THE PRESENT SURVIVAL OF OPEN BOAT WHALING 323 



it has not long been so : the last mention of arrastos among the inventories in the Estatistica das Pescas 

 was for San Miguel as recently as 1929. Today drugs are no longer necessary, because the motor-boat 

 can arrive so quickly if a whaleboat signals for additional line. 



Tending the whaleline. When the harponeer has fastened to a whale, the box-line goes away, and the 

 main-line begins to run out from the after-tub, round the loggerhead, down the boat and through the 

 chocks. From the first the boatheader must manage the line, in the beginning to keep it from jumping 

 the loggerhead, and later to start checking it. I have seen a line, after jumping the loggerhead, brought 

 back to it again, leaping round the seared, clenched fists of the boatheader. For checking the line the 

 boatheader may use nippers or hand-cloths, gloves made[each of two squares of canvas sewn together, 

 to prevent the skinning of his hands. Meanwhile the linesman sees that the line runs clear from the 

 tub. In the American six-man boat the tub-oarsman attended to this. As the line in an Azores boat 

 flies from tub to loggerhead, the two after-oarsmen dash water upon the uncoiling flakes. They use 

 two cooper-made wooden vessels, the boat-bucket with a rope handle, and the smaller piggin, which 

 has one stave projecting above its rim to serve as a handle. The piggin is properly a bailer for the boat, 

 but it seems generally to be used also for wetting line, and_was]Wused in American whaling. ' Wetting 

 line ' is an essential operation. Such is the friction at the loggerhead that an unwetted line may catch 

 fire there, and even a wetted line can smoke. It is well to confirm earlier statements to this effect, since 

 I have seen commentaries on whaling where they were pooh-poohed. 



The operations in a fast-boat, like checking line, towing behind the whale, hauling line, and 

 hauling up for lancing, can be reserved for the description of whale hunting. But the tools used in 

 emergency may be mentioned here. It is necessary to ' cut line ' for certain mishaps. These are when 

 a man fouls the whaleline, or some part of the boat fouls the line so that the bows pull down and the 

 boat is likely to swamp, or when a boat is stove by a whale and there are men in the water, or when 

 a whale is still towing at nightfall, or simply when some line must be saved from a whale which is 

 clearly taking out all from an isolated boat. For cutting line there are a boat-hatchet and two boat- 

 knives. In the Azores as in the American boat, these are kept in definite ready-use positions. At the 

 harponeer end, the boat-hatchet is cleated below the port gunwale abaft the thigh-board, and the 

 forward boat-knife is stuck in a leather sheath nailed to the thigh-board itself. The after boat-knife 

 is in a similar sheath nailed to the cuddy-board and ready to the boatheader's hand. A blow with the 

 hatchet is best for cutting rope, and this is specially true in a whaleboat when the line is running, 

 because attempts to hack a running line with a knife will turn the blade. The whaling regulations of 

 the Gremio dos Armadores da Pesca da Baleia require that each boat must carry a hatchet for cutting 

 line in emergency (1925, p. 9). 



Reeving the tozving-strap. When a whale has been killed the boat is ranged alongside by the line at 

 the bow-cleats, for it is necessary to cut a hole in the head or tail for reeving the towing-strap. A boat- 

 spade is carried for this purpose. This is one variety of the cutting-spades still employed in the Azores 

 for working-up whales (p. 334). The boat-spade is a stout cast steel chisel about 8 or 9 in. long and 

 3 or 3! in. wide, usually with chamfered sides, and fixed by a short shank to a wrought iron socket on 

 a pole about 9 ft. long. Chopping the hole is an awkward operation requiring strong arms and a 

 steady balance. It is easier to mortise the hole into one side of the spread of the flukes than into the 

 selected regions of the head, where the parts, though equally tough, are thicker and less accessible 

 from the boat: the flukes offer a good hand-hold for keeping the boat ranged alongside. In the head 

 the hole is chopped through the bulge of the lip of the single blowhole, or, more commonly, through 

 the nib end, that is, through the ' cut-water ' where the lower forward end of the junk (p. 336) comes 

 smoothly downwards and inwards to join the margin of the front of the palate (Plate XVI, Fig. 5). 

 Although more tediously accomplished, a hole in the head region is preferable because the whale, 



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