Whaleship Essex
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| Image:Essex photo 03 b.jpg |
| Sketch of the Whaleship Essex being struck by a whale 20 November 1820. Sketched by Thomas Nickerson.
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Crew of the Essex |
| Captain
First Mate Second Mate Boatsteerers Benjamin Lawrence • Obed Hendricks Steward Sailors Owen Coffin • Isaac Cole • Henry De Witt Cabin Boy |
The whaling ship Essex left Nantucket, Massachusetts in 1819 on a two-and-a-half-year voyage in the whaling grounds of the South Pacific to hunt sperm whales. On November 20 1820, the Essex was struck by a sperm whale and sunk, 2,000 miles (3,700 km) off South America. The twenty sailors set out in three small whaleboats, with wholly inadequate supplies of food and water.
Excessive sodium in the sailors’ diets and malnutrition led to diarrhea, blackouts, enfeeblement, boils, edema, and magnesium deficiency which caused bizarre and violent behavior. Furthermore, sailors suffered withdrawal from severe tobacco addiction. As conditions worsened the sailors resorted to drinking their own urine, stealing and mismanaging their food. Faced with no more rations, sailors were forced to eat those sailors who had died in the boats. By the time the last of the eight survivors were rescued on 5 April, 1821, seven sailors had been eaten.
The first mate, Owen Chase, wrote an account of the disaster, the Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex; this was used by Herman Melville as the one of the inspirations for his novel Moby-Dick. The cabin boy, Thomas Nickerson, wrote another account, not published until 1984.
The ship was 87 feet long and displaced 238 tons.
The whaling ship Essex was a ship that met with disaster. The Essex left port in the 1819, prepared to spend more than two years hunting in the South Pacific. Its journey was to hunt and kill sperm whales, and was instead sunk by them. It was a famous whaling ship with many successes under its belt; or shall I say, under its rigging. The Essex had a hefty length of 26.5 meters, sported twelve sails, and carried along smaller boats called whaleboats to chase down whales. The crew that manned it was a motley one, with quite a lot of new hands along with the veterans. The captain in charge was named George Pollard. As one source states, there were also two mates, three boatsteerers, a steward, 13 sailors and a cabin boy. This crew worked hard aboard the ship, scrubbing the decks clean of whale blood and maintaining the condition of the ship. Occasionally a whale was spotted and the smaller whaleboats would be deployed. The crew members would steer the whaleboats close and spear the whale, latching onto it with a hook-like harpoon. They would be dragged along like a sleigh harnessed around a god. Hence, the exhilarating rides that occur when the whaleboats were dragged along were called “Nantucket sleigh rides.” After the whale tires out, it was killed by a well thrown hand lance made to puncture the whale’s tough hide. The disaster of the Essex occurred during one of these sleigh rides. Three whaleboats were deployed, commanded by Captain Pollard, First Mate Owen Chase, and Second Mate Matthew Joy. First Mate Owen Chase’s ship was damaged in the whale hunt, and he left the other whaleboats to go back to the Essex and get his boat repaired. Remarkably, the hammering of the repairs was heard by a huge sperm whale, which took it upon himself to ram the living daylights out of the Essex. With two powerful slams, the Essex was damaged beyond repair, and Owen Chase had to quickly salvage supplies and board his whaleboat. The Essex capsized within ten minutes. The other two boats returned, and the crewmembers on the boats were shocked. No whale had ever attacked a ship before, as the ships themselves never posed any threats to the whales. The crew members decided that the best place to head would be Chile or Peru, a good 4,800 kilometers away. They were afraid of landing near on the South Pacific islands due to the possibility of cannibals. They made good progress for a while, excluding a short repair on Owen’s damaged boat and a little mishap with a killer whale. Everyone was alive and unharmed. They even managed to land on the Henderson Island for a while, and left three men there. Then the horror started. A small storm separated Owen’s boat from the other two. On Owen’s ship, two men died. One man, Isaac Cole, was eaten by Owen and his crew. This kept them alive until a British ship called the Indian rescued them. Matthew Joy had died before they were separated, and his ship was put under the command of Obed Hendricks. Obed and Captain Pollard were separated as well, and Obed and his crew was never seen again. Pollard’s account was the most grisly by far. He and his crew ate four men who died of starvation. After all four of those men were eaten, the remaining crew members drew straws, and Pollard’s nephew drew the short one. He was shot by his best friend, Charles Ramsdell, and eaten to keep the crew alive. After floating on the sea for a few more days, they were rescued by the Dauphin with only Pollard and Ramsdell alive. In total, eight men survived. All three men that stayed on Henderson Island survived, and five men survived on the boats. Owen Chase became mentally ill, and many of them wrote accounts of the harrowing experience. Everyone that boarded the Essex came home deeply affected by the incident. The incident was one of true magnitude in that time. It shocked the people on land that the crew ate their own friends. It even inspired a certain writer named Herman Melville to write the book Moby Dick.
See also
References
- Nathaniel Philbrick, In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, Penguin Books 2001.
- Template:Cite book New York.
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