The Whalers : 215 



Mystic is fortunate in having preserved the Thomas W. Morgan — 

 an actual example of a characteristic American whaling vessel. Since 

 a visit to these museums is not possible for all of us, it is fortunate 

 that the marine artist, Gordon Grant, a great many years ago, for his 

 own amusement constructed a model of an American whaleboat 

 and its equipment. It was unusually accurate and unusually complete 

 and, of course, in Mr. Grant's hands it was not only a technical suc- 

 cess but also a work of art. Later Mr. Grant not only published his 

 plans and instructions but also made arrangements to provide mate- 

 rials for the construction of a similar model, so that today models of 

 whaleboats are fairly common. 



This brings up an interesting point. This model represents a 

 standard practice in the classic period of American whaling. Only 

 one model is required since there was just one acceptable way of ar- 

 ranging and operating a whaleboat and few, if any, variations were 

 tolerated. Many thousands of whaleboats were in use each year and 

 every whaleboat was similarly equipped and similarly operated. Each 

 j)ne of the many items of equipment had its appointed place and its 

 methods of use. This, alone, made it possible to organize the many 

 crews needed and to undertake the endless renewal of boats and of 

 supplies and equipment that was required in the conduct of the 

 cruises. Here was an almost perfect standardization of parts and 

 of function in a nonmachine industry. This made interchangeability 

 possible. Once trained, a boat steerer or a tub oarsman could feel at 

 home in any whaleboat of any ship in a fleet. At his post he would 

 find identical tools in identical places. 



It is interesting to observe that the whaleboat, though much 

 smaller in size, had almost exactly the same lines and very much the 

 same type of construction as the classic Viking ship. This is very 

 nicely brought out in Mr. Stanley Rogers' publication The Sailing 

 Ship — A Study in Beauty. It is possible that the similarity between 

 the modern whaleboat and the ancient Viking ship is accounted for 

 by the fact that they both used oars and also sail and that they oper- 

 ated under similar conditions and sometimes in identical waters, but 

 the whaleboat had a very ancient history and it is just as likely that 

 there was a more direct connection; that the size, the design and the 

 general construction of the whaleboat changed very little through- 

 out whaling history. The boat in which Othere hunted whales off 

 northern Norway in the ninth century probably looked very much 

 like the whaleboat that was used by the last American whalers in the 

 far Pacific only a few decades ago. Othere's boat was probably the 



