THE PRESENT SURVIVAL OF OPEN BOAT WHALING 3°9 



in the best of weather conditions for an experienced watchman to glimpse from the high vantage of 

 these cliffs a blow at 30 or 35 miles distance. The blow of a Sperm whale is low and bushy compared 

 with that of a Blue or Fin whale, but it does not appear to disperse more quickly and it has the 

 advantage to whalemen of being many times repeated after a sounding. In the look-outs the 

 binoculars are lashed to a square of wood which can be tilted on a thumb-screw pivot, and is rotated 

 through the arc of search upon a vertical wooden pillar fixed between the watcher's knees (Plate 

 XIV). A compass is fixed to this arrangement so that a bearing can be obtained. 



When a blow is raised, or a number of blows from a school, the subsequent procedure varies 

 according to the number of look-outs on the island, how far they are controlled by the same companies, 

 and the extent to which radio-telephone communication is organized. All look-outs fire a rocket to 

 warn the whalemen to launch their boats forthwith and take tows from the motor-boats in readiness. 

 All look-outs run up a white flag on the flagstaff invariably associated with a look-out. In this they 

 preserve the former practice of their compatriots in Californian shore whaling when a flag was likewise 

 hoisted as a signal. In the Azores the flag is not intended for signalling to the whaleboats. Where there 

 are several look-outs on a coastline and none or only one or two have radio-telephones, the flag is used 

 for informing adjacent positions : this warning is essential where whales have been sighted from a look- 

 out which has no nearby whaleboat station. It is also a signal to the whalemen's families which may 

 dwell inland from the coast. When a kill is made the white flag is half-masted, so that a try-works can 

 be prepared and food for the returning whalemen got ready. For signalling the bearing of sighted 

 whales from cliff to motor tow-boats without radio-telephone, two white sheets are spread upon the 

 cliff and the boats keep these sheets in line as they make out from the coast. As soon as the watchers 

 feel that the motor-boats have approached as near as they dare without frightening the whales, that is, 

 when about a mile from their quarry, the sheets on the cliff are removed and at this signal the motor- 

 boats cast off their tows, and the chase proper begins from whaleboats under oars or sails according 

 to the ancient method. Signalling with sheets is of course superseded in look-outs employing radio- 

 telephone communication. These can transmit revised bearings to the motor tow-boats as often as may 

 be necessary. Other look-outs are warned by radio-telephone, and reports are also relayed to the head- 

 quarters of the whalery, or some other convenient place, for the information of whaling owners and 

 factory personnel. The apparatus receiving messages from the Fayal look-outs is installed in a room 

 above a shop near the old Spanish water-gate at Porto Pirn, Horta: it is called the casa dos baleieros, 

 the whalers' shop, where the whalemen have credit and get most of their domestic supplies. In San 

 Miguel the headquarters station is located on the top floor of Senhor Pedro Cimbron's offices in Ponta 

 Delgada, and is organized as a planning, operational and strategic centre in regular and frequent com- 

 munication with look-outs and motor tow-boats ; here the supervision exercised can be compared with 

 that of the expedition manager aboard a modern floating factory in southern whaling. 



The whaleboat: its gear and employment 



The only outstanding difference between the present Azores whaleboat and the boat lowered from 

 nineteenth-century American whaleships is that the Azores craft is a seven-man boat and conse- 

 quently longer than the six-man boat universally employed in the American whale fishery. Otherwise 

 it will be seen that there are some details which actually preserve the typical mid-century boat of the 

 heyday of Sperm whaling rather than the boat at its ultimate development in the stagnant period 

 between the 1880's and the end of whaleship days. Increasing the length has not diminished the 

 extraordinarily graceful lines and the superb sailing qualities of the whaleboat. Comparing the plans 

 and photographs of earlier authors, it seems indeed that the lines of the surviving Azores boat are 

 perhaps finer and the appearance even more beautiful. Few can now compare the old boat and the 



