THE PRESENT SURVIVAL OF OPEN BOAT WHALING 325 



Equipment for survival at sea. Lest a boat be benighted, or carried far off the coast by a running 

 whale, the Gremio dos Armadores da Pesca da Baleia requires that a lantern and a boat-compass, and 

 water in a boat-keg, and hard bread (ship's biscuit), be carried in all whaleboats. This follows the old- 

 time practice. The Azores boat-keg is wooden, cooper-made, and retains the traditional shape of a low, 

 truncated cone. The lantern, candles, matches and hard bread are stowed in a waterproof wooden 

 lantern-box kept in the cuddy (the space in the stern below the cuddy-board). The lantern-box cor- 

 responds to the frustum-like lantern-keg in which these supplies, often with some tobacco and a few 

 pipes included, were stowed in the old days. The boat-compass is kept in one of two narrow wooden 

 drawers sliding below the cuddy-board to port and starboard respectively, and handy to the boat- 

 header. The other drawer contains some canvas and a paper of copper tacks, which can be used for 

 making an emergency patch if the boat is stove by a whale. I do not recollect seeing a hammer in the 

 equipment, and I assume that the boat-hatchet is used for driving the tacks, although Figueiredo 

 (1946, p. 93) indicates that a mallet is carried. 



A final item of equipment, sometimes carried in the old American boats, was a boat-horn or fog- 

 horn. I have not seen a fog-horn in Azores whaleboats, and it is likely that the Americans more com- 

 monly included a fog-horn when they were Right whaling on coast banks or along the ice-edge where 

 sudden fogs might be expected. 



The gear enumerated comprises the complete equipment of an Azores whaleboat. Checked and 

 overhauled daily it is kept in the boats as they lie in readiness in their sheds, or hauled in echelon on 

 the boat-slip. It will be seen that in an open boat so cluttered, 38 ft. long and burdened further with 

 a crew of seven, there is no room for the unskilled or awkward man, especially when the line is running. 

 One may therefore imagine the tight fit in an American nineteenth-century whaleboat shorter by 

 10 ft., with only one man less, and with all the Azores equipment plus a centre-board and fire-arms. 



Whaleboat stations. Generally the whaleboats and motor tow-boats sail from the station where the 

 whales are processed, but the boats serving certain whaleries, namely three modern stations and one 

 try-works station, sail from separate places. There are six of these 'whaleboat stations' in the Azores, 

 and the two at Capelo and Salao on Fayal are described here as examples : the others receive passing 

 mention when try-works stations and modern factories are discussed. 



Both Capelo and Salao are remotely situated, being chosen because some small reef offers a little 

 shelter for launching boats on the exposed coast. Capelo is the bigger station and lies below Capelinhas 

 Lighthouse at the extreme west of Fayal. Here the reef turns at an angle to the shore and makes a tiny 

 creek denied to Salao. There are thatched boat-houses along the beach, and a store for ropes and sails. 

 During the summer months the boats are not taken to the houses, but are kept in readiness along the 

 length of a stone slipway into the creek. The crews of the Pico boats which sail from Capelo (p. 298) 

 are temporarily lodged at the station and have their own mess-room, where there are bunks and a table 

 and a store of potatoes and dried fish. A woman comes daily to cook for them. The Fayal men have 

 their cottages in the coast village nearby, but they spend all day at the station in readiness for 

 launching. 



The isolation of the little station at Salao in the north of the island is only equalled by that of the 

 Porto do Castelo whalery in Santa Maria (p. 341). The slipway at Salao, built in the lee of a single out- 

 crop of rocks, is reached by a scrambling path down the sheer cliff. There is no beach and no place for 

 boat-houses. On the cliff top, nearly a mile from the coast road, there are two mess-rooms, the 

 respective summer quarters of the Fayal and Pico whalemen. 



The whaling strength of Capelo and Salao is shown in Table 8. The two stations are closed in the 

 winter months, when bad weather makes launching impracticable and the motor-boat anchorages 



