High Noon on the High Seas 203 



the tides," Captain Hussey remarked; then turning to the boatswain, 

 he added, "Break open the keg, Mr. Garvey. Half a cup, with a full 

 cup of water, to each man. Just let us pull steady." Then the captain 

 himself set the stroke and, an inch at a time, the strange procession 

 began to move. 



And tow a full-grown sperm whale through rip tides and across 

 a wicked current they did. This is an historical fact. Unfortunately 

 we do not have any other details of this extraordinary performance 

 which, though a minor incident in itself, actually changed the whole 

 history of the world, as we shall see. All that the records state is 

 that "when lost in an open boat, one Captain Christopher Hussey of 

 Nantucket struck and killed a Sperm Whale which when tryed-out 

 proved to be extremely valuable." Before examining the true sig- 

 nificance of this simple little record, however, we should say a word 

 about this business of towing whales with rowboats. 



While I was endeavoring to reconstruct Captain Hussey's epic 

 above, an old friend of mine happened to visit me. Although now 

 the holder of an American master's certificate, he was born a Dane 

 and obtained his early experience and training on a 2 000- ton sailing 

 vessel without any auxiHary power. When I mentioned the enormity 

 of such tasks performed by these men of not so long ago, he pro- 

 ceeded to recount to me how he as a youth, with only twelve others, 

 manning two small rowboats, had towed this 2000-ton steel barque 

 for two miles out of a land-locked harbor via a narrow channel in 

 the face of trade-wind driven rollers. In this age of almost universal 

 use of artificial power, it is hard to realize that, provided there were 

 no adverse winds, tides, currents, or even air drifts, one could theo- 

 retically, and given time, dock the Queen Elizabeth using only a 

 single thread of cotton. The only requirement would be to maintain 

 a constant steady strain on the thread, and eventually the greatest 

 thing afloat would move towards the point of pull. 



Turning to another aspect of this towing business, it should be 

 explained that experienced and healthy seamen can pull an oar for 

 up to eight hours at a stretch with only brief rests, and I myself once 

 fell asleep at an oar and did not, I was told, lose the stroke. The prac- 

 tice in olden days, when engaged on a long pull, was for three men 



