Whalers Of Days Gone By

Whaling In The Age-old Tradition Is Still Alive In One Remote Village

- Jorge Saeta

There is something primeval about the hunting of whales before the advent of industrial killing by factory ships and explosive long-range harpoons. It’s a near-mythical activity rooted in the fiction of Moby-Dick and the reality of men sailing thousands of miles into almost uncharted waters back in the days of sail, enduring hardship and danger as they chased down mighty beasts capable of crushing pursuing boats with a flick of their mighty tails.

Indeed, Melville may well have been inspired to conjure up Moby-Dick by the real-life destruction of the Nantucket whaler Essex in November 1820 by a gigantic sperm whale and the subsequent ordeal of the 21 surviving crew in open boats. After running out of food, water and virtually all hope, the men drew lots to determine who would be sacrificed as food. The captain’s young cousin, the presciently named Owen Coffin, drew the short straw and was shot and devoured. Weeks later, the last two men alive were gnawing on the bones of their dead comrades when they were rescue in extremis some 95 days after their vessel went to the bottom.

Traditional whaling was Nature, red in tooth and claw; an epic confrontation one assumes has long since been consigned to history. But there are two places where men still chase whales in small open boats and take the famed Nantucket slay ride as a harpooned whale, attempting to flee, drags the hunters at speeds of up to 35 kilometres per hour for as long as it can swim before exhaustion reins it in and allows the hunters to close in for the kill. Both are on the remote Indonesian island of Lembata.