It might be mentioned here that the two instincts of civilized man—to make a sport of his necessities, and then by quantity production in factories to divorce all sport from his necessities—have been spectacularly illustrated in the evolution of whaling from a sport for heroes into a humdrum manifestation of big business. Efficiency has never been so swiftly or so deplorably justified. At one end of the scale we have Captain Ahab devoting all his life to the pursuit of a mythological cetacean, the White Whale. At the other, in 1932, we have British and Scandinavian whaling factories, twin screw, oil-burning vessels of 14,000 tons, capable of pursuing whales of all species in high speed motor whaleboats fitted with guns and bombs, with air pumps which inflate the dead whale so that it will float until needed. These ships have a specially designed stern slipway, up which the entire carcase of a 100 ton whale can be hauled from the water to the blubber deck. When the blubber has been removed the carcase is sawn by machinery into sections and lowered to the meat deck. Nothing of the animal is wasted. A packing factory on board cans and packs the products ready for discharging at a convenient port into freight steamers. Fuel-oil and water, which is distilled on board, supplies a whole fleet of auxiliary whaling vessels.
Here we behold the modern commercial and mechanical genius at its peak. It is so efficient that unless some legislative action is taken, whales will become extinct. In two years these vessels have obtained more oil and have killed more whales than the old American whalers took from the sea in half a century.
It is true, as a recent author contends, that whaling is not properly described as fishing. The whale is an animal, and his pursuit is a form of hunting. In Gordon Grant’s drawings the whole art and craft of catching whales is most lucidly and dramatically set forth. It is sport because the hunters risked their lives when the harpoon left the boatsteerer’s hands to plunge into the whale’s carcase. They were in the most dire peril of a “stove” or a “chawed” boat until the animal’s terrific struggles were ended by the thrust of a lance through his vitals. In modern whaling the operatives are in no more danger than the person who slits the jugular veins of the hogs suspended by their hind legs on a moving chain in a Chicago abattoir. I doubt exceedingly whether these modern whalers will ever have any songs or traditions. All too soon they will, as I understand it, have no more whales. They will have become history themselves without ever having become known to the public. If by chance the captain of the Vikingen, of the Viking Whaling Company, Limited, of London, ever meets Moby Dick, he will order full speed ahead on his 4300 horsepower and overhaul the White Whale in a few hours. A few days later he will be in sealed cans.
Ships, and especially sailing craft, are the unhappy victims of artists who know more about pretty pictures than ships. They take quite felonious liberties with the craft and the men they depict. In “Greasy Luck” however, you will find the most austere fidelity to the truth combined with what to me is a most satisfying vivacity of presentation. I commend to your notice the lowered whaleboat on page 59 as an example of what I mean. Such a boat was an instrument to which men entrusted their lives and fortunes. It was the product of deep thought and shrewd designing for a century. It was, as one writer says, “sharp and clean-cut as a dolphin” with “a duck-like capacity to top the oncoming waves, so that it will dryly ride where ordinary boats would fill.... Here we have a boat that two men may lift, and which will make ten miles an hour in dead chase by the oars alone.” Such a craft has a beauty of its own, not to be found in pleasure craft. The same boat is shown at a dramatic moment of “A Nantucket Sleigh Ride” on page 75.
It appears to me that Mr. Grant has made a definitive and conclusive contribution to Whaliana. If the whales go the way of the buffalo of North America, we shall depend on this book for a lively conception of the ancient sport. Ships and wild animals, it has been remarked, have a hard and tragic ending. This book will preserve for posterity the spiritual as well as the material glories of the whaler’s life.
William McFee