FORECASTLE AND CABIN 6$ 



ing activities, could hardly be maintained in groups which 

 were frequently disorganized by subtractions and additions. 

 Hands who had become proficient at certain strategic tasks were 

 lost, and new men who had neither experience nor aptitude had 

 to be fitted into their places. This was particularly disrupting 

 in the case of the small and closely-linked whaleboat crews, 

 where the loss of a single cool and expert oarsman often cut 

 down materially the captures made by a certain boat. Fore- 

 mast hands as a class were as ineffective as the savage driving 

 of the mates would allow them to bej and in spite of constant 

 supervision by men whose type has become a byword for par- 

 simony, they contrived to waste not only countless opportu- 

 nities for telling effort, but a certain amount of equipment 

 and provisions as well. In general, they had neither a sense of 

 loyalty toward officers or owners nor a feeling of responsibility 

 for the success of any phase of a voyage. 



But the heavy labor turnover brought another form of loss 

 far more evident than the potential gains missed through 

 efficiency and low morale. As a result of the system whereby 

 men were provided in advance with outfits which ranged from 

 seventy to one hundred dollars in price, each member of a 

 crew was indebted to the owners for that amount when he 

 sailed. If he remained on board until his undeclared but 

 readibly calculable share in the total catch was equal to the 

 price of his outfit plus any subsequent charges, the owners 

 would be able to recover the amount of their advances. But 

 if he left the vessel before such time, the difference between 

 the sums advanced and the amount of his earnings constituted 

 a net loss to the owners. Often such losses ran into hundreds 

 of dollars for a single voyage. They were partially offset, 

 it is true, by the net gains realized on the accounts of those 

 deserters whose earnings exceeded their debits. But these 

 gains were commonly smaller than the losses j for a man who 

 had remained on board long enough to amass relatively large 

 earnings was less likely to desert than those who had smaller 

 stakes at issue. 



No one realized the significance of desertion in rolling up 

 losses more keenly than the men who watched the ledgers at 



