316 DISCOVERY REPORTS 



a length of about 10 in., where it works in the rowlock, each oar is thrummed with a thole-mat: this 

 provision, whereby the creak of the oars is muffled, has been traditional in the American fishery and 

 it is noticeably effective in assisting a quiet approach under oars. The oars are exceptionally long and 

 heavy. Because the boat has a canoe-like plan, the inboard part of each oar when pulling varies pro- 

 gressively in length from thwart to thwart, and therefore the oars have to be of different lengths so 

 that they may strike equally. In a 38-ft. boat there are two oars each of three lengths, 16, 17 and 18 ft., 

 one set (pulling alternate sides) increasing from forwards to midships, and the other set decreasing 

 from midships towards the stern, thus, 



Harponeer Oar 



Bow 



Midships 



Line 



Tub 



After (stroke) 



ft. 



16 



17 

 18 



18 



17 

 16 



The American boats, pulling only five oars, had to work a less symmetrical arrangement of one long 

 and two short oars on the starboard side against two medium lengths on the port side. The longest 

 American oar did not exceed 18 ft., so it is worth mentioning that the ' longest oars used in any service ' 

 still survive today. 



Iron spur rowlocks are used similar to those which in the late nineteenth century American boats 

 replaced the double thole-pins of the first half of the century. I do not, however, recollect seeing a 

 tub-oarlock in the present Azores boats. A feature universal in American whaleboats, the tub-oarlock 

 was intended to lift the tub-oar clear of the line-tub in a rolling boat : it took two forms, a dual-purpose, 

 double-decked iron rowlock, the double oar-lock, or a raised wooden oar-lock, the tub oar crotch, 

 which was shipped through a cleat in the gunwale and used as necessary in addition to a conventional 

 spur rowlock. 



When a boat is hunting under oars, the whaleline, lying in readiness along the boat between logger- 

 head and box, passes over the loom of each oar. 



The steering-oar or stern-oar (Az. stand, estanol) is longer and greater than any of the pulling oars. 

 It measures 22 ft., or sometimes 23 ft., and retains the same length as the nineteenth-century stern-oar. 

 When in use it is thrust out, supported on a sturdy iron steering-oar brace, to the port side of the stern 

 post. Here the stern post and the outer member of the steering-oar brace together share the fulcrum 

 for its sweeping motion. A rope grommet keeps it from jumping the steering-oar brace: this was also 

 the standard American arrangement, although I believe that when Melville was writing, and certainly 

 in the English Greenland fishery, the stern-oar worked simply in a grommet without steering-oar brace. 

 At its inboard end the steering-oar, like the pulling oars, has a fashioned handle, but its loom is 

 distinguished by a further peg handle projecting at right-angles about a foot below the first. This 

 allows the boatheader, straddling his platform or the standing-cleats, to manage the oar with both 

 hands more easily, and (by using the peg as a lever) to expend less effort in keeping the oar blade 

 up-and-down in a sea-way. The steering-oar is always used when the boat is not sailing, that is, when 

 pulling or paddling, and after the boat has got fast to a whale, although it is sometimes boated when 

 the whale is towing steadily. A very ancient feature of English and American whaleboats alike, the 

 great steering-oar survives as the most rapid and effective agent know for turning an open boat. 

 Rapid and considerable turns are essential in coping with the sudden unexpected risings of the quarry, 

 with the several techniques of going on a whale, and with the frequent emergencies at harpooning or 

 lancing when tail-flukes or jaw must be avoided. The oar is also usefully employed for sculling the 



