The northern whale-fishery

by William Scoresby

At four P.M. of the 30th, thirty-six hours after the fish had been struck, the ship again joined the boats, when, by a successful manœuvre, they secured two of the fast lines on board. The wind blowing a moderately brisk breeze, the top-gallant sails were taken in, the courses hauled up, and the top sails clewed down, but, notwithstanding the resistance a ship thus situated must necessarily offer, she was towed by the fish directly to windward with the velocity of at least one-half to two knots during an hour and a half; and then, though the whale must have been greatly exhausted, it beat the water with its fins and tail in so tremendous a way, that the sea around was in a continual foam, and the most hardy of the sailors scarcely dared to approach it. At length, about eight P.M., after forty hours of almost incessant, and for the most part fruitless exertion, this formidable and astonishing animal was killed. The capture and the flensing occupied forty-eight hours. The fish was eleven feet four inches in bone, (the length of the longest lamina of whalebone,) and its produce filled forty-seven butts, or twenty-three and a half tun casks, with blubber.

I proceed now to enumerate the proceedings of the fishers after a whale is killed. Some preliminary measures are requisite before a whale can be flensed. The first operation performed on a dead whale is to lash it with a rope, passed several times through two holes pierced through the tail to the bow of the boat. The more difficult operation of freeing the whale from the entanglement of the line is then attempted. As the whale, when dead, always lies on its back or on its side, the lines and harpoons are generally far under water. When they are seen passing obliquely downwards, they are hooked with a grapnel, pulled to the surface, and cut. But, when they hang perpendicular, or when they cannot be seen, they are discovered by a process called “sweeping a fish.” This is performed by taking a part of a whale-line in two different boats, ten or fifteen fathoms asunder, and while one boat lies at rest, supporting the end of a line, the other is rowed round the fish, and the bight or intermediate part of the line allowed to sink below the fish as it proceeds, until each of the parts held in the two boats are again brought together. Hence, when one part of the line has made a circuit of the fish, it must evidently inclose every other line or appendage affixed to it. Thus inclosed, they are pulled up to the surface of the water, and each of them cut at the splice of the fore-ganger, leaving the harpoon sticking in the fish, with its fore-ganger attached, and allowing the end of the line to sink, and be hauled on board of the boat from whence it was withdrawn at the convenience of the crew. While this is in progress, the men of other boats, having first lashed the tail to a boat, are employed in lashing the fins together across the belly of the whale.

On one occasion I was myself engaged in the capture of a fish, upon which, when to appearance dead, I leaped, cut holes in the fins, and was in the act of “reeving” a rope through them to lash them together, when the fish sank beneath my feet. As soon as I observed that the water had risen above my knees, I made a spring towards a boat, at the distance of three or four yards from me, and caught hold of the gunwale. Scarcely was I helped on board, before the fish began to move forward, turn from its back upon its belly, reared its tail aloft, and began to shake it with such prodigious violence, as to resound through the air to the distance of two or three miles. In the meanwhile all the sailors very properly kept aloof, and beheld its extraordinary power with the greatest astonishment. After two or three minutes of this violent exercise, it ceased, rolled upon its side, and died.

A fish being properly secured, is then “taken in tow;” that is, all the boats form themselves in a line, by ropes always carried for the purpose, and unite their efforts in rowing towards the ship. Towing a fish is usually considered a cheerful though laborious operation, and is generally performed with great expressions of joy. A large whale, by means of six boats, can be towed at a rate of nearly a mile per hour. The fish having reached the ship, is taken to the larboard side, arranged and secured for flensing. For the performance of this operation, a variety of knives and other instruments are requisite. Towards the stern of the ship the head of the fish is directed, and the tail, which is first cut off, rests abreast of the fore-chains; the smallest or posterior part of the whale’s body, where the tail is united, is called the rump, and the extremity or anterior part of the head, the nose or nose-end. The rump, then, supported by a tackle, is drawn forward by means of a stout rope, called the rump-rope; and the head is drawn in an opposite direction, by means of the “nose-tackle.” Hence the body of the fish is forcibly extended. The right-side fin, being next the ship, is lashed upwards towards the gunwale. A band of blubber, two or three feet in width, encircling the fish’s body, and lying between the fins and the head, being the fat of the neck, or what corresponds in other animals with the neck, is called the kent, because by means of it the fish is turned over, or kented. Now, to the commencement of this imaginary band of fat, or kent, is fixed the lower extremity of a combination of powerful blocks, called the kent-purchase. Its upper extremity is fixed round the head of the main-mast, and its fall or rope is applied to the windlass, drawn tight, and the upper surface of the fish raised several inches above the water. The enormous weight of a whale prevents the possibility of raising it more than one-fourth or one-fifth part out of the water, except indeed when it has been some days dead, in which case it swells, in consequence of air generated by putrefaction, until one-third of its bulk appears above the surface. The fish then lying belly upward, extended, and well secured, is ready for commencing the operation of flensing. In this state a suspension of labour is generally allowed, in which the crew refresh themselves and prepare for the ensuing duties.

An unhappy circumstance once occurred in an interval of this kind. At that period of the fishery, (forty or fifty years ago,) when a single stout whale was sufficient to remunerate the owners of a ship for the expenses of the voyage, great joy was exhibited on the capture of a whale by the fishers. They not only had a dram of spirits, but were sometimes provided with some favourite “mess,” on which to regale themselves before they commenced the arduous task of flensing. At such a period, the crew of an English vessel had captured their first whale. It was taken to the ship, placed on the lee-side, and though the wind blew a strong breeze, it was fastened only by a small rope attached to the fin. In this state of supposed security, all hands retired to regale themselves, the captain himself not excepted. The ship being at a distance from any ice, and the fish believed to be secure, they made no great haste in their enjoyment. At length, the specksioneer, having spent sufficient time in indulgence and equipment, with an air of importance and self-confidence, proceeded on deck, and naturally turned to look on the whale. To his astonishment it was not there. In some alarm, he looked astern, ahead, on the other side, but his search was useless; the ship drifting fast had pressed forcibly upon the whale, the rope broke, the fish sank, and was lost. The mortification of this event may be conceived, but the termination of their vexation will not easily be imagined, when it is known that no other opportunity of procuring a whale occurred during the voyage. The ship returned home clean. The blessings of Divine Providence, of a temporal and also of a spiritual kind, are bestowed and continued in union with the activity and watchfulness of those who receive them, and it is a law of the earthly, and also of the heavenly treasure, that “whosoever hath, to him shall be given; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have.”

After the whale is properly secured, and the men are sufficiently refreshed, the harpooners, having their feet armed with “spurs,” to prevent them from slipping, descend upon the fish. Two boats, each of which is under the guidance of one or two boys, attend upon them, and serve to hold all their knives and other apparatus. Thus provided, the harpooners, directed by the specksioneer, divide the fat into oblong pieces, or “slips,” by means of “blubber-spades” and “blubber-knives;” then affixing a “speck-tackle” to each slip, progressively flay it off as it is drawn upward. The speck-tackles, which are two or three in number, are rendered effective by capsterns, winches, or other mechanical powers. Each of them consists of a simple combination of two single blocks, one of which is securely fixed in a strong rope, extended between the main-top and the fore-top, called a guy, and the other is attached by a strap to the blubber of the whale. The flensers commence with the belly and under-jaw, being the only part then above water. The blubber, in pieces of half a ton to a ton each, is received upon deck by the boat-steerers and line-managers, the former with “strand-knives” divide it into portable, cubical, or oblong pieces, containing near a solid foot of fat, while the latter, furnished with “pick-haaks,” pass it between decks, down a hole in the main-hatches. It is then received by two men styled kings, who pack it in a receptacle provided for it in the hold, or other suitable place, called the flense-gut, where it remains until further convenience.

All the fat being taken away from the belly, and the right fin removed, the fish is then turned on its side, by means of the kent, which, by the power of the windlass, readily performs this office. The upper surface of fat is again removed, together with the left fin, and after a second kenting one of the “lips” is taken away, by which the whale-bone of one side of the head, now lying nearly horizontal, is exposed. The fish being a little further turned, the whalebone of the left side is dislodged by the use of the “bone hand-spikes,” “bone-knives,” and “bone-spades.” Four instruments, which, when combined, constitute what is called the bone-geer, are used, with the assistance of two speck-tackles, for taking up the whalebone in one mass. On its arrival on deck, it is split with “bone-wedges” and “junks,” containing from five to ten blades each, and stowed away. A further kenting brings the fish’s back upward, and the next exposes the second side of bone. As the fish is turned or kented round, every part of the blubber becomes progressively uppermost and is removed. At length, when the whole of the blubber, whalebone, and jawbones have been taken on board, the kent, which now appears a slip of perhaps thirty feet in length, is also separated, together with the rump-rope and nose-tackle, on which the carcase being at liberty, generally sinks in the water and disappears. When it floats, however, it becomes food for bears, sharks, and various kinds of birds, all of which attack it with the most voracious earnestness. It is known by the name of the kreng.

When sharks are present, they generally take the liberty of helping themselves very bountifully during the progress of the flensing, but they often pay for their temerity with their lives. Fulmars pay close attendance in immense numbers. They seize the fragments occasionally disengaged by the knife while they are swimming in the water, but most of the other gulls who attend on the occasion take their share on the wing. The burgomaster is decidedly the master of the feast. Hence, every other bird is obliged to relinquish the most delicious morsel when the burgomaster descends to claim it. Bears seldom approach so near the ship as to become partakers of the banquet. When dispatch is seconded by ability, the operation of flensing can be accomplished on a fish affording from twenty to thirty tons of blubber in the space of three or four hours, and, probably, the average time with British fishers but little exceeds four hours.

Some years ago, I was witness of a circumstance in which a harpooner was exposed to the most imminent risk of his life, at the conclusion of a flensing process, by a very curious accident. This harpooner stood on one of the jaw-bones of a fish with a boat by his side. In this situation, while he was in the act of cutting the kreng adrift, a boy inadvertently struck the point of the boat-hook, with which he usually held the boat, through the ring of the harpooner’s spur, and in the same act seized the jawbone of the fish with the hook of the same instrument. Before this was discovered, the kreng was set at liberty, and began instantly to sink. The harpooner then threw himself towards the boat, but being firmly entangled by the foot, he fell into the water. Providentially he caught the gunwale of the boat with his hands, but, overpowered by the force of the sinking kreng, he was on the point of relinquishing his grasp when some of his companions got hold of his hands, while others threw a rope round his body. The carcase of the fish was suspended entirely by the poor fellow’s body, which was, consequently, so dreadfully extended that there was some danger of his being drawn asunder. But such was his terror of being taken under water, and not, indeed, without cause, for he could never have risen again, that, notwithstanding the excruciating pain he suffered, he constantly cried out to his companions to “haul away the rope.” He remained in that dreadful state until means were adopted for hooking the kreng with the grapnel, and bringing it back to the surface of the water. Had he not caught hold of the boat as he was sinking and met with such prompt assistance, he must infallibly have perished.

Next to the process of flensing is that of making-off. When the flens-gut is filled with blubber, or when, no fish being seen, a favourable opportunity of leisure is presented, the operation of making-off is generally commenced. This consists of freeing the fat from all extraneous substances, especially the muscular parts and the skin, then cutting it into small pieces, and putting it into cask through the bung-holes. In the first instance, the ship must be moored to a convenient piece of ice, or placed in an open situation, and the sails so reduced as to require no further attention in the event of bad weather occurring. The hold of the ship must be cleared of its superstructure of casks, until the “ground tier,” or lowest stratum of casks is exposed, and the ballast-water must be “started,” or pumped out of all the casks that are removed upon deck, as well as out of those on the ground tier, which are first prepared for the reception of the blubber. In “breaking out the hold,” it is not necessary to lay open more of the ground tier at a time than three or four casks extend in length.