Read In the Heart of the Sea for Free Online Page B
Authors: Nathaniel Philbrick
corruption of the French faux pas that dated back to the days after the Revolution when Nantucketers established a whaling operation in Dunkirk, France. A Nantucketer didn’t just go for a walk on a Sunday afternoon, he went on a “rantum scoot,” which meant an excursion with no definite destination. Fancy victuals were known as “manavelins.” If someone was cross-eyed, he was “born in the middle of the week and looking both ways for Sunday.”
Green hands were typically subjected to what one man remembered as “a sort of examination” by both the shipowner and the captain. Recalled another, “We were catechized, in brief, concerning our nativity and previous occupation, and the build and physical points of each were looked to, not forgetting the eyes, for a sharp-sighted man was a jewel in the estimation of the genuine whaling captain.” Some green hands were so naive and poorly educated that they insisted on the longest lay possible, erroneously thinking that the higher number meant higher pay. The owners were all too willing to grant their wishes.
Whaling captains competed with one another for men. But, as with everything on Nantucket, there were specific rules to which everyone had to adhere. Since first-time captains were expected to defer to all others, the only men available to Captain Pollard of the Essex would have been those in whom no one else had an interest. By the end of July, Pollard and the owners were still short by more than half a dozen men.
ON AUGUST 4, Obed Macy stopped by the Marine Insurance Company at the corner of Main and Federal Streets to look at the thermometer mounted on its shingled exterior. In his journal he recorded, “93 degrees and very little wind, which has rendered it almost insupportable to be exposed to the rays of the sun.”
The next day, August 5, the fully rigged Essex was floated over the Nantucket Bar into deep water. Now the loading could begin in earnest, and a series of smaller craft called lighters began ferrying goods from the wharf to the ship. First to be stowed were the ground-tier casks—large, iron-hooped containers each capable of holding 268 gallons of whale oil. They were filled with seawater to keep them swollen and tight. On top of these were stowed casks of various sizes filled with freshwater. Firewood took up a great deal of space, as did the thousands of shooks, or packed bundles of staves, which would be used by the ship’s cooper to create more oil casks. On top of that was enough food, all stored in casks, to last two and a half years. If the men were fed the same amount as merchant seamen (which is perhaps assuming too much when it came to a Nantucket whaler), the Essex would have contained at least fourteen tons of meat (salt beef and pork), more than eight tons of bread, and thousands of gallons of freshwater. Then there were massive amounts of whaling equipment (harpoons, lances, etc.), as well as clothing, charts, sails (including at least one spare set), navigational instruments, medicine, rum, gin, lumber, and so on. In addition to the three newly painted whaleboats that were suspended from the ship’s davits, there were at least two spare boats: one stored upside down on a rack over the quarterdeck, another mounted on spare spars that projected over the stern.
By the time the men were done loading the Essex six days later—their labors briefly interrupted by a tremendous shower of rain duly noted by Obed Macy on August 9—the ship was almost as heavily laden as it would be with whale oil on her return to Nantucket. Explained one Nantucketer, “[T]he gradual consumption of provisions and stores keeps pace with the gradual accumulation of oil . . . , and a whaleship is always full, or nearly so, all the voyage.”
Something, however, was still missing: the men needed to fill the seven empty berths in the Essex ’s forecastle. At some point, Gideon Folger put out the call to an agent in Boston for as many black sailors as
Green hands were typically subjected to what one man remembered as “a sort of examination” by both the shipowner and the captain. Recalled another, “We were catechized, in brief, concerning our nativity and previous occupation, and the build and physical points of each were looked to, not forgetting the eyes, for a sharp-sighted man was a jewel in the estimation of the genuine whaling captain.” Some green hands were so naive and poorly educated that they insisted on the longest lay possible, erroneously thinking that the higher number meant higher pay. The owners were all too willing to grant their wishes.
Whaling captains competed with one another for men. But, as with everything on Nantucket, there were specific rules to which everyone had to adhere. Since first-time captains were expected to defer to all others, the only men available to Captain Pollard of the Essex would have been those in whom no one else had an interest. By the end of July, Pollard and the owners were still short by more than half a dozen men.
ON AUGUST 4, Obed Macy stopped by the Marine Insurance Company at the corner of Main and Federal Streets to look at the thermometer mounted on its shingled exterior. In his journal he recorded, “93 degrees and very little wind, which has rendered it almost insupportable to be exposed to the rays of the sun.”
The next day, August 5, the fully rigged Essex was floated over the Nantucket Bar into deep water. Now the loading could begin in earnest, and a series of smaller craft called lighters began ferrying goods from the wharf to the ship. First to be stowed were the ground-tier casks—large, iron-hooped containers each capable of holding 268 gallons of whale oil. They were filled with seawater to keep them swollen and tight. On top of these were stowed casks of various sizes filled with freshwater. Firewood took up a great deal of space, as did the thousands of shooks, or packed bundles of staves, which would be used by the ship’s cooper to create more oil casks. On top of that was enough food, all stored in casks, to last two and a half years. If the men were fed the same amount as merchant seamen (which is perhaps assuming too much when it came to a Nantucket whaler), the Essex would have contained at least fourteen tons of meat (salt beef and pork), more than eight tons of bread, and thousands of gallons of freshwater. Then there were massive amounts of whaling equipment (harpoons, lances, etc.), as well as clothing, charts, sails (including at least one spare set), navigational instruments, medicine, rum, gin, lumber, and so on. In addition to the three newly painted whaleboats that were suspended from the ship’s davits, there were at least two spare boats: one stored upside down on a rack over the quarterdeck, another mounted on spare spars that projected over the stern.
By the time the men were done loading the Essex six days later—their labors briefly interrupted by a tremendous shower of rain duly noted by Obed Macy on August 9—the ship was almost as heavily laden as it would be with whale oil on her return to Nantucket. Explained one Nantucketer, “[T]he gradual consumption of provisions and stores keeps pace with the gradual accumulation of oil . . . , and a whaleship is always full, or nearly so, all the voyage.”
Something, however, was still missing: the men needed to fill the seven empty berths in the Essex ’s forecastle. At some point, Gideon Folger put out the call to an agent in Boston for as many black sailors as