108 WHALING 



take down the boat with all hands, the pin was small enough to 

 break readily. Add, then, a crotch fixed to the bow to hold the 

 "line" harpoons — those made fast to the line — and you have the 

 whaleboat just as she lay, ready to be fitted. 



Whaling by that time had become, perhaps, a more compli- 

 cated business than it had been a few hundred years before. 

 Given the whaleboat on deck, an almost incredible amount of 

 fitting and tinkering was necessary before her crew would pro- 

 nounce her ready in a fight where men's lives hung in the balance 

 while she responded to the steering oar and where there was 

 always a chance of hours, if not days, alone on the open sea. 

 "There were numberless little beckets and cleats to be nailed 

 and fastened in numberless little out-of-the-way nooks and 

 crevices about the bow and stem. There were thole-pins and 

 thole-pin mats to fit. There was a boat-spade, a boat-hatchet> 

 and boat-compass, and water-breaker, and boat-sail, and divers 

 nameless little necessaries to provide and fit. To see all these 

 articles lying together upon deck, before they were placed in 

 the new boat, one would scarcely have believed that one little 

 whaleboat would contain them and her crew of six full-sized 

 men into the bargain."^ 



When all minor fittings were in place there remained still the 

 gear and craft to be installed. In the stern the officer who 

 commanded the boat, technically the boat-header and usually a 

 mate, wielded the longest oar of all, the sweep by which he 

 steered the boat. This oar worked through a grommet — a ring 

 formed by twisting on itself a single strand of unlaid rope, se- 

 cured to the stem post. When the boat was under sail, especi- 

 ally at a later period of whaling, he might use a rudder, but 

 for quick work in tight places the steering oar was far more effec- 

 tive. The harpooner, usually a boat-steerer, pulled the "har- 

 poon oar" until he struck, then, immediately, he changed places 

 with the boat-header who assumed responsibility for lancing the 

 whale. Thus, from his point of vantage in the stem, the offi- 

 cer in command was able to direct the chase with judgment 

 based on broader experience, and held the post that required 



^Charles Nordhoff. Whaling and Fishing, p. 112. 



