THE PRESENT SURVIVAL OF OPEN BOAT WHALING 333 



head splashes back, the body rolls out on one side, with the head awash and the jaw gaping and the 

 stout, blunt flipper sticking stiffly upwards. It is dead, 'fin-out'. 



A belief of the American whalemen was that the Sperm whale always dies towards the sun, that is, 

 the head, as it rears in the circular path of the flurry, is always directed towards the sun. I have 

 watched the flurry closely in three whales and noticed that this happened on each occasion (Plate XV). 



Sometimes in the Azores, if there are several of a company's whaleboats at sea but the immediate 

 pursuit has been for one whale only, the loose-boats will cluster or 'gam' to watch the flurry, before 

 separating or taking tows from the motor-boats to search for other whales. 



I have already described the remaining operations of the hunt— reeving the towing-strap through 

 the flukes or head of the dead whale, waifing the whale, and finally towing the whale or whales to the 

 factory (pp. 323-4 and 326). 



Accidents. It should be clear from the foregoing pages that open-boat whaling is a dangerous trade. 

 First, there are the perils of the running line, where a man fouled in a stray turn can be mauled through 

 the boat or whisked outboard and under. This happened last in July 1952 when, according to a news- 

 paper report from Lisbon, a whaleman was dragged from his boat by a fastened whale and drowned off 

 Ponta Delgada, San Miguel. Shortly before my arrival at Capelo, Fayal, in 1949, a harponeer fouled 

 the whaleline and transfixed his thigh with a live iron : he was cut free, but died from loss of blood 

 before the boat could reach Capelo. Men are also injured when a whaleboat is smashed or stove by 

 a blow from the flukes of a whale. Boats are usually stove when lancing, less often when fastening the 

 harpoon. Occasionally a sudden rising below the boat can throw it clean from the water: I have been 

 in a boat where a whale has swum less than 2 ft. below the keel. Rarely there are cases reported in the 

 Azores of ' ugly whales ' which, stung by the harpoon or lance, turn on a boat apparently with a 

 deliberate intent, when they may even 'jaw back ', biting the boat. Senhor Medeiros, informing me of a 

 whale which was taken off Pico in 1943 and yielded a Pico harpoon planted thirty-two years previously, 

 adds that this whale is reported to have fought wildly at both encounters and to have tried to bite the 

 boats. That boats may be accidentally stove by the flukes is an everyday hazard of the fishery. According 

 to Senhor Tomas Alberto de Azevedo there are between ten and thirty cases of smashed boats each 

 year at Capelo alone, although the boats are not often smashed beyond repair. As an instance of a 

 stove boat I may recall that on 25 August 1949 I saw the boat in which I had sailed twelve days pre- 

 viously brought to the building-shed at Porto Pirn for repair. It had been smashed whilst lancing a 

 whale. The keel was fractured, all the planking on the starboard side from midships to stern post was 

 smashed in, and the loggerhead had been tossed out and lay over the broken cuddy-board. 



Considering the incidence of stove boats at Capelo, which has a strength of about ninety men 

 working thirteen Fayal and Pico whaleboats, it is surprising that there are not more fatal and serious 

 injuries than are in fact suffered. This is partly due to a regulation of the Gremio dos Armadores da 

 Pesca da Baleia which requires that each whaleboatman must sign an affidavit that he is able to swim 

 before he can go whaling. There is a kind of drill which can roughly be followed when a boat is smashed. 

 In a typical case without complicating circumstances, the men jump over the opposite gunwale into 

 the water in the instant that the flukes strike the boat. Afterwards, if the broken boat can be righted 

 or it is simply swamped, the oars are recovered and lashed across the gunwales, supporting the water- 

 logged boat from foundering; and the men, who have clambered back again, wait until another 

 whaleboat or a motor tow-boat arrives with assistance. Nevertheless fiom one cause or another there 

 are occasional fatal casualties. 



Five whalemen were killed from Capelo in the ten years preceding 1949.. They were a boatheader, 

 two harponeers, and two oarsmen. This suggests that no special duty in the boat is more hazardous 

 than another. Five fatalities over such a period may not appear disturbing, yet this figure, compared 



