THE PRESENT SURVIVAL OF OPEN BOAT WHALING 321 



in Azores lances. The shank and socket are of wrought iron, and the former is very long, some 

 4^ or 5 ft. This lance is mounted on a 6-ft. lance-pole in the same way as a harpoon, except 

 for some finishing details. The lance-strap is seized to the pole with only one seizing and 

 not with two: it is of lighter line, usually i| in. stuff. The pole is customarily of the same local 

 wood as the harpoon pole, although in the old American fishery the lance-pole was traditionally 

 made of pine. It is usual to finish the butt of the pole with a copper ferrule. In the lance presented, 

 the pole has a chamfered octagonal section. A distinctive feature is that the lance-strap is not 

 simply finished with an eyesplice behind the seizing, but is led through a 3 -in. slot cut into the 

 pole some 4 in. from the butt: the slot communicates with a centre hole drilled from the face of the 

 butt, and through this hole the strap is rove and there given an eyesplice which thus starts neatly from 

 the butt face. This mounting makes the pole clean and unencumbered down its length, and therefore 

 easier to manage. The total length of the mounted lance is about 1 1 ft (Fig. 6). 



In the boat the lance-warp or lance-line is bent to the eyesplice in the lance-strap. The lance-line 

 is a light length of about 8 fm. whereby the lance is recovered after it has been struck or tossed into the 

 whale. Inboard the lance-line is secured to the clumsy cleat. The two or three mounted lances which 

 equip the boat are stowed in a similar way to the spare irons, but the lances are forward on the star- 

 board side, handy to the harponeer. 



The keen, bright heads of the spare irons and lances are protected by sheaths of traditional American 

 form. They each consist of two flat pieces of hardwood which close against each other on a leather 

 hinge. Their inside surfaces are excavated to accommodate the head of the iron or lance, and the ends 

 opposite the hinge are tied together and round the instrument's shank with marlin fastenings. 

 Of lines for the harpoons and lances there are in each boat two short-warps and three lance-warps. 

 The precise techniques of harpooning and lancing are best postponed until discussion of whale 

 hunting in general. 



In late nineteenth-century American boats it was customary to carry certain fire-arms in addition to 

 the hand weapons. It has already been stressed that fire-arms are not today employed in Azores 

 whaleboats, although they found a limited employment in previous years (p. 301). The typical fire-arm 

 equipment of an American whaleboat is listed in Table 6 and the items are briefly described on p. 301 . 

 Tubs, whalelines and accessories. The whaleline in an Azores whaleboat is coiled in two line-tubs of 

 equal size. These are cooper-made of local wood and are each about as big as a large old-fashioned 

 wash-tub, but not so deep. They are stowed on the ceiling of the boat, the waist-tub between the 

 line-thwart and tub-thwart, and the after-tub between the tub-thwart and after-thwart. I believe that 

 two equal tubs like these were at one time used in American boats, around the 1860's and 1870's. 

 Earlier we know from the writings of J. R. Brown, Cheever and Melville that one large tub only was 

 employed. Later than the 1870's, when the centre-board became a standard fitting in American boats, 

 the waist-tub had to be made much smaller, so as to stow to one side (the starboard side) of the 

 centre-board. 



The tubs of an Azores boat each contain 120 fm. of line, of f in. diameter and of z\ in. circum- 

 ference. This makes a whaleline of 240 fm. which is about as long as was used in American whaleboats 

 when a single tub was stowed : American boats with two equal tubs usually coiled 150 fm. in each tub : 

 when centre-boards were introduced it was customary to retain this length of 300 fm. by coiling 75 fm. 

 in the small tub and 225 fm. in the large tub. It is interesting that the Azores whalemen should retain 

 the somewhat shorter line of the first half of the nineteenth century, because they could no doubt make 

 the tubs a little larger and stow more line. But in the event of a fastened whale taking all a boat's line, 

 the attendant motor-launches can bring up more line in a rapid and easy fashion unknown in the old 

 days when only a whaleboat in company could help in this way. Moreover, it is worth remembering 



