Apparatus and Methods of Capture. 89 
stroyed thirty-four ships, the whole Arctic fleet, in the 
greatest disaster known in the history of whaling.™ 
Again, in 1876, twelve vessels were destroyed in almost 
exactly the same way. Forty whalers went to make up a 
part of the famous stone fleet sunk’ by the United States 
government in the attempt to blockade Charleston harbor 
during the Civil War. Many of the whaling vessels were 
sold at different times into the merchant marine, or were 
withdrawn from service and broken up in various ports. 
And finally a good many vessels were destroyed at sea 
by Confederate cruisers during the Civil War; while these 
different causes were at work to decrease the fleet, every 
year after 1860 saw fewer and fewer new vessels added to 
replace the loss. 
The crew of a whaler varies in size and personnel 
according to the number of boats carried. An average 
complement consists of a mate, a boat steerer and four or 
five seamen for each whale boat, in addition to the cap- 
tain, cooper, carpenter, cook, steward and often black- 
smith and cabin boys. Thus a ship carrying four boats 
would have a crew of about thirty-two men. 
At first the colonial whaling vessels were manned 
almost entirely by colonists and Indians. But as the 
fishery grew, and the number of vessels increased, the 
supply of hands was inadequate. As early as about 
1750 the Nantucket fishery had attained such proportions 
that it was necessary to secure men from Cape Cod and 
Long Island to man the vessels.* Less than a century 
later the crews were made up of representatives of all 
nations, while only the principal officers were Amer- 
icans.** Goode says, “Captain Isaiah West, now eighty- 
six years of age (i. e. in 1880), tell me that he remembers 
when he picked his crew within a radius of sixty miles of 
Starbuck, ‘p. 103. 
*° Macy, p. 61. 
© Scammon, p. 255. 
