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somewhere with a knife in him. Adventure, is it? The day you see Island again you'll be the happiest man alive. Your will be a three-masted with a bluff and a sloping upwards. There are plenty here, built by the mile and cut off in lengths as you want 'em. She will be your home, your whaleboat launch quay, your slaughterhouse, your oil factory and your floating warehouse. She is built for strength, not speed. You'll be glad of that when you're hove-to in your hurricane.

J)U'TLlNE Of A ;SPERM 'j/HALE, SHOWING THE. /v\ANNER or CtrrT!NG · !N On that first day I was ordered to get below, stow my sea chest and look sharp. Then I was sent aloft to free the main , then to the windlass to weigh . I was assigned to the larboard How to Go a-Whaling watch under the Second Mate, Mr Christian, a fair man though no Yankee. When I could think straight I realised I'd signed three Lesley Walker or four years of my life away, or maybe the whole of it. I know the tablets in the Bethel by heart. 1822 Gilbert Jay, nineteen, lost May kind Neptune protect us with pleasant Gales, and may we be from a boat in pursuit of a whale. 1832 Franklin Jay, the same. successful in catching Sperm Whales. 1844 Captain William Swain, forty-nine, having fastened onto a Thefirst entry in the log of the maiden voyage whale, carried overboard by the line and drowned. 1850 William of the 'Charles W Morgan' in 1841.t Kirkwood, twenty-five, feil from aloft and drowned near Cape Horn. 1854 boatsteerer Nathaniel Cole, twenty-four, and two How tofind a whaling ship of his crew, Edward Laffray, twenty-five, and Frank Kanacka, There is no better whaling port than New Bedford, . nineteen, lost their lives by the upsetting of their whaleboat in the Here I found myself stranded between ships, pockets empty. A Okhotsk Sea. And that's just a few. tall fellow stopped me in the street. Before I knew it, I had signed Whales? We measure them by the barrel. And where might all a paper. Next thing, I was frogmarched to my lodgings to collect these barrels be? In pieces in the , most of them, the staves my traps, my debts paid and rowed out to a ship. When I saw the bundled together. The cooper makes them up as the whales are slab sides and the boxy shape of the bow I realised I had shipped taken. When they talk of an eighty-barrel whale what they mean on a whaler, and it was too late to try swimming ashore. That was is 80 x 30.5gal making 244ogal of oil. You'll have signed up for a years ago. 1 lay, a share, maybe 1/i8oth? t You might have some dollars in your pocket when it's over. Then again, you might not. Now it is no business of mine whether you be down on your luck, or maybe some woman is looking for you, or there is someone t 1/i8oth lay meant one barrel out of every one hundred and eighty taken; one barrel was 30.5gal of . A greenhorn could earn about t Journal of a Voyageto Paci.fieOcean in Ship 'Chas W Morgan', 1841, $160 for a three- or four-year voyage, minus what debts had been paid or Martha 's Vineyard Museum. 'slops' or goods he had been advanced during the voyage. 38 40 THE MARINE QUARTERLY HOW TO GO A-WHALING 41

As a green hand your new home is the foc'sle which you share with will soon find every man has more than enough to do. Meantimes fifteen to twenty seasick Americans: black and white, Portuguese you won't be idle. There's the work of the ship, and irons to be 11111 from Cape Verde or the Western Isles/ British, German, Yankee, ground and sharpened. Once you are in the sperm whale grounds Native Americans and Pacific islanders. You feel your way through you will spend several daylight hours in all weathers in the crow's the scuttle and down the companionway, along the dark passage. nest at the masthead, standing inside a pair of padded hoops like The foc'sle is lit by a smoking teapot lamp fixed to the bulkhead. a pair of giant spectacles a little higher than your waist, your feet Here you will have your being, using your narrow rough-cut bunk on a platform about a foot wide on each side of the , watching in a tier of three, turn and turn about with another foremast hand for a spout, a fluke, a breach. Here, a hundred foot above the , from the starboard watch. The donkey's breakfast mattress a home you can take your ease. for bugs of all kinds. Your private space is your sea chest, with a change of clothes (maybe), tobacco, pipe, needles, letters and a How to ready whaleboats book or two if you can read them. The captain rules supreme from Oct 16th Got under weigh at 10am beating out until 3Pm when his cabin, where you never will go. The four mates, the boat Pilot left kept off steering s wind being strong from the sw ship steerers, the carpenter, cooper and cook share cabins in steerage under double reef separated from the foc'sle by the room. Oct 17th Begin with strong wind from sw ship steering SE by E. The steering gear is called the shincracker or ankle buster. The under double reef top sails all hands employed in fitting out the wheel is set on a square post rising from the , which it moves boats, coiled new lines all around ... three men at the mast heads to and fro with tackles, so when you steer, both the wheel and the all day. Log of the 'Charles W Morgan', North Atlantic, 1877 tiller move. The helmsman straddles the tiller as it swings through its sh.ort arc. It will take you some practice to steer a straight The ship carries seven whaleboats. Five need and setting , and the old man will be below the skylight watching the up in the davits, two starboard, three larboard. They have a compass to see how you go. centreboard or sliding . They carry five long oars of between You will see a curious brick structure at the waist, right in the 9ft and 16ft, one great 19ft steering oar, a mast, two sails and a centre of the weather deck. It is the tryworks, a firebox underneath hung by the stern. The whale line, a quarter of a mile of two huge iron kettles that hold about 150-20ogal each. Funny finest manila 1.5" round, is carefully coiled down into tubs. The thing, but when the ship finally heads for home, the tryworks is boatsteerers or harpooners grind the edges of the irons to razor broken up and the bricks thrown overboard. This is when you sharpness. The is a clever thing.t The toggle means know you are done whaling for that voyage. the don't pull out. These irons ain't no use for killing, though. They are only the means by which the boat is attached to Before you know it, the ship is in mid-Atlantic. Going a-whaling a fish. means you don't get off watch except to sleep. You might wonder at the heavy crew on a whaleship, twenty-four men before the mast t Invented by blacksmith Lewis Temple in 1848, this is an arrow-shaped out of a crew of thirty-seven. When you lower after a whale you harpoon with one huge curved barb turned on a strong pivot of steel, and kept in line with the shaft by a tiny wooden peg passing through the barb and shaft, which breaks when a line is jerked once it is fast in the whale. t TheAzores The shaft is about 30" long, forged from the best malleable iron. 42 THE MARINE QUARTERLY HOW TO GO A-WHALING 43

You put three irons in each boat, one above the other in the The call comes from on high. 'Bl-0-0-0-0-ws! She bl-0-0-0-ows!' starboard bow, opposite three lances for killing. Lances are like 'Where away?' slim iron spears about 4ft long, steel points oval or heart-shaped, 'Two points on the lee bow.' about 2" across, edges as keen as a surgeon's lancet. The socket at 'How far?' the other end attaches to a 4ft-long lance pole, and there is a light 'Four miles, heading to leeward. Sperm whales!' warp attached, used to pull the lance back after it's been darted at 'Lower away all boats.' a whale. The boat, though. Because a crew can be out in a whale­ When the call comes, you move to the ship's rail abreast your boat for hours, you stow a keg of drinking water, a few biscuits, boat. Now comes the 'merry rattle of the block/ as the boats are a lantern, candles and matches, a bucket and piggin for bailing lowered from the davits, officer and boatsteerer aboard ready to when you are swamped, a flag or wheft to mark a dead whale, a unhook the minute their boat touches water. You scramble down shoulder bomb-gun and ammunition, two knives and two small the lines with the other three, fall in, get the boat clear of the , axes. How can six men work whaling in such a loaded boat? You'll oars out and sails set. How a whaleboat does fly across the water, learn. trying to be the first to strike! Approach the whale from behind or -on. If you approach at right angles, 'on the eye', he will spot How to row a whaleboat you, and you can't dart an iron into a whale's head. October 13 Calm weather. Watch employed in ship's duties ... So there you are, in position. The boatsteerer stands. Up go Lowered the Boats to practise the Crews ... his arms, grasping his iron, body bent back, one foot braced on a Log of the 'Charles W Morgan', 1841 cleat, his right leg set against the 'clumsy cleat' at the . As you come onto the whale, a few feet clear, he darts his iron in, then You and another greenie are two of a crew of six, with your officer a second iron straight after. and a boatsteerer in charge. When the seas are calm they will He's fast. learn you to row a whaleboat. You discover what happens when This is a dangerous moment. Watch his tail - a blow from his you catch a crab. The officer at the steering oar in the stern, barks flukes can smash the boat to kindling. The whale sounds. The line orders: Pull ahead, back astern, stern all, avast, hold water, rest runs out so fast around the loggerhead that it begins to smoke, and oars, out oars. This all takes practice. When you go a-whaling, you'll put a bucket of water on it. After about half the length in your life and livelihood depend on your skill with the oars. the tub, sometimes more, the line should start to slow. This means the whale is coming up to spout. I heard tell of a 7oft sperm whale How to catch a whale that took 72ooft ofline before he stopped.* You never know: some Thursday July 4 This day comes in with light south wind; at sam are quiet and you can just reel them in, some will take you miles raised school of Sperm Whales off our lee bow four miles offj before they tire. They can come at you with their jaws wide, roll lowered four boats, sailed and paddled, wind died out, calm; took in at Samj 9am Larboard boat struckj turned him up, towed t Whale Hunt: The Narrative of a Voyage by Nelson Cole Haley, Harpooner in the Ship 'Charles W Morgan' 1849-1853 Mystic Seaport Museum, Ct him to the ship, arrived 1pm, had dinner, at 2pm started cutting, 1 2013, p 44. finished at 7pm, had supper and set watch at Spmj so ends this t The Cruise of the Cachalot by Frank Bullen, Smith, Elder and Co, day. Log of the 'Charles W Morgan', 1911-13 London 1900, p 73. 44 THE MARINE QUARTERLY HOW TO GO A-WHALING 45

over and over, raise their tail, 'that mighty mass of gristle' ten or How to cut in and try out more feet above you and bang it down. They can stave in your Sunday June 22 This day comes in with light East; at 4am called boat. They can kill you. all hands, had coffee, started cutting 4.45am, finished 7.3oam, had breakfast and cleared the heads and started try Works. Finished How to kill a whale boiling the heads at 6.3opm, started on the Body. Bark under At daylight the weather being calm we Saw several Sperm Whales. topsails steering NNW Course since 8am. Mast heads up all day lowered three boats for them, chased for a couple of hours and the nothing seen ... Bow Boat struck one, and he run quite bad sounded took nearly Monday June 23 This day comes in with light SE wind ... Crew all the line the Mate bent on run more then ever shot two bombs employed stowing down oil and boiling ... in him spouted thick blood, sounded heavy and when he came up Tuesday June 24 ... Crew employed boiling blubber, finished at got the line foul of his flukes and kicked the iron out. Chase him 8am ... Washed decks ... another rising and then lost run of him think he must have died Log of the 'Charles W Morgan', 1911-13 under water ... Log of the 'Charles W Morgan', 1882 Funny thing about cutting in, or flensing as they call it in some parts. It is dirty work, but it is done by all hands, even the officers. The whale can kill you. Fair's fair, though, because you want to And it is the reason whaling ships have heavy crews. At dawn the kill the whale. You haul the line inch by inch until his speed slack­ call comes: all hands to the windlass. The officers are balanced on ens or he settles and you get up close upon him. The mate hurls the stages which have been lowered into position above the whale, his lance into the black body, and here there is danger again, 'Out already cutting their strips of blubber, pieces we call them. A oars! Pull, two, stern, three!' dodging as the whale rushes at you. boatsteerer is swung down onto the slippery black flank. He must When he settles, in you fly again, to get another lance home un­ get the heavy hook hanging from the windlass tackle into a hole der his fin. Then comes the flurry, a series of massive convulsions, cut in the blubber - without slipping off, for there are plenty of sometimes breaching. Then he falls into the sea and shows the sharks circling. As the windlass rolls, the cut piece is lifted clear flag, the last bloody spout before he lies still, rolling on one side, of the carcass. How we do sing at the windlass as one piece after fin out. another is peeled off, swung on deck and dropped down into the blubber room. The head, once cut off (not easy), is hoisted on deck Now you secure a line to the whale's fluke; then it is smoke-oh, whole. and by goodness you need it. The Captain will have been watch­ Depending on the size of the fish, it can take all day and some ing your exertions through his glass. If it can, the ship will slow­ of the night to get the blubber safely stowed, cut up the head and ly work up to the whale. Otherwise it is the long hard tow back. junks and bucket the oil or from the case into try pots. When the ship rounds-to, you pass the whale line on board. The Next you wash down the decks and try out. The tryworks whale is hauled alongside, made fast and the tackles got up. Now are lit with wood, and kept burning thereafter with the crunchy you may think you have done a day's work, and you and all hands remnants of blubber from which the oil has been tried out. For will be sent to dinner. But they will tell you to look sharp over it. the next few days Bible pieces, chunks of blubber cut and scored There is heavy labour ahead. like pages hanging off the Good Book's spine, will be added to 46 THE MARINE QUARTERLY

the pots. As a green hand you will cut the pieces in the blubber room and pass them up through the hatch, slipping and sliding and falling into the blubber as the ship rolls. The oil boiled out of the blubber is left to cool, then funnelled down through canvas hoses into the casks, which you will have the pleasure of stowing in the cask hold. When all is stowed, the cleaning up starts - first the ship, and then yourself. Your clothes are covered in oil, blood and whaleshit, to name but a few - and only seawater to wash with, unless it rains. But all voyage you have been collecting piss to soak the grime out of your clothes. Lucky, eh? And all the while you wait for the next 'Bl-0-0-0-0-ws! She bl-0-0-0-ows!' And after three or four years of this, if you survive, you round Cape Horn and head home a whaleman. ~ =tT:l The M'-.!.)r-Q ~ > ~ ~ z MARINE TheMarine Quarterly tT:l Quarterly ~ Publishedfour times a year > ~ ~ by subscriptiononly. tT:l Subscribeonline at ~ r-4 www.marinequarterly.com ~

'The thinking sailor's sea journal' Tom Cunliffe

16

A JOURNAL OF THE SEA

WINTER 2014

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