Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is 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. A contribution to the literature of the American Renaissance, Moby-Dick was published to mixed reviews, was a commercial failure, and was out of print at the time of the author's death in 1891. Its reputation as a Great American Novel was established only in the 20th century, after the 1919 centennial of its author's birth. William Faulkner said he wished he had written the book himself, and D. H. Lawrence called it "one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world" and "the greatest book of the sea ever written". Its opening sentence, "Call me Ishmael", is among world literature's most famous.
Smeerenburg was a whaling settlement on Amsterdam Island in northwest Svalbard. It was founded by the Danish and Dutch in 1619 as one of Europe's northernmost outposts. With the local bowhead whale population soon decimated and whaling developed into a pelagic industry, Smeerenburg was abandoned around 1660.
This article discusses the history of whaling from prehistoric times up to the commencement of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986. Whaling has been an important subsistence and economic activity in multiple regions throughout human history. Commercial whaling dramatically reduced in importance during the 19th century due to the development of alternatives to whale oil for lighting, and the collapse in whale populations. Nevertheless, some nations continue to hunt whales even today.
Charles W. Morgan is an American whaling ship built in 1841 that was active during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Ships of this type were used to harvest the blubber of whales for whale oil which was commonly used in lamps. Charles W. Morgan has served as a museum ship since the 1940s and is now an exhibit at the Mystic Seaport museum in Mystic, Connecticut. She is the world's oldest surviving (non-wrecked) merchant vessel, the only surviving wooden whaling ship from the 19th century American merchant fleet, and second to USS Constitution, the oldest seaworthy vessel in the world. Charles W. Morgan was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966.
A trywork, located aft of the fore-mast, is the most distinguishing feature of a whaling ship.
Whale oil is oil obtained from the blubber of whales. Oil from the bowhead whale was sometimes known as train-oil, which comes from the Dutch word traan.
A whaler or whaling ship is a specialized vessel, designed or adapted for whaling: the catching or processing of whales.
Flensing is the removing of the blubber or outer integument of whales, separating it from the animal's meat. Processing the blubber into whale oil was the key step that transformed a whale carcass into a stable, transportable commodity. It was an important part of the history of whaling. The whaling that still continues in the 21st century is both industrial and aboriginal. In aboriginal whaling the blubber is rarely rendered into oil, although it may be eaten as muktuk.
The New Bedford Historic District is a National Historic Landmark District in New Bedford, Massachusetts, United States, west of the community's waterfront. During the 19th century, when the city was the center of the American whaling industry, this was its downtown. After its decline in the early and mid-20th century, through the efforts of local activist groups the district has since been preserved and restored to appear much as it was during that period.
Nedorazumeniya Island is an island on the north coast of the Sea of Okhotsk. It lies on the north side of Taui Bay, between Amakhton Bay to the west and Nagaev Bay to the east. It is about 20 kilometres (12 mi) west of the city of Magadan.
Commercial whaling in the United States dates to the 17th century in New England. The industry peaked in 1846–1852, and New Bedford, Massachusetts, sent out its last whaler, the John R. Mantra, in 1927. The Whaling industry was engaged with the production of three different raw materials: whale oil, spermaceti oil, and whalebone. Whale oil was the result of "trying-out" whale blubber by heating in water. It was a primary lubricant for machinery, whose expansion through the Industrial Revolution depended upon before the development of petroleum-based lubricants in the second half of the 19th century. Once the prized blubber and spermaceti had been extracted from the whale, the remaining majority of the carcass was discarded.
The Lagoda is a half-scale model of the whaling ship Lagoda, located at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. The original ship was built in 1826, converted to a whaling ship in 1841, and broken up in 1899. The model was commissioned in 1916 and is the world's largest whaling ship model.
Sperm whaling is the human practice of hunting sperm whales, the largest toothed whale and the deepest-diving marine mammal species, for the oil, meat and bone that can be extracted from the cetaceans' bodies.
Samuel Enderby & Sons was a whaling and sealing company based in London, England, founded circa 1775 by Samuel Enderby (1717–1797). The company was significant in the history of whaling in the United Kingdom, not least for encouraging their captains to combine exploration with their business activities, and sponsored several of the earliest expeditions to the subantarctic, Southern Ocean and Antarctica itself.
The Basques were among the first people to catch whales commercially rather than purely for subsistence and dominated the trade for five centuries, spreading to the far corners of the North Atlantic and even reaching the South Atlantic. The French explorer Samuel de Champlain, when writing about Basque whaling in Terranova, described them as "the cleverest men at this fishing". By the early 17th century, other nations entered the trade in earnest, seeking the Basques as tutors, "for [they] were then the only people who understand whaling", lamented the English explorer Jonas Poole.
Down to the Sea in Ships is a 1949 American seafaring drama film directed by Henry Hathaway, starring Richard Widmark and Lionel Barrymore. The supporting cast includes Dean Stockwell, Cecil Kellaway, Gene Lockhart, and John McIntire. There is no connection between this picture and the silent film by the same name; the only thing they have in common is the title and the setting.
Mamga Bay is a bay in the Tuguro-Chumikansky District of Khabarovsk Krai, Russian Federation.
Davidson Whaling Station is a heritage-listed former whaling station at Edrom, Bega Valley Shire, New South Wales, Australia. It was built in 1896. The property is owned by the New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.
Gam is a nautical term to describe one whaling ship paying a social visit to another at sea. The term was first used to describe a school of whales, and whalemen may have taken its meaning from that source.
