HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 29 



carrying six oarsmen and one harpooner; they were towed to the mother 

 ship to be flensed alongside, and the blubber and head were boiled on 

 board. Still, even this relatively pleasant occupation made great demands 

 on the crew. The ships were very small (generally less than 300 tons) and a 

 journey could last up to four years. The men had to make do with poor 

 food, they often lacked drinking water, and they were tossed about by 

 storms, particularly off Cape Horn. Even Sperm Whale hunting demanded 

 tough sailors who knew how to take the rough with the smooth. Nor are 

 things so very different nowadays. Take the story of 36-year-old Roa 

 Hansen, captain of a Noi-wegian whaler, who fell overboard in the Atlantic 

 in 1955. When he was found seven hours later swimming on his back, he 

 refused to take the line that was thrown to him and climbed up the man- 

 rope unaided. Formerly, tales of heroism and legends about Sperm- 

 whalers were the order of the day. It was the time of Moby Dick, the 

 formidable white Sperm Whale which inspired Herman Melville's great 

 book of that name. 



Moby Dick was by no means the only Sperm Whale to have achieved 

 notoriety. There were also Timor Tim, Don Miguel (Chile), Morguan 

 (Japan), New Zealand Jack and Newfoundland Tom, all of whom have 

 become legendary because of the havoc they caused amongst sailors, 

 boats and even big ships. Generally, though, Sperm Whale hunting is a 

 relatively safe occupation. It has repeatedly been noticed that cows and 

 young bulls allow themselves to be slaughtered almost impassively. 

 The only danger comes from some of the older bulls who put up a fierce 

 resistance, and often jump full-length out of the water to lash out with 

 their tails or to ram the boats with their dangerous blunt heads. Anyone 

 unlucky enough to be caught between a Sperm Whale's jaws is unlikely 

 to get away with his life. Even the most modern catchers have to be on 

 their guard. Thus in December 1955, when the Dutch Johannes IV. Vinke 

 (714 tons) was rammed by a Sperm Whale in the Antarctic, her propeller 

 was put out of action and she had to be towed to Melbourne for 

 repairs. 



The years 1820-1850 saw the heyday of Sperm Whaling. In 1842, 594 

 American and 230 ships from other countries provided work for 70,000 

 men and caught about 10,000 Sperm Whales a year. This is more or less 

 the annual total still caught throughout the world. Apart from killing 

 Sperm Whales, the men also wreaked what can only be described as 

 carnage amongst the Southern Right Whales, which belong to the same 

 species as the Biscayan Right Whale and whose geographical distribution 

 in the south is roughly the counterpart to that of the Biscayan in the North. 

 During the first twenty years of the nineteenth century an annual average 

 of just under 14,000 of these animals was caught, chiefly off New Zealand, 



