Baffin’s Bay was suggested as an excellent fishing-station, by the voyager whose name it bears, so early as the year 1616, when his memorable navigation was performed. Baffin, in a letter addressed to J. Wostenholm, esq., observes, that great numbers of whales occur in the bay, and that they are easy to be struck; and, though ships cannot reach the proper places until toward the middle of July, “yet they may well tarry till the last of August, in which space much business may be done, and good store of oil made.” To this situation, where the whales have never been molested until recently, it appears they still resort in the same manner, and in similar numbers, as in the time of Baffin. In 1817, two or three of the Davis’s Strait whalers proceeded through the strait into Baffin’s Bay, to a much greater length than they were in the habit of adventuring, where, in the months of July and August, they found the sea clear of ice, and in some parts abounding with whales. A Leith ship, which, it appears, advanced the furthest, made a successful fishery in lat. 76°-77°, after the season when it was usual for ships to depart. This fact having become generally known, several other ships followed the example, in the season of 1818, and persevered through the barrier of ice lying in 74°-75° towards the north. After they had succeeded in passing this barrier, they found, as in the preceding year, a navigable sea, where several ships met with considerable success in the fishery, at a very advanced period of the season. This discovery is likely to prove of great importance to the fishery of Davis’s Strait. Ships, which fail of success in the old stations, will still, in the new fishery, have a reserve of the most promising character. Hence, instead of this fishery being necessarily closed in July, the period when the whales have usually made their final retreat from the old fishing-stations, it will in future be extended to the end of August at least; and it may ultimately appear that there will be little danger of ships being permanently frozen up, unless previously beset in the ice during any part of the month of September.
CHAPTER III.
ACCOUNT OF THE MODERN WHALE-FISHERY, AS CONDUCTED AT SPITZBERGEN.
We commence this chapter with a description of a well-adapted Greenland ship, and of the manner in which it should be strengthened to resist the concussions of the ice. A ship intended for the Greenland or Davis’s Strait trade, should be of three or four hundred tons’ admeasurement, very substantially built, doubled, and fortified; should have six or seven feet perpendicular space between decks; should be furnished with a description of sails which are easily worked; and should possess the property of fast sailing. The most appropriate dimensions of a ship intended for the northern whale-fisheries, seems to be that which is so large as to be capable of deriving the greatest advantage from the best opportunity, and no larger. A vessel of 250 tons requires nearly the same number of men, the same quantity of provisions and stores, and the same expense of outfit, as a ship of 350 tons’ burden; while the difference in the cargoes of the two vessels when filled, is in one voyage more than a compensation for the difference in the first expense. Besides, for want of similar room and convenience, the smaller ship has not always an equal chance of succeeding in the fishery with the larger. And, as ships of about 350 tons’ burden have been occasionally filled, vessels of 250 tons are too small for the fishery. Ships of 350 tons’ burden have, we observe, been occasionally filled, but we know of no instance in which a ship of 400 tons, of the usual capacious build, has been deficient in capacity for taking in as large a cargo as of late years there has been any opportunity of procuring. We therefore conclude, that an increase of dimensions above 400 tons is an actual disadvantage, and that a ship of intermediate size, between 300 and 400 tons, is best adapted for the fishery.
Greenland ships, in the early ages of the fishery, were very indifferent structures, and even of late shipping of inferior quality were generally deemed sufficient for the trade. At present, however, when a good fishery is rarely made without frequent exposure to the ice, and sometimes in very critical situations, the vessels require to be substantially built, for the purpose of resisting the occasional pressure of, and frequent blows from, the ice, to which the ships of persevering fishermen must always be more or less exposed. The requisites peculiar to a Greenland ship, the intention of which is to afford additional strength, consist of doubling, and sometimes trebling, and fortifying. The terms “doubling” and “trebling,” are expressive of the number of layers of planks, which are applied to the exterior of a frame of timbers; hence, a ship which has one additional series of planks, is said to be doubled, and such ships as are furnished with two, or part of two, additional layers of planks, are said to be trebled. Doubling generally consists of the application of two or two half inches oak plank, near the bow, diminishing towards the stern to perhaps half that thickness, and extending in one direction from the lower part of the main-wales, to within six feet perpendicular of the keel forward, and to within eight or nine feet abaft; and, in the other direction, that is, fore and aft-wise, from the stem to the stern-post. Doubling is used for producing an increase of strength, and at the same time for preserving the outside or main planks of the ship from being injured by the friction of passing ice. Trebling, which commonly consists of one and a half to two inches oak plank, is generally confined to the bows of the ship, and rarely extends farther aft than the fore-chains or chesstree. It is seldom applied but to second-rate ships. Its principal use is to increase the strength of the ship about the bows, but it also, serves to preserve that part of the doubling which it covers from being destroyed by the ice.
Fortifying is the operation of strengthening a ship’s stern and bows by the application of timber and iron plates to the exterior, and a vast number of timbers and stanchions to the interior. Four straight substantial oak timbers, called ice-beams, about twelve inches square and twenty-five feet in length, are placed beneath the hold-beams, butting with their foremost extremity against a strong fore-hook, and extending nearly at right angles across three or four of the hold-beams, into each of which they are notched and secured, at the point of intersection, by strong iron bolts, with the addition of “cleats” on the aftermost-beams. The fore-part of the ice-beams, which butt against the hook, are placed at a small distance from each other, from whence they diverge in such a way that their other extremities divide the aftermost beams under which they pass into five equal parts. The next important part of the fortification is the pointers, which consist of four or more crooked timbers, fitting the curve of the ship’s bow on each side; these are placed below the hold-beams, against the inside of the ceiling, nearly parallel with the direction of the planks, some butting against the fore-hooks, and others passing between them. Across these pointers, four or five smaller timbers, called “riders,” disposed at regular distances, are placed at right angles, that is, in the same direction as the ribs of the ship. Now, from each of the points of intersection of the riders and pointers, consisting of eighteen or twenty on each side of the ship, a stanchion, or shore, proceeds to the edge of one of the two ice-beams, placed on the same side, where it is secured in a rabbet. The ice-beams are supported and connected by several strong pieces of wood, placed between each two, in different parts, called “carlings,” whereby they are made to bear as one. It is evident that a blow received on the starboard-bow will be impressed on the adjoining pointers, and the impression communicated, through the medium of the lateral timbers, or shores, to the two ice-beams on the same side, thence by the carlings to the other ice-beams, and then, by the shores on the opposite side to the larboard-bow and annexed pointers. A blow cannot be received on any part of one bow, without being communicated by the fortification to every part of the opposite bow, while every part to and through which the impression is communicated must tend to support that place on which the blow is impressed.
To preserve the stem from being shattered or bruised by direct blows from the ice, it is strengthened by an extra piece called the false, or ice-stem. On the side of this are placed the ice-knees, which are angular chocks, or blocks of wood, filling the concavity formed by the stem and bow planks, and extending from about the eight feet mark to the loading mark. In the best style, the ice-knees are twelve to fifteen inches in thickness at the stem, diminishing to, perhaps, six or eight inches thick at the distance of about eight feet from the stem, from thence gradually becoming thinner, until they fall into and incorporate with the common doubling, below the fore-part of the fore-chains. This makes a neat bow, and in point of strength is much preferable to the angular chocks or knees, which usually extend about five or six feet from the stem, and then terminate somewhat abruptly upon the doubling. Ice-knees not only strengthen the front of the bows, and prevent the main planks from being bruised or shattered, as far as they extend, but likewise protect the stem from the twisting effect of a side blow. The stem and the small part of the ice-knees adjoining, are still farther defended by plates of half-inch iron, called ice-plates, which are nailed upon the face of the ice-stem, and partly on the ice-knees, to prevent them being cut by the ice.
For additional strength, as well as convenience, the hold-beams of a Greenland ship should be placed low, or at a greater distance from the deck-beams than is usual in other merchantmen, leaving a clear space of six or seven feet between decks. The strength thus derived is principally serviceable when the ship is squeezed between two sheets of ice; because the nearer the pressure acts on the extremities of the beams, the greater is the resistance they are calculated to offer. A large space between decks is found also, for many reasons, to be most convenient.
Hammocks, as receptacles for sailors’ beds, being incommodious, the crew are lodged in cabins or berths, erected in the half-deck; these consist of twelve to twenty in number, each of which is calculated to contain two or three persons. When a ship is on fishing-stations, the boats are required to be always ready for use; as such they are suspended from cranes, fixed on the sides of the ship, and are usually so contrived that a boat can be lowered down into the water, manned, and pushed off from the ship, in the short space of a minute of time. Prior to the year 1813, a ship having seven boats carried one at each waist, that is, between the main-mast and fore-mast, two at each quarter, one above the other and one across the stern. An improvement on this plan, adopted in 1813, is to have the boats fixed in a line of three lengths of boats on each side.
The masts and sails of a Greenland vessel are not without their peculiarities. As it is an object of importance that a fishing-ship should be easily navigated, under common circumstances, by a boat’s crew of six or seven men, it is usual to take down royal masts, and even top-gallant masts, and sometimes to substitute a long light pole in place of a mizen top-mast; also, to adopt such sails as require the least management. Courses set in the usual way require a number of men to work them when the ship is tacked; a course, therefore, made to diminish as it descends, that is, narrowest at the foot or lower part, and extended by a boom, or yard below as well as above, and this boom fastened by a tackle fixed at its centre to the deck, swings with the yards, with little or no alteration, and is found particularly convenient. Fore-sails, on this principle, have been in use about six or seven years. In 1816, I fitted a main-sail or cross-jack, in the same way, the former of which we found of admirable utility. Boom-courses are not only convenient in tacking, but are likewise a valuable acquisition when sailing among crowded dangerous ice. As the safety of the ship depends, next to the skilfulness of the piloting officer, on a prompt management of the yards and sails, boom-courses are strikingly useful on account of the little attention they require when any alteration in the position of the sails becomes necessary; and when the ship’s head-way is required to be suddenly stopped in a situation where she cannot be luffed into the wind, boom-courses swinging simultaneously with the top-tails are backed without any annoyance from tacks or sheets, and of course assist materially in effecting the intention. Such is the advantage of this description of sails, that on one occasion, when all the rest of my crew were engaged in the capture of a whale, with the assistance of only two men, neither of them sailors, I repeatedly tacked a ship of 350 tons’ burden under three courses, top-sails and top-gallant sails, together with jib and mizen, in a strong breeze of wind. Gaf-sails between the masts, in the place of stay-sails, are likewise deservedly in much repute. To the mizen and try-sail, or gaf main-sail, that have been long in use, I have added a gaf fore-sail of similar form, besides which, my father has also adopted gaf top-sails between each mast. These sails produce an admirable effect when a ship is “on a wind,” which is the kind of sailing most required among the ice.