From my Gin Lane
On 12th August the whaleship Essex
left Nantucket under the command of Captain
George Pollard, Jr. and First Mate Owen Chase, bound for two and a half years
at sea. Its long and successful career had left the craft with a reputation for
good luck and those on board looked forward to a fruitful whaling voyage across
the Pacific Ocean, dreaming of rich pickings at sea. In fact, the journey
proved ill-fated from the start, blighted by storms and discord amongst the
crew, particularly between Pollard and Chase.
There were few whales to be found; when lookouts sighted a pod of sperm
whales early on 20th November 1820, excitement gripped the vessel as the crew
made for their whaleboats to give chase. A furious pursuit followed and as the
whaleboats closed in on the pod, Chase laboured on board the Essex
to repair his own damaged craft. As he worked he and his fellow sailors saw a
whale that they estimated at 85 feet in the vicinity of the ship, barely
moving, yet apparently watching their endeavours.
The whale's strange behaviour caught the attention of the men and as they
watched, it circled away from the ship before moving towards them, its pace
increasing as it closed in. The creature rammed the Essex and dived beneath the waves, leaving the vessel listing
dangerously from side to side.
The whale resurfaced, swimming ahead of the ship before it turned and
hurtled towards the vessel at a speed that filled the crew with terror. Its
enormous tail thrashing in the waves, the creature slammed headfirst into the Essex and ploughed straight through the bow,
turning it to matchwood. As the crew gathered what few provisions they could
the whale turned and disappeared once more beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean . Terrified that the creature might return,
the sailors piled into the whaleboats and fled the Essex as it capsized and sank beneath the waves 2000 nautical miles
from the coast of South America .
For the crew of the Essex , the
whale's attack was only the beginning of their suffering. With their provisions
quickly ruined by seawater and no land in sight, members of the crew began to
die of thirst and the conditions at sea. When they finally reached land it was
the uninhabited Henderson Island, just over 100 miles away from Pitcairn, where
they might have found sanctuary amongst the survivors of HMS Bounty. Eventually they took to the sea again, turning to
cannibalism of their dead comrades as the weeks passed.
In total, only eight of the crew of 20 survived. Survivors included Pollard
and Chase, who wrote his own account of the sinking, The Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of
the Whale-Ship Essex . Both men returned to
the sea, yet neither fully recovered from the memory of that terrible ordeal.
Chase in particular suffered terrible torments, with the former First Mate
committed to an institution in later life.
And what of the creature that sank the Essex ?
Well, the whale never repeated its attack—or if it did, no men lived to tell
the tale. The memory of that whale lives on today, though, immortalised forever
in Herman Melville's classic tale of the whaling world, Moby-Dick. < Self-described
glorious Georgian ginbag, gossip and gadabout Madame Gilflurt is the author
of the popular blog A Covent Garden Gilflurt’sGuide to Life. She shares her home with a rakish colonial, a hound, a
feline and several rodents of exquisite character. When not setting quill to
paper, she can usually be found gadding about the tea shops and gaming rooms of
the capital or hosting intimate gatherings at her tottering Henrietta Street
Sketch of whale attacking the whaleship Essex above by cabin boy Thomas Nickerson; in the collection of the Nantucket Historical Association, along with other Nickerson papers. Like Nickerson, first mate Owen Chase wrote an account of the ship's sinking. It is readable in various editions including within Thomas Farel Heffernan's Stove by a Whale, which includes a variety of other documents as well. Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea is a gripping modern look at the voyage.