WHALING IN MADEIRA 35' 



In 1946 there were three look-outs stationed on the cliffs, at Garajau and Ponta do Sol on the south 

 coast, respectively east and west of Funchal, and at Ponta do Pargo at the western extremity. Radio 

 telephone communication between look-outs and motor-launches was introduced in San Miguel and 

 in Madeira at about the same time. There are three whaleboat stations, at Funchal and Camara de 

 Lobos in the south and at Sao Vincente in the north. They employed in all four motor-launches in 

 1948 and (according to the Estatistica das Pescas) twelve whaleboats. Whales are cut in at Porto Moniz 

 in the north-west and at Garajau in the south. At Porto Moniz a try-works is still used to extract the 

 oil, but at Garajau (where there is a flensing platform) the method of extraction represents the stage 



Table 9. Statistics of open boat whaling for Sperm zchales in Madeira from 1941 to 1949 



reached by modern overseas whaling between 1904 and 1925. As much as possible of the animal is 

 saved. There is a pressure-cooker which deals with entrails, meat, and bone: but the blubber and head 

 matter are cooked in open vessels with boiling water. This method of ' open cooking ' of blubber with 

 water yields the finest sperm or whale oil obtainable, with the lowest fatty acid content. Such oil is 

 superior in quality to that from tried out (melted) blubber or from 'apparatus cooked' blubber, 

 although open cooking was superseded in the modern industry about 1925 when pelagic whaling from 

 floating factories began and the various modifications of pressure-cooking, called apparatus cooking, 

 were generally adopted. (Heyerdahl, 1938, p. 346.) 



Twenty-six miles north-east of Madeira lies the island of Porto Santo where three whaleboats and 

 a motor-launch have been maintained for several years. Porto Santo, however, has only once appeared 

 in the figures of the Estatistica das Pescas, in 1945, but no catch was recorded. Senhor Tomas Alberto 

 de Azevedo told me in 1949 that not a single whale had ever been taken from that island. 



SUMMARY 



1. Open boat whaling for Sperm whales, conducted with nineteenth-century gear and methods, 

 still survives in the Azores and Madeira. This report describes the history and existing practice of the 

 industry in the Azores, and adds a note on Madeira. The writer visited the Azores in 1949, took part 

 in the whale hunting, and examined sixteen of the twenty-one whaling stations. 



2. The historical section describes first the course of pelagic whaling, mostly American, on the 

 Azores or Western Islands ground between 1765 and 1921, and then the development of the island 

 shore whaling industry which arose from the experience of the Azoreans in American whaleships. 



In the nineteenth century both southseamen and short-cruising plumpuddingers whaled round the 

 Azores and called there (chiefly at Horta, Fayal) for recruits and provisions. The islanders, skilled 

 from childhood in boatwork, made excellent whalemen. For a long period after 1780 Portugal 

 employed some of these skilled nationals in unsuccessful efforts to establish a pelagic whale fishery. 



