The Yankee Whaler

by Clifford Ashley

Overview

"He went whaling prepared as no man had been before him, and he went with an eager and an open mind. He describes as no other author has done the multifarious duties of the cooper, the whalecraftsman, the rigger, the subtleties of boat gear and of stowage, the homely whims and prejudices of the most conservative and practical of men … he has returned unsoured from his voyaging, and now lays his booty before us." — Robert Cushman Murphy, in the Introduction
Since the days of Moby Dick, whaling has been the subject of countless books, articles and works of art. Few books on the subject, however, have attained the classic stature of the present volume. Written by a famed marine artist, born in the whaling center of New Bedford, Massachusetts, this book presents whaling from the vantage point of one who not only sailed aboard a whaler himself, but possessed the observant eye of an artist and the literary skill to record what he saw and thought as the great age of whaling drew to a close.
Salted with wit and wisdom of a Yankee seaman, Ashley's engrossing account presents the "bloody and desperate quest" for the great whales and their valuable meat and oil. It offers detailed, evocative pictures of whaling traditions, life aboard ship, the myriad details of whaleship construction, rigging and navigation, gear and craft; much whalemen's lore concerning methods of attack and the behavior of the quarry, as well as sidelights on the unique personalities of whalemen from New Bedford, Nantucket, and Long Island ports.
Enhanced with 150 superb illustrations, The Yankee Whaler is perhaps the definitive treatment of 19th- century whaling. Not only a complete and well-documented picture of every aspect of the topic, the book at the same time evokes the excitement and drama of the chase and the romance of the high seas.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780486144283
Publisher:	Dover Publications
Publication date:	04/07/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	30 MB
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The Yankee Whaler

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By Clifford W. Ashley

Dover Publications, Inc.

Copyright © 1938 Clifford W. Ashley
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-486-14428-3

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CHAPTER 1

THE BLUBBER-HUNTERS

WHALING, of all our early industries, has come down to us to-day the least altered in the lapse of years, the least affected by changed conditions, the least trammeled by modern appliances. Of all pursuits, it has preserved to the greatest degree its original picturesqueness. Modern methods have been applied only to the off-shore fishery; deep-sea whaling, Sperm whaling, differs scarcely at all from the whaling of a century ago.

In August of 1904 I shipped from New Bedford on the bark Sunbeam, bound on a Sperm whaling voyage to the West Coast of Africa and Crozet Island Grounds.

The Sunbeam is a bark of two hundred and fifty-five tons. She was launched at Mattapoisett before England had laid the keel of the last of her "wooden walls." In 1904 she was the only square-rigger being fitted. Battered and weather-beaten, she lay at her berth, partially dismantled, a swarm of workers patching and caulking her sides.

After her topsides had been repaired she was hauled out on the railway over on the Fairhaven shore. Here her bottom was overhauled and recoppered. Though fifty years old, her keel was straight as a gun-barrel. The Sunbeam's sheathing had not been off in fifteen years. Many of her planks were rotten, and in one place a stone, which had got in while she was building, had washed around next her keel, and worn through nearly four inches of planking.

In 1854 one hundred and thirteen whalers sailed from New Bedford; fifty years later, five. That which could not be effected by the capture of thirty-four vessels by the Shenandoah, the sinking of thirty-nine in the Stone Fleet of Charleston Harbor, the abandonment in two seasons of fifty-four in the Arctic, and other catastrophes equally destructive if less spectacular, has been accomplished by petroleum. Whaling to-day maybe reckoned a dead industry—not that it is extinct, but because it can never recover.

There was some difficulty attendant on my arrangement for a berth on the Sunbeam; a whaler is often so full-handed that a bunk must be used watch and watch about, and seldom if ever is there a spare one. The owners finally made a place for me in the steerage along with the boat-steerers, and the captain proffered the freedom of his cabin, once we were under way, and suggested that I arrange with the cooper to set up a bunk for me in his stateroom.

I found Cooper in a Water Street grog-shop where he had already reached a proper sailing-day condition. After a little difficulty I secured a word with him in private. He seemed very much interested in the purpose of my voyage, hinted darkly of literary efforts of his own, as yet unpublished, and suggested collaboration.

The matter of the berth was easily settled. That same afternoon I signed the ship's articles.

The day before we were to clear, Friday, I put my chest on board. My bunk was made up, and the usual calico curtain strung before it. But Saturday brought a gale from the southward, and by noon it was decided to postpone the sailing till Sunday. The Sunbeam had put into the stream overnight, and was anchored near the Fairhaven shore, with a part of the crew on board.

The agents of the Sunbeam, J. and W. R. Wing, are the oldest firm of ship-owners in the whaling business, having, under the present name and heads, controlled vessels since 1856.2 The firm's office is in the rear of their clothing and outfitting establishment.

Sunday morning, long before the church-bells rang, we were gathering in the darkened front of the store. I had stopped at the post-office for my last mail, and as I stepped out into the bright sunlit street, a couple of sailors lumbered hastily by and dodged around the corner. As they were vanishing, one of the owners appeared in the street, gazing up and down its length, vainly seeking a glimpse of the runaways. When he saw me he hailed cheerfully. From the alley from which he had emerged a series of derisive hoots followed him, then a wagon-load of seamen appeared, being trundled off to the river. Swaying and pitching as the cart jolted over the cobbles, they boisterously spoke each passer-by, making the street hideous with their yells. Before I entered the store I saw them, one by one, dropping off over the tailboard, oblivious to the protests of the unfortunate drygoods clerk who was responsible for their delivery.

The front shop was crowded and noisy, but the real hubbub was in a small back room. Here the sailors, howling and pounding, were locked up when caught, and held till the return of the wagon to take them to the waterfront. Word was received that the mate refused to go on board till he had partaken of his Sunday dinner. On various pretexts others sought to get off for a while longer — one had forgotten to bid his mother good-bye; another had left home without an overcoat! The clerks rushed frantically about. Each man had to be rounded up—not once, but half a dozen times.

The morning dragged out toward noon. A carriage had been sent for the mate; the little back room was emptied. Cooper was sitting on the edge of a black-draped counter, and a clerk was vainly trying to induce him to go on board. Smilingly the cooper doomed the man to eternal perdition; then picturesquely started in to abuse his ancestors. The disgusted clerk gave up the job; and Cooper sat on, furtively keeping his eye on the ship's chronometer, knowing full well that of all things this would be the last to be taken on board.

We were on the tug, watching the crew tumbling into the pilot-boat, when a commotion at the far end of the wharf attracted our attention, and a clerk hove into view, puffing like a grampus, dragging behind him at the end of a string one of the boat-steerers. As they drew near, we could see that the string was attached to the much-stretched neck of a tan- colored pup. The owner, holding the unlucky mongrel tightly to his breast, struggled to keep up, but the pace was far too stiff for him. In a state of complete exhaustion, the three made the sloop just as she was casting off.

We followed the pilot-boat out across the Acushnet to where the Sunbeam lay, redolent in her newly acquired paint, spick and span from sprit to taffrail. Under her spare boats hung all of a hundred fresh green cabbages, the deck crate was filled with potatoes, and a quarter of beef was suspended from the skids. The hatches were buried completely under a heap of mattresses and baggage. We clambered up the man-ropes, and immediately all was confusion. The green hands, resplendent in new suits of dungaree, were falling over one another in their efforts to execute orders. Without loss of time, the hawser was passed from the tug and the command given to weigh anchor. Amid the clicking of pawls and the groaning of the windlass we got under weigh, and on the outgoing tide we were towed out of the harbor. There were over thirty visitors with us for the trip down the bay, friends and relatives of the captain, crew, and owners, who would return to town with the pilot-boat.

Early in the afternoon a picnic lunch was served to all hands, of cold corned beef and pilot-biscuit. Then the tug left us, and with a creaking of blocks and a hollow flapping, the foretopsails went up, then the jibs, spanker, and maintopsails. We were out to sea now, where we could feel the long regular heave of the ocean, and so we sailed for a couple of hours longer, till the pilot-sloop Theresa overhauled us. Our foreyards were backed and the ship hove to. The Theresa put up into the wind, and lay a little off our starboard quarter. The davit-tackle of the starboard boat creaked. There was a faint splash, and the friends of the crew were hurried away. The picnic aspect was gone; in its place lurked the emotion of a long parting. Soon the boat came for the second and last load. The owners and their friends, the captain's friends, and the pilot went over the side and were rowed out to the Theresa. The crew pulled jerkily and unevenly; it was a far cry to the long whippy stroke of the later season.

And now they rested on their oars, and some one stood up in the stern-sheets, his voice sounding strangely remote from across the water; "A short and greasy voyage!" he called, and the boat and the sloop gave us three rousing cheers. Then we turned to the open sea.

The crew gathered in a silent group at the forecastle, and watched the narrow strip of headland fade slowly away. After awhile the breeze died down, and we drifted with the ebb of the tide back toward Mishaum buoy. Toward nightfall Cooper screwed up the deadlights; and later, the wind freshening from a new quarter, the last vestige of land quickly dropped from our horizon.

The steerage that night was not an inviting place in which to sleep. On a clutter of chests and dunnage the boat-steerers sprawled, drinking, wrangling, smoking. Some had turned in dressed as they had come on board, togged out in all their petty shore finery, and now huddled in inert, lifeless heaps, or half hanging from their berths, with swollen necks and puffed and livid features.

The floor was littered with rubbish, the walls hung deep with clothing; squalid, congested, filthy; even the glamour of novelty could not disguise the wretchedness of the scene. The floor was wet and slippery, the air smoky and foul; often a bottle was dropped in the passing, or an empty one was smashed to the floor. Through it all was an undertone of water bubbling at the ports and a rustle of oilskins swinging to and fro like pendulums from their hooks on the bulkhead. Roaches scurried about the walls. A chimneyless whale-oil lamp guttered in the draft from the booby-hatch and cast a fitful light over the jumble of forms sitting on the chests beneath. Occasionally there was a trampling of feet overhead, and an order was hoarsely shouted. The ship rolled gently through the oily seas, the wind hummed drearily through the tautened rigging.

All hands were called aft in the morning immediately after breakfast, and pacing the deck with hands in his pockets, Captain Higgins gave utterance to various sentiments appropriate to the start of a long sea-voyage.

"Just remember, I'm boss on this ship. When you get an order, jump. If I catch any one of you wasting grub, I'll put him on bread and water for a month and dock the rations of the whole watch. You greenies have got just a week to box the compass and learn the ropes; after that, no watch below till you do. Let every man work for the ship; I don't mind a little healthy competition between the boats, but if any dirty work goes on, I'll break the rascal who does it. We've got to work together — see ? Now go ahead and pick your watches." Straightway the crew was told off into two lots by the first and second mates, and the starboard watch was sent below.

Of our quota of thirty-nine all told, only eight, including myself, were born American; Captain Higgins, and the mate, Mr. Smith, were typical "Yankees"; Noah the Blacksmith, a Pennsylvania Dutchman. Before the mast were two disgruntled farm-hands, one fugitive from justice, and a Fall River cottoivmill striker. Mr. Frates, the third officer, was a Portuguese; Cooper was a Norwegian; Thompson, boat-steerer, was a St. Helena Englishman; Jim, a Nova Scotian; and August a "Gee" from Lisbon; Smalley, boat-steerer, was a full-blooded Gay Head Indian. All the rest were blacks. Mr. Gomes, the second officer, hailed from the Island of St. Nicholas. Steward was Bermudian. The South Sea Islands, East Indies, Cape Verdes, Azores and Canaries, all were liberally represented in our list. Profane, dissolute, and ignorant they were, yet, on the whole, as courageous and willing a lot as one could desire. Being nearly all islanders, brought up from childhood with oars in their hands, they were eminently suited to the purpose; for boatmen, not seamen, are required in the whale-fishery.

In lieu of wages, a whaler's crew, from captain down to cabin boy, receive each a "lay"; that is to say, a certain proportion of the gross earnings of the voyage. The captain's part may be as much as one seventh, the cabin boy's as low as a two hundred and twenty- fifth—called the long lay.

Now that we were well out at sea, the work on the boats was pushed ahead vigorously; oars, sails, rigging and gear of various sorts were apportioned to each; harpoons, lances, and boat-spades sharpened and mounted on poles. The whale line was stretched and laid in tubs, the kinks being removed by successive left-hand coilings; in some cases the line was tossed overboard and towed astern; for any hitch, when it is racing out of the chocks, fast to a gallied whale, may mean loss of both lives and boat; and both are precious. There were two of these tubs to each boat, containing between them over half a mile of manila rope two and one quarter inches around. Each boat-steerer conducted the arrangement of his own boat, under the immediate surveillance of his boat-header. In less than a week's time we were ready for whales, and once more the foremast hands were ranged up along the lee-rail midships. This time the boat crews were to be chosen—a far more serious affair than the mere selecting of watches.

The experienced boatmen formed one end of a long line, the green hands the other. Like judges before a dog-bench, the mates strolled up and down the row, now feeling this man's ribs, now making that one bare his arm; occasionally pausing to jerk out a question: "Ever pull in a boat? No? What in hell are you good for? Where are you from? Talk English? Oh, you pulled in Mr. Diaz's boat last voyage, eh? Well, I wouldn't give a Goddam for any man he broke in!" The boat-steerers lounged interestedly in the background, now and then proffering suggestions to their heads. When the inspection had been finished, the drawing began. It was evident that the material had been studied critically, for there was but little hesitation and few words were spoken. Now and then there was a grunt when a likely man was lost, or occasionally a mate in a low tone referred a decision to his boat-steerer. When the ceremonial was over, much to their chagrin all but two of the whites before the mast were left for ship-keepers, for they were all very green.

Six men make up a boat-crew. The mate "heads" — that is, commands — the boat, and so is called the boat-header. The harponeer or boat-steerer pulls the forward oar in approaching a whale. After "getting fast" to it, he goes aft and steers the boat, giving place to the mate, who goes forward to wield the lance in the killing. The change is necessary in order to keep the most experienced man at the position of greatest responsibility.

The whaleboat is a "double-ender," some thirty feet long, six feet in beam, with a very pronounced sheer to enable her to ride in the roughest weather. She is sloop-rigged and fitted with a centreboard and a collapsible mast. From the decked-over stern juts a round post called a "loggerhead," around which to snub the whale line. The stem is deeply grooved and set with a roller. Through the "chocks" thus formed the whaleline runs out, being kept from jumping by a slender oaken peg called a "chock-pin." The boat is provided with both rudder and steering-oar, the latter twenty-three feet in length.

Every man before the mast, the boat-steerers and the mates, must do masthead duty. In the Arctic Fishery, a "crow's-nest" is erected to shield the lookout from the severity of the weather, but until a comparatively recent date not even hoops were used in the Sperm Fishery, the "masthead" steadying himself by hanging over the royal-yard; the supposition was that the insecurity of his position would tend to keep him wakeful. The means failed of its purpose not so infrequently as might be supposed, the result usually being fatal. Today the use of the hoops is universal.

We had arranged our boat-crews one evening after supper, and the next morning for the first time we posted our masthead lookout. Standing on the upper cros-strees with arms dangling over the hoops, great spectacle-like rings bridging the royal-masts breast-high, the green hands passed a miserable two hours; for each graceful dip and gentle roll, which on deck was scarce perceptible, augmented by the hundred feet of sheer mast was exaggerated a hundredfold, and the reeling masts starting on their dizzy downward course appeared about to plunge the very trucks into the yawning depths.

Captain Higgins had offered a bonus of five pounds of tobacco to whoever raised the first whale taken, and with this added incentive four men scrambled up the weather-shrouds, and finding their places in the hoops, with glasses and naked eye scoured the sea eagerly for any sign of whales. On deck quiet reigned, and with all sail set the ship held southward.

After a second night in the steerage, I concluded it was full time to remove to the cabin, particularly as I had noticed that Cooper, now that his supply of liquid friendship had diffused itself, was pondering somewhat on the inconvenience to which he would be put in welcoming another to his already crowded quarters.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Yankee Whaler by Clifford W. Ashley. Copyright © 1938 Clifford W. Ashley. Excerpted by permission of Dover Publications, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents

Contents

Introduction, by Robert Cushman Murphy, D.Sc.,
A Preface to the pictures, by Zephaniah W. Pease,
I. The Blubber-Hunters,
II. The Blubber-Hunters, Concluded,
III. The Greenland Fishery,
IV. Cape Cod, Long Island, and Nantucket,
V. New Bedford,
VI. The Whaler,
VII. The Whaleboat,
VIII. The Whale,
IX. Gear and Craft,
X. The Whaleman,
XI. Scrimshaw,
XII. The Last Days of Whaling,
Epilogue,
A Glossary of Whaling Terms,
A List of Books Concerning Whales and Whaling,
Index,