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Whaling in the North Atlantic: From Earliest Times to the Mid-19th Century. (1986). 117 pp. Purchas, S. 1625. Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgrimes: Contayning a History of the World in Sea Voyages and Lande Travells by Englishmen and others. Volumes XIII and XIV (Reprint 1906, J. Maclehose and sons). Schokkenbroek, Joost C. A. (2008).
Essex was an American whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts, which was launched in 1799.On November 20, 1820, while at sea in the southern Pacific Ocean under the command of Captain George Pollard Jr., the ship was attacked and sunk by a sperm whale.
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is an 1851 epic novel by American writer Herman Melville.The book is centered on the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the maniacal quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship Pequod, for vengeance against Moby Dick, the giant white sperm whale that bit off his leg on the ship's previous voyage.
The whaling industry spread throughout the world and became very profitable in terms of trade and resources. Some regions of the world's oceans, along the animals' migration routes, had a particularly dense whale population and became targets for large concentrations of whaling ships, and the industry continued to grow well into the 20th century.
Maritime history is the broad overarching subject that includes fishing, whaling, international maritime law, naval history, the history of ships, ship design, shipbuilding, the history of navigation, the history of the various maritime-related sciences (oceanography, cartography, hydrography, etc.), sea exploration, maritime economics and ...
Within each of these communities whaling has played an integral role in society, politics, and economy as well as cultural and spiritual activities. [5] Whaling can be found in the oral histories, creation stories, music, and art of whaling peoples and as such has intimately impacted their governance and cultural identity. [6]
Whaling is now done for whale meat for the relatively small culinary market. (Norwegian whalers account for about 20% of whales caught and Japanese whalers for about 60%.) Harpoon cannons , fired from harpoon ships with displacement in the hundreds of tons, are now universally used for commercial whaling operations.
Historically, whaling took a heavy toll on sperm whale populations. Prior to the early 18th century, sperm whales were hunted in Japan and Indonesia. Legend has it that sometime in the early 18th century, supposed to be not far from 1712, Captain Christopher Hussey, while cruising for right whales near shore, was blown offshore by a northerly wind, where he encountered a school of sperm whales ...