In the Heart of the Sea (34 page)

Harland discusses what happens as a heeling ship approaches the point of no return. “[W]ith greater angles, the righting arm increases rapidly with the angle up to about 45 degrees, after which it decreases and at a certain critical angle, disappears” (p. 43). In his nautical dictionary Falconer provides this definition of “beam-ends”: “A ship is said to be on her beam-ends when she inclines very much on one side, so that her beams approach to a vertical position; hence also a person lying down is said to be on his beam-ends.” Addison Pratt tells of a knockdown off Cape Horn: “[W]e were knocked down upon our beam-ends by a heavy squall of wind. All hands were called to reduce sail, as the

decks... were nearly perpendicular, the leescuppers being knee deep under water. All the way we could get fore and aft was by holding onto the weather rail, the vessel was pitching heavily and the night being very dark” (p. 17). My thanks to Chuck Gieg, who shared with me his personal experience of a knockdown on the training ship Albatross in the 1960s (the basis for the movie White Squall). Harland discusses the perils of a ship sailing backward (pp. 70,222).

The American Consul at Maio in the Cape Verde Islands may have known the Essex's second mate. Both Ferdinand Gardner and Matthew Joy were from Nantucket families that had moved to Hudson, New York, the improbable location of a Nantucket-spawned whaling port started in the aftermath of the Revolution.

My description of a whale hunt is based on many accounts, but primarily those provided by William H. Macy, Clifford Ashley, Willits Ansel in The Whaleboat, and the remarkable amount of information assembled in the “Whaleboat Handbook” used by the Mystic Seaport Whaleboat demonstration staff. My thanks to Mary K. Bercaw for making the handbook available to me. The description of how the sighting of a whale “enlivened” the crew is from Charles Nordhoff's Whaling and Fishing (p. 100). Ansel speaks of the roles of the different oarsmen (p. 26) and the relative speeds of awhaleboat and a sperm whale (pp. 16-17). Ashley tells of whaleboat crews bent on “whaling for glory”: “They raced and jockeyed for position, and in a close finish, with boats jammed together at the flank of a whale, have been known deliberately to foul one another; to dart harpoons across each other's boats, imperiling both the boats and the lives of all concerned, and then to ride blithely off, fast to the whale, waving their hands or thumbing noses to their unfortunate comrades struggling in the water” (p. 110). Comstock recounts the mate's exhortation to his whaleboat crew in Voyage to the Pacific^. 23-24). In “Behavior of the Sperm Whale,” Caldwell, Caldwell, and Rice record a whaleman's observation that the spoutof awhale smelled “fetid” and stung a man's skin (p. 699). Ansel relates Charles Beetle's account of a novice boatsteerer fainting at the prospect of harpooning a whale (p. 21).

According to Clifford Ashley, who shipped out on a whaling voyage in the early twentieth century, sperm whales were capable of dragging

whaleboats along at bursts of up to twenty-five miles per hour. He adds, “I have been in motor speed boats at better than forty-five miles per hour, and found it a tame performance after a 'Nantucket Sleighride'“ (p. 80).

Francis Olmsted describes the use of a spade to cripple a fleeing sperm whale (p. 22). The lance had a line attached to the end of it, enabling the mate to retrieve it after every throw (Ashley, p. 87). Caldwell et al. speak of dying whales vomiting “pieces of squid the size of whaleboats” (p. 700). Enoch Cloud's horrified response to the death of a whale occurred during a voyage in the 1850s and is in Enoch's Voyage (p. 53). Ansel speaks of dead whales being towed back to the ship headfirst (p. 23).

In his History, Obed Macy provides a step-by-step description of cutting up (including the removal of the head) and boiling a whale (pp. 220-24). According to Clifford Ashley, early cutting stages were “short fore-and-aft planks hung overside, one forward and one aft of the gangway” (The Yankee Whaler, p. 97). Just how greasy the deck of a whaleship could become is indicated by Charles Nordhoff: “The oil washes from one side to the other, as the ship lazily rolls in the seaway, and the safest mode of locomotion is sliding from place to place, on the seat of your pantaloons” (p. 129); Nordhoff also describes the stench of the tryworks smoke. Davis et al. speak of ambergris (In Pursuit of Leviathan. pp. 29-30). According to Obed Macy, “The ambergris is generally discovered by probing the intestines with a long pole” (p. 224). Although whalemen would soon be pioneering the folk art of scrimshaw by carving designs on the teeth of sperm whales, it is highly unlikely that the crew of the Essex in 1819 were saving their whales' teeth (Stuart Frank, personal communication, July 1999). J. Ross Browne recounts the “murderous appearance” of a whaleship at night (p. 63). William H. Macy gives the description of appropriate “trying-out clothes” (p. 80).

Richard Henry Dana tells of how a crew's morale can deteriorate in Two Years Before the Mast (p. 94). For a discussion of the differences in shipboard fare served to those in the cabin and the forecastle, see Sandra Oliver's Saltwater Foodways (pp. 97-99,113). Oliver provides the information concerning the average caloric intake of a sailor in the nineteenth century (p. 94). Moses Morrell was the green hand who lamented his gradual starvation aboard a Nantucket whaleship; his journal is at the NHA. If Pollard appears to have overreacted to his

men's complaints about food, it was nothing compared to the response of Captain Worth aboard the Globe: “When any man complained to Captain Worth that he was suffering with hunger, he would tell him to eat iron hoops; and several times gagged the complainants' mouths with pump-bolts” (Life of Samuel Comstock, p. 73).

Captain Bligh abandoned his attempt to round Cape Horn after thirty days (the time it took the whaleship Essex to double the Horn); that the decision was made under extreme duress is made clear by Sir John Barrow: “[T]he ship began to complain, and required pumping every hour; the decks became so leaky that the commander was obliged to allot the great cabin to those who had wet berths” (p. 41). David Porter tells of rounding the Horn in his Journal (p. 84). Although the Beaver was the first Nantucket whaleship to enter the Pacific, the Emilia, a British ship captained by James Shield, was the first whaler to round the Horn in 1788 (Slevin, p. 52).

Captain Swain's words about the scarcity of whales are cited in Edouard Stackpole's The Sea-Hunters (p. 266). Obed Macy's mention of the need for a new whaling ground was recorded on September 28, 1819; his journal also reveals that he followed the political situation in South America closely.

Robert McNally characterizes the whalemen's attitude toward whales as a “tub of lard” in So Remorseless a Havoc (p. 172). Charles Nordhoff refers to the old whalemen's delight in trying out (p. 131), while William H. Macy speaks of how “boiling” inspired thoughts of home (p. 87). The events that occurred on Nantucket in December 1819 are from Obed Macy's journal. William H. Macy testified to how long it took for mail to reach the Pacific: “[N]ews from home even a year old was heartily welcomed; while the advent of a whaler five or six months out was a perfect windfall” (p. 154). For an account of the discovery of the Offshore Ground, see Stackpole (pp. 266-67).

Francis Olmsted's description of the delights of Atacames (pp. 161-63) includes an interesting account of a chapel: “Down the sides of the altar, the drippings of sperm candles used in the service, had run like the stalactites of some subterranean cavern” (p. 171).

As far as I know, this is the first time that the name of the deserter,

Henry Dewitt, has appeared in print. The name is recorded in a crew list that seems to have been written down soon after Pollard left on his subsequent voyage in the fall of 1821 (Pollard is listed as “Capt. Two Brothers”). The list includes all twenty of the previously known Essex crew members plus “Henry De Wit-runaway” (NHA Collection 64, Scrap-book 20). In his discussion of the number of shipkeepers aboard the Beaver in 1791, Clifford Ashley makes the claim that “two men would have been insufficient to handle” a ship of 240 tons (p. 60).

William H. Macy records the unique pronunciation of Galapagos (p. 167). Colnett's account of his explorations in the Pacific include a diagram of how to cut up a sperm whale that Obed Macy would use in his History; Colnett describes the Galapagos as a sperm-whale nursery (A Voyage to... the South Pacific Ocean, p. 147). My summary of Hal Whitehead's observations of sperm-whale society are taken from his articles “Social Females and Roving Males” and “The Behavior of Mature Male Sperm Whales on the Galapagos Islands Breeding Grounds.” Wbitehead did not see whales copulating in the Galapagos grounds. “That we never saw copulation is not surprising,” he writes. “Although there are reports in the literature of sperm whales being observed copulating, these reports are few, somewhat contradictory, and not always convincing” (p. 696). Whitehead cites a description made by A. A. Berzin of a male approaching a female from underneath (p. 694).

The account of repairing a leak on the Aurora is in Stackpole's The Sea-Hunters (pp. 305-6). According to Reginald Hegarty, “Sea-boring worms could not penetrate metal but if a small piece of copper was accidentally torn off, quite a section of sheathing would soon be so honeycombed that it would wash off, taking more copper with it. The planking would then be exposed and in a short time a section of planking would have its strength eaten away” (p. 60). For an exhaustive description of how leaks were repaired on wooden vessels, see Harland (pp. 303-4).

Herman Melville's description of the Galapagos appears in “The Encantadas” (p. 126). On the tortoise's cool body temperature, see Charles Townsend's “The Galapagos Tortoises” (p. 93); Townsend alsc speaks of “Port Royal Tom” (p. 86). For a summary of the history of the post office on Charles Island, see Slevin's “The Galapagos Islands” (pp. 108-11). Charles Townsend records that “the terrapin on Charles Island were exterminated very early” (p. 89).

My description of the scale of the Pacific Ocean is based largely on Ernest Dodge's Islands andEmpires (p. 7); see also Charles Olson's Call Melshmael, especially his concluding chapter “Pacific Man” (pp. 113-19). For an account of the whalers' activities in the western Pacific in the early nineteenth century, see Stackpole's Sea-Hunters (pp. 254-56). Hezekiah Coffin's death in the vicinity of Timor is referred to in Mary Hayden Russell's journal of a whaling voyage; after mentioning the island of “Ahoyna,” she writes: “ [Here] your dear Father in a former voyage had the misfortune to hury his Mate, Hezekiah Coffin, andwherehe only escap'd the jaws of death himself (NHA Collection 83). For the islands listed in Pollard's copy of Bowditch's Navigator, see Heffernan's Stove by a Whale (pp. 243-46). Stackpole tells of the first whalers at Hawaii and the Society Islands in The Sea-Hunters (pp. 275-89).

William Comstock's description of a mate taking over the harpoon from his hoatsteerer is in Voyage to the Pacific (pp. 24-25). Nickerson's narrative claims that Chase was at the steering oar-not, as Chase claims, at the bow with the harpoon in his hand-during their last two attempts to fasten to whales. In this instance I have decided to trust Chase's account, although the possibility exists that he was, in fact, at the steering oar and that the ghostwriter introduced an error. Adding to the uncertainty is an earlier statement Chase makes in his narrative: “There are common sailors, boatsteerers, andharpoon-ers: the last of these is the most honorable and important. It is in this station, that all the capacity of the young sailor is elicited; on the dexterous management of the harpoon, the line, and the lance, and in the adventurous positions which he takes alongside of his enemy, depends almost entirely the successful issue of his attack” (p. 17). Contrary to what Chase states in this passage, it was the boatsteerer who threw the harpoon and the mate or boatheader (never called a harpooner, a term used instead to describe the boatsteerer) who was considered the “most honorable and important.” This maybe, once again, a case of the ghostwriter's confusing the assigned roles in a whaleboat, but for the purposes of this narrative I have taken it to be Chase's description of the role he created for himself on his whaleboat: a mate who threw both the harpoon and the lance and directed the boatsteerer from the bow.

Other whalemen, however, thought differently. An old Nantucket captain in William H. Macy's There She Blows! states: “We have all heard of the Essex affair... I remember it well, for I was cruising on Chili at that time in the Plutarch, and from the statements of the survivors, it is plain enough that the whale went to work deliberately and with malice prepense, as the lawyers would say, to destroy the ship” (p. 133).

My description of how the Essex was constructed is based on several sources. John Currier in “Historical Sketch of Ship Building on the Merrimac River” claims that ships constructed in Amesbury at the time of the Essex were “built almost entirely of oak; their decks alone being of native white pine. The ribs, planking, ceiling, beams and knees were cut from oak timber, floated down the river or drawn by ox teams from within a radius of ten or fifteen miles” (p. 34). My thanks to Roger Hambidge and Ted Kaye of Mystic Seaport for directing me to a specifications list of the whaleship Hector in Albert Cook Church's Whale Ships and Whaling (pp. 174-79). Thanks also to Mark Starr at the Shipyard Documentation Office of Mystic Seaport for providing me with the specifications of the Charles W. Morgan. I also relied on Reginald Hegarty's Birth of a Whaleship.

My thanks to Professor Ted Ducas of the Physics Department at Wellesley College for speaking to me about the physics of whales in general and the wreck of the Essex in particular. My thanks also to Peter Smith, a naval architect at Hinckley Yachts, who calculated the potential forces involved in a collision between an 80-ton whale and a 238-ton ship, and the strength of a whaleship's construction (personal communications, December 18 and 23,1998).