Two kinds of whaler
The word whaler can mean the ship or the small boat. In the age of sail, whaling used both: a large vessel that carried the crew to distant grounds and processed the catch, and a number of small open boats, called whaleboats, that were lowered to chase and attack the whales. The hunt itself was done from the boats, and the ship was the base. This article concentrates on the vessels and boats, and on the course of the industry, rather than on the animals or the hunting methods in detail.
Whaling is a subject with strong ethical dimensions in modern times, and its history is presented here as history: an industry that was important to many coastal communities, that supplied oil and other products to the world, and that brought lasting harm to whale populations.
Early whaling
People hunted whales from the coast for a very long time in several parts of the world, including Arctic and North Atlantic communities. In Europe, the Basques are often described as pioneers of organised whaling from the Middle Ages, going out in boats from the Bay of Biscay region, and later venturing to far northern waters. In the 17th century, the Dutch and English sent ships to the Arctic waters near Spitsbergen, where they hunted whales near the ice. In those early fisheries, the whales were often killed near the shore and processed on land, with the blubber boiled for oil.
The American whaleship
By the 18th and 19th centuries, whaling had become a global industry, and American ports were central. Nantucket and, later, New Bedford in Massachusetts became leading centres, and American whalers voyaged into the Atlantic, the Pacific and beyond, in voyages that could last years. The sperm whale was particularly valued for its oil and for spermaceti, used in candles and lighting.
The whaleship was a sturdy, broad, and often slow vessel, built to carry large stores and to be stable. Typical whalers were rigged as ships, barks or brigs. Their distinctive features included davits along the sides to hold the boats, a lookout position high on the masts, and on deck a brick furnace known as the tryworks, in which blubber was boiled to produce oil. The oil was stored in casks in the hold. At sea for long periods, the crew lived in cramped, often harsh conditions, an experience that connected with the broader subject of daily life aboard sailing ships. Voyages were commercial gambles: a successful trip could be very profitable, while a poor one might return with little.
The most famous whaleship disaster is the loss of the Essex in 1820, which was sunk by a whale in the Pacific, and its story is told in the account of the whaleship Essex.
The whaleboat
The key tool of the hunt was the whaleboat. It was typically a light, double-ended open boat, pointed at both ends, which meant it could be rowed in either direction and could back off from a whale without needing to turn around. It was planked in a clinker or lapstrake style in many cases, to keep it light and flexible, and it was fast and manoeuvrable. A crew of about six usually manned it, including the oarsmen, a steersman or mate at the stern, and a harpooner, who sat in the bow. The size is often given as roughly 8 to 9 metres in length, although that varied.
When a lookout sighted whales, the boats were lowered, and the crew rowed or sailed toward their quarry. The harpooner threw or fired a harpoon attached to a long line, and once the whale was struck, the boat could be pulled along as the animal fled. This was a notoriously dangerous practice, and boats could be damaged or capsized. After the whale was killed, it was towed back to the ship, where the blubber was cut away and processed.
The seamanship involved in this work included the careful handling of rope and line, and many whaling terms and skills crossed into the wider body of sailors’ knots and rope work.
Whaling at the poles
As whales became harder to find in familiar waters, whalers went farther afield, into the Pacific and into polar seas. Arctic whaling, particularly for bowhead whales, became important in the 19th century, and ships had to cope with ice, a connection with Arctic ice navigation. Later, in the 20th century, whaling extended into the Southern Ocean, with industrial methods that are discussed in the account of Antarctic whaling.
Decline
The decline of the sailing whaling industry came from several causes. Overhunting reduced the number of whales in many areas, and voyages became longer and less profitable. The discovery and production of mineral oil, notably petroleum in Pennsylvania from 1859, offered an alternative to whale oil for lighting, and the later growth of the oil tankers and the petroleum trade reinforced the shift. The American Civil War also damaged the fleet, as some whalers were lost or sunk, and New Bedford’s fleet shrank in the following decades.
At the same time, a new style of whaling developed in Norway in the 19th century, using steam-powered catcher boats with harpoon guns, an approach credited to Svend Foyn. This industrial method allowed the hunting of faster whales that had been beyond the reach of rowed boats, and it later grew into factory-ship whaling. International efforts to regulate whaling began in the 20th century, with the International Whaling Commission established in 1946, and a moratorium on commercial whaling took effect in the mid-1980s, although some whaling continues in certain places under various rules.
What survives
A few whaleships and whaleboats are preserved in museums, notably in the United States, and they show how the industry worked. They also record the human side of whaling: the long voyages, the dangers, and the mixed legacy of an industry that helped to light the world while greatly reducing the numbers of its prey.