who wish to go whaling for the purpose of making or saving money; but there is another class who think whaling must be the most delightful of all pursuits from its pleasant adventures, its perils, and the facilities offered by it for seeing foreign lands. ”

“ On the old sailing-ship whaler, with large decks and powerful masts to use tackles from, and a crew of fifty men, more rapid flensing could be made than we can manage with only fifteen all told, including engineers, and a very small ship. ”

“ For besides the great length of the whaling voyage, the numerous articles peculiar to the prosecution of the fishery, and the impossibility of replacing them at the remote harbors usually frequented, it must be remembered, that of all ships, whaling vessels are the most exposed to accidents of all kinds, and especially to the destruction and loss of the very things upon which the success of the voyage most depends. Hence, the spare boats, spare spars, and spare lines and harpoons, and spare everythings, almost, but a spare captain and duplicate ship. ”

“ In order to complete the preparations for its Arctic work, each whaler, after leaving San Francisco, cruises for a few weeks in the central Pacific. During this cruise the crow's nest, or lookout, is put in place, the boats are scrubbed, painted and fitted with sails, steering-gear and oars and the whaling apparatus thoroughly overhauled. Then the ship's rigging receives careful attention, weak spots [Pg 258] being made strong, and old sails patched or replaced, and finally, the hold is restowed and put in shape for the long voyage. ”

“ The whaling ships usually return to the station each night and, if one is free from seasickness, furnish a rather inviting home for a short stay. They are trim, high-bowed vessels of about one hundred tons burden, ninety to one hundred feet long, and have a speed of from nine to twelve knots per hour. Round-bottomed to facilitate speedy manipulation, they ride the water like a cork but roll and pitch almost beyond belief in the slightest seaway.
Most striking of all the upper works is the harpoon-gun mounted upon a heavy iron support at the very bow. ”

“ For every man went whaling, or might do so, and a "greasy" voyage made every member of the ship's crew rich enough to buy shares in a whale ship. The "lay" of the whale ship was like the private venture of the freighter. Further than that the whaler carried a number of petty officers found on no other kind of a ship—the "boatsteerers." The ambitious youth before the mast found promotion nearer at hand. ”

“ The Golden Era began with the success of the whalers that sailed for the Pacific in 1815, and returned well loaded in 1817. In 1829 the whaling fleet numbered 203 vessels; in 1840, 552; in 1846 there were 680 ships and barks, 34 brigs, and 22 schooners, a total of 736 vessels, hunting the whale under the American flag. New London owned the largest ship of the fleet, the Atlantic, measuring 699 tons, and the smallest, the schooner Garland, of 49 tons, that was at work on the coasts of Desolation Island. ”

“ I have seen some hard cases in my day, but that whaler's crew impressed me as being the most cut-throat looking crowd I ever clapped eyes on. Not a man but what had a scar or disfigurement of some sort on his person; all had a lurching hard-bitten appearance, while the language they used was vile enough for an Atlantic packet ship's fo'c's'le.
⁠THE vessel seemed to me to be rather an unusual craft for the whaling business, by recollection of sundry Nantucketers and Vineyard Haven "spouters" I had seen at sea being vastly different from the Acturus in almost every way. ”

“ The monotony of the life at sea renders a hearty laugh somewhat of a relief, and assists in passing away the time; and this end is desirable on the whaling-ground on account of the many hours of inactivity. At night, in the vicinity of a place of known resort for the fish, sail is shortened, and all hands, except one boat’s crew and its boatsteerer, go below; the officers remaining all day on deck, and standing no watch at night. In a four-boat ship, the night is divided into four watches. ”

“ We had but two foreigners, Germans, in the ship—the cook, and one of the crew. Many of the youngsters were New Bedford boys, performing this voyage as apprentices. With the exception of the Captain and old Jack Miller, as hardy an old tar as ever stepped a ratline, and who could spin a yarn to order that would put Baron Munchausen to the blush, there was not a married man, or one who was over twenty-six years of age aboard the ship. To attempt, with the exception of the Massachusetts men, to assign a reason for any of our shipmates’ choosing whaling as a profession, would be mere conjecture. ”

“ In passing through the channel and Bear Sound the tide was favourable, and swept us along with great rapidity. Occasionally we were in a mill-race of waters, and it required much care to navigate the boat.
At a quarter past 4 p.m. we reached the whaling dépôt, distant about thirty miles, having been eleven hours coming from the ship.
We found the officers and men all well and in good condition. They had lived on ducks, duck eggs, seal, walrus, and venison, which they had in abundance, but they were much disheartened at their poor success in whaling. ”

“ There was the captain, three mates, the carpenter and his mate, the cooper and his mate, the armourer, steward and cook, four boat-steerers, four able seamen, eight ordinary seamen, the doctor, and two apprentices—namely, Medley and I. The ship was thus strongly manned for her size, but in the whaling service, when sometimes four boats are away at a time, a large number of hands are required. ”

“ Before a wholesale destruction by our people, in 1849-57, of the whales that once were so abundant in these waters, the life of those natives was a comparatively easy struggle for existence, and they were far more numerous then than they are to-day; but a fleet of four and five hundred whaling-ships, manned by the hardiest men of all nations, literally swept that cetacean life from the North Pacific and Bering Sea, and drove it so far into the Arctic Ocean that its remnant, which is still there, is practically safe and beyond human reach. ”

“ Nothing worthy of note transpired, with the exception of occasionally seeing a sail, until Wednesday, November 31st, being about five weeks out, when we saw our first sperm whale. But before we lower the boats and capture this fellow, let us make the reader acquainted as much as possible with our boats and whaling apparatus.
Our ship carried four boats on the cranes, besides four more spare ones in case of accident, such as a boat being stove, etc. They are built in a manner to enable them to stand a very heavy sea, and at the same time very light and buoyant ”

“ A whale-ship, therefore, though she has great care and expense bestowed on her, has not, in port, the graceful and elegant appearance possessed by some other ships, bound to more genial climes. The crew do not sleep in hammocks, as on board men-of-war, but in berths or standing bed-places, erected on the half-deck forward. It is a dark retreat, and not scented with sweet odours, especially after a ship has begun to take in her cargo; but the weary seaman cares little where he lays his head, provided it is in a dry and warm place. ”

“ The following morning, at 11 o’clock, we let go our anchor off the town of Vasse, where we found three barques and two ships: all whalers—all carrying the star-spangled banner—all belonging to New Bedford, and all, except one, clippers. Every year the number of old-fashioned ships is decreasing, and wedge-shaped craft taking their place: the whaling-service (a branch of commerce the last to countenance innovation) fast yielding to the march of improvement, and adopting the modern model—a long head, a clean run, and a round stern. ”

“ The still waters, the green pastures running down to the shore of the lower harbor, and the ship, trim and taut. For, while a whaleship suggests to many a greasy, clumsy hulk, the outgoing whaler is actually as shipshape and clean as a man-of-war. ”

“ The entire ship careens over on her side; every bolt in her starts like the nail-heads of an old house in frosty weather; she trembles, quivers, and nods her frighted mastheads to the sky. More and more she leans over to the whale, while every gasping heave of the windlass is answered by a helping heave of the billows, till at last a swift, startling snap is heard; with a great swash the ship rolls upward and backward from the whale, and the triumphant tackle rises into sight, dragging60 after it the disengaged semicircular end of the first strip of blubber. ”

“ At night, when “trying out” generally goes on, the deck of a whale-ship has a strange and wild look. The red glare of the fires is thrown on the wild, and I may say, savage-looking crew, as they stand round the cauldrons, stripped to the waist, their faces black with smoke, the large cutting-out knives in their hands, or the prongs with which they hook out the blubber, all working away with might and main; for all are interested in getting the work done. The crew of a whale-ship share in the profits of a voyage, and all therefore are anxious to kill as many whales as possible. ”

“ The gun has no certainty much beyond thirty yards, so that the whale must be nearly under the ship’s bow when firing. As we stand looking at this magnificent spectacle, the water close round the ship suddenly becomes light green in colour and somewhat calm. Then a deep heavy thunder; the ship trembles from stem to stern; a great column of dampness is shot into the air, drenching us all, a dull snort, and an enormous blue-whale rises out of the sea a few yards on our starboard side. Now the captain will fire, we think, involuntarily holding on to the wire-rigging ”

“ A few Scotch and German whalers still go to the northern seas, working in the ice, and some American vessels from the Eastern States, and a greater number from California search the Pacific and the waters off Alaska. All or nearly all of these whalers are provided with steam-propellers, having an arrangement by which they can lift the screw out of water and use their sails for ordinary purposes. Many of them chase with a steam-launch instead of the old-fashioned whaleboats, and save their men the back-straining labor of towing a prize perhaps two or three miles to the ship. ”

“ At all events, he now found himself in comparatively deep water, from eight to ten fathoms, without any visible means of retreat from his coral trap. All hands crowded into the rigging to see the whale floundering about; till at length some one proposed—rashly enough, certainly,—to pay him a visit in one of the ship’s boats, with no better implements, offensive or defensive, than the ordinary boat-hooks. ”

“ Sometimes he dashes off over the surface of the water at a speed of fifteen knots an hour, towing the boat, while the crew hope that their "Nantucket sleigh-ride" will end before they lose the ship for good. But once fast, the whalemen try to pull close alongside the monster. Then the mate takes the long, keen lance and plunges it deep into the great shuddering carcass, "churning" it up and down and seeking to pierce the heart or lungs. ”

“ Whaling has almost ceased to have a place in the long list of our national industries. Its implements and the relics of old-time cruises fill niches in museums as memorials of a practically extinct calling. Along the wharves of New Bedford and New London a few old brigs lie rotting, but so effective have been the ravages of time that scarcely any of the once great fleet survive even in this invalid condition. The whales have been driven far into the Arctic regions, whither a few whalers employing the modern and unsportsmanlike devices of steam and explosives, follow them for a scanty profit. ”

“ The years 1811 and 1812 were remarkable ones in the annals of the whaling industry; vessels that had been cruising for months unrewarded managed to fill their holds, and now, deep laden, they were returning from the whaling grounds, singly or often in companies of a half-score or more. They were ugly vessels, broad and clumsy, with heavy spars and great wooden davits. They stenched of blubber and whale oil, and they oozed in the warm sun as they labored southward, out of the realms of ice and night into the rolling waters of the Pacific. ”